Before the Boundary Waters Treaty [new article!]
My latest article is now out in a special issue of the American Review of Canadian Studies. In it, I look at the decade (or so) before the…
Tag: United States
Engineering Through Stuckness
This article is the first in a series about stuckness in science and technology. Read the introduction to the series here. What might we learn from the experiences…
Review: On Hunger
Simmons, Dana. 2025. On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic. University of California Press. ISBN: 9780520412989 xiii + 234 pp. Acknowledgements, notes, bibliograp…
Gramsci, popular mobilisation and the power of collective action
John Chalcraft‘s From Subordination to Revolution advances a Gramscian theory of popular mobilisation – how ordinary and marginalised people take collective action against the powers that be. Th…
2025 Christine Wilson Undergraduate Award Winner!
Arinel Paddock SAFN is pleased to announce that the 2025 winner of the Christine Wilson Undergraduate Student Award is Arinel Paddock, for their essay “Who’s Afraid of Gefilte…
Susan Coutin on her book, On the Record
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/on-the-record/paper Jennifer Chacon: You note in the book that when immigrant residents want to avail themselves of various forms of relief from the threat of de…
Thesis review: Acting Locally – Vegetable Gardening In Southern Illinois
Home gardener Calvin harvests mustard greens for friends from church. Photo by Aimee L. Trojnar. PhD thesis by Aimee L. Trojnar, Department of Anthropology, Southern Illinois University, 2024.…
On Disability, Infrastructure, and Shame
Content note: This piece centers an evolving journey with internalized ableism and accompanying feelings of virtue and shame, particularly around public transportation, driving, and accessibility. Rea…
Saint Paul
[Hmongtown Marketplace], Frogtown [Neighborhood], Saint Paul [City], Ramsey County, [State of] Minnesota, United States. Visited October 18-19, 2017. This is the fifteenth post in the series: V…
Food And Expertise: My Research on Oaxacan Food
Andrew MitchelPhD CandidateThe Ohio State University What does it mean to be an expert on food? This piece will argue that my scholarly work and the knowledge and…
Exploring PFAS contamination’s impact on groundwater and environmental governance
By Colleen Linn, Wayne State University. Groundwater is difficult to observe (Ballestero 2019, Walsh 2018), and is an elusive substance despite being the most relied upon drinking water…
On Permeable Waters and Landscapes: A Special Commentary
By Sayd Randle, College of Integrative Studies, Singapore Management University. Walking along a covered aqueduct’s path through the desert, water can seem remarkably contained, cleanly se…
Mara Buchbinder on her book, Scripting Death
https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520380202/scripting-death Hyemin Lee: Readers might be curious about your intellectual trajectory as well as the motivation behind the years-long research and …
The Water of Our Gods: How Protecting a Psychedelic Cactus and Local Water Created a Popular Environmental Movement in Mexico
By Salvador Contreras § Havaiko’s safe return to his family was a stroke of luck. In a village nestled in the Wixárika Sierra of Western Mexico, Havaiko and…
Colonizing Mars or Colonizing the Earth? A Reflection on Landscape and SpaceX in Texas
By Robert Kopack, University of South Carolina § I was startled awake by a faint voice announcing something across the humid, coastal air. Maybe it was a shift…
Fake, Real, Real, Fake: Salvarsan on the US Medical Market
A Swindle Exposed 1913, Chicago: A reporter, assuming the name Edward Donlin, enters a downtown medical establishment that has advertised widely in Midwestern newspapers offering Dr. Paul Ehrlich’s…
Temporal Recalibrations: Learning to See in the Liminal Spaces of Post-Wildfire Landscapes
By Maya Daurio, University of British Columbia § “Welcome to another day in paradise,” said the man introducing that week’s visiting pastor to the congregation at the Poudre…
Book forum: Todd Meyers’s All That Was Not Her by Eugene Raikhel
This book forum brings together seven scholars and artists to discuss Todd Meyers’s All That Was Not Her (Duke 2022). A profoundly introspective and original book, All That Was…
Review: Anxious Eaters
Janet Chrzan and Kima Cargill Anxious Eaters: Why We Fall for Fad Diets. Columbia University Press. New York: 2022. ISBN # 9780231192446 Emily Contois (The University of Tulsa)…
Waffle House: Sameness, Diversity and Southern Image
A Waffle House in Columbus, Ohio (Photo By Andrew Mitchel) Andrew Mitchel and Laurie K. SmithThe Ohio State University Waffle House occupies a distinct space in the American…
Review: Beyond Global Food Supply Chains
Victoria Stead and Melinda Hinkston, eds. Beyond Global Food Supply Chains: Crisis, Disruption, Regeneration. Palgrave. MacMillan. Open Access. (2022) https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/…
Making embryos lively: The politics of embryo personhood when fertilization happens under a microscope by Manon Lefèvre
On May 25, 2022, Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt signed into law the strictest ban on abortion to date, a policy that prohibits the termination of any pregnancy “from…
Review: To Boldly Grow
Haspel, Tamar (2022) To Boldly Grow. Finding Joy, Adventure, and Dinner in Your Own Backyard. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 231 pp. Ellen Messer (Tufts University) How many…
Phantoms within and beyond the Frame: Stirrings of Justice amidst Specters of Rural Capitalism
By Rebecca Witter and Dana E. Powell [1] § Structural racism combines with the toxic wastes from industrialized capitalism to haunt the rural lowland landscapes of eastern North…