STS and Electoral Politics
In the context of the upcoming US presidential election and increasing evidence of the importance of voting infrastructure, this week we revisit past posts that highlight the key…
Tag: United States
In the Journals – Confinement and Mental Health
Cour des agitées by Amand Gautier via wikimedia Welcome back to In the Journals! This ongoing series aims to bridge conversations that are often siloed by discipline, geographical…
Empty Beds and Mounting Deaths: COVID-19 and U.S. Healthcare’s Systemic Failures by Miao Jenny Hua
It was afternoon in early April and I was only two-thirds of the way through my 12-hour shift. Between checking on how one patient was breathing and whether…
In the Journals – Prisons and Pandemics
Prisoners’ Round by Vincent Van Gogh via wikimedia Welcome back to In the Journals! My name is Ally, I am a graduate student beginning a Master’s in Anthropology at…
Enlisted Laborers of Public Health: overlaps in the work of soldiers in historical perspective by Pamela Maddock
In April, a friend relayed her experience of getting a test for COVID-19 at a drive-through site at a university in Rhode Island, describing “dozens of camouflaged National…
On Vulnerability, Resilience, and Age: Older Americans Reflect on the Pandemic by Sarah Lamb
Every morning, Americans wake up to fresh news of the heavy toll the coronavirus pandemic is exerting upon vulnerable older people—from the likelihood of developing a more severe…
“Out of options:” The implications of COVID-19 for hospitalized patients with cognitive impairment by Kelly Colas
“How about a walk today?” I asked Mr. T each morning I arrived to the hospital, visiting him on my morning rounds. Mr T. grinned back at me…
Open Letter to Senator Jack Reed by Argenis Hurtado Moreno
Argenis Hurtado MorenoProvidence, RI 02912June 22, 2020 Jack ReedSenator of Rhode Island728 Hart Senate Office BuildingWashington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Reed, Thursday was an important and n…
Why are Black and Latin people in the US more affected by Covid-19?
In the United States, the coronavirus pandemic has been racialised since its emergence. Leading political figures, including the President, have referred to Covid-19 as the “Chinese virus”. With…
Cattle, Fracking, and the Problem of Latent Control in American Settler Ecology
By Néstor L. Silva, Stanford University § In May of 2017, I visited a frack site along with a group of petroleum engineering students from the University of…
How the Trade and Intercourse Acts Aided Colonization of Native Lands
Foreword As an instructor in Native Studies and anthropology, I get bombarded with having to explain why native peoples on the reservations live the way they live. People…
Lockdowns save, lockdowns kill: Valuing life after coronashock by Stefan Ecks
The scale and severity of the coronavirus pandemic is a shock to health systems. It is a shock to economies and governments. It is also a shock to…
Our COVID Museum: Notes from Physician-Anthropologists on the Frontlines of an Evolving Pandemic in Seattle and New York City by Kimberly Sue
As the pandemic of SARS-CoV2 (the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19) unfolds it continues to impact contemporary forms of sociality and community, health, care, governance, and global interconne…
El Virus: A Contagion of Racism & How Networks of Care Can Stop It by Argenis Hurtado Moreno
My mother FaceTimed me a month ago and asked if I needed her to ship me hand sanitizer from Phoenix to Oregon. I thought it a silly question,…
Disasters and capitalism…and COVID-19. by Vincanne Adams
I recently participated in a radio talk show on the topic of disaster capitalism and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Is the COVID-19 pandemic a disaster? If it is, how…
Alison Kenner’s Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change by Susanna Trnka
Breathtaking: Asthma Care in a Time of Climate Change Alison Kenner University of Minnesota Press, 2018. 236 pages. Asthma is thought to affect an estimated 339 million people…
“I Remember the Day I said ‘Okay, I’ve Read Everything,’” an Interview with Carole Counihan
David Sutton Here is the second in my series of video interviews with food anthropologists. This one is with Dr. Carole Counihan, who probably needs no introduction. In…
A Year of Trans Childhood by Paula Martin
Trans Kids: Being Gendered in the Twenty-First Century Tey Meadow University of California Press, 2018. 320 pages. The Trans Generation: How Trans Kids (and Their Parents) …
PrEP at the After/Party: The ‘Post-AIDS’ Politics of Frank Ocean’s “PrEP+” by Benjamin Weil
Introduction HIV/AIDS prevention efforts have taken many forms, ranging from pop-up stalls at LGBTQ+ Pride parades to circuit parties at popular queer venues. In this essay, we examine…
Land, Life, and Water: Tending to the Landscape of Southern Louisiana
By Hannah Eisler Burnett, University of Chicago § This is a photo essay about the way people cultivate visions of speculative territory and historical landscapes. But in southern…
Crafting a ‘critically-applied’ PrEP collaboration in Memphis by Matthew Thomann
Encountering PrEP I became interested in PrEP as an object of anthropological research on the L train between 1st and 3rd Avenues in Manhattan. It was the summer…
Amazing triple set of resources on Indigenous waters: from Standing Rock to Australia (book + 2 special issues)
There are three recent (and really good) resources that have come out on Indigenous waters in the past several weeks: a book and two special issues, each below…
Speak American
October 16, 2017, begins as a normal day at your New Jersey high school. You are chatting with friends in Spanish, the second most-spoken language in the United…
Review: Eating Tomorrow
Wise, Tim (2019) Eating Tomorrow. Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. New York: The New Press. ISBN 9781620974223 Ellen Messer, Ph.D. (Tufts University…