White Men and Their Toxic White Fragility
It has been several months since the shooting in my classroom at UNC Charlotte where two of my students were killed, four were physically injured, and an untold…
Tag: Violence
Gun Violence Harms, Even if You’ve Never Been Shot
Shoes representing the estimated 7,000 U.S. children who were killed by gun violence since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting cover the Capitol lawn in 2018. Saul…
The making of a market: politicising gangs in Sierra Leone, by Kars de Bruijne
The back of a clique member By January 2019, politicians were recruiting gang members once again, nearly a year after the Sierra Leone elections. They were asked to…
A Grammar of Perseverance
Reflections on Race, Poverty and Violence in Orange, New Jersey It’s a muggy mid-June Saturday afternoon. A large inflatable moonwalk occupies the asphalt, and kids line up for…
Religion and politics in the US: How the Christian Right moves away from Jesus
Along with an anthropology degree, I also completed a degree in philosophy with a focus on philosophy of religion. My primary interests in that are theodicies (excuses for…
The Very Modern Problem of Human Slavery
More than 70 percent of enslaved people today are women and girls—such as this woman from Nepal, who was sold by her parents as a child. Jonas Gratzer/Getty…
Are Trophy Skulls Evidence of Civil War Among the Classic Maya?
[no-caption] Archivio J. Lange /Getty Images This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Two trophy skulls, recently discove…
The Story of a Mass Shooting Survivor and Anthropologist
On April 30, my Liberal Studies class, framed as Anthropology and Philosophy of Science (Syllabus), was the site of a horrific event. Two of my students were…
Ep. #35: Loneliness, Positionality, ‘Person’ & Violence: This Month on TFS
This month Julia (0:59) starts us off with the relationship between loneliness and health after listening to an episode of ‘All in the Mind’, a podcast that explores…
Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat
A Twitter essay by Mary Annaïse Heglar: Sorry, Y’all, but Climate Change Ain’t the First Existential Threat
Letting Go and Holding On, Documenting Hope in Postwar Guatemala
When Beti asked her twelfth-grade students to consider Guatemala’s contemporary challenges, their suggestions quickly filled the board. In large letters, their words loomed like storm clouds: corrupti…
A Fieldpoem for World Poetry Day
How we practice and write ethnography matters. Poetry is one way to understand what it feels like to be human at a particular time and place. The difference…
Jasbir Puar’s The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability by Dina Omar
The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability Jasbir Puar Duke University Press, 2017. 296 pages. Jasbir Puar’s second book, The Right to Maim, examines the relationship between life,…
Glorifying violence
This co-authored op-ed from a Sociology grad student and myself based on a three month study done by Mr Maraj under my supervision of the local newspapers and…
Glorifying violence
This co-authored op-ed from a Sociology grad student and myself based on a three month study done by Mr Maraj under my supervision of the local newspapers and…
Fiction Plus Coercion Makes Reality: The Illegitimacy of the US-led Coup in Venezuela
After considering the economic foundation of current US intervention, designed to erase Venezuela’s economic sovereignty, the purpose here is to focus more on the political side of the…
Love and the Pursuit of Home after War
Among Acholis, ideals of home and a good life are resilient even if everyday realities increasingly diverge from such aspirations. There is a tendency to think about love…
Issuing Trigger Warnings in an Age of Mass Shootings
Ellie Fleischer writes “Enough Is Enough” at a memorial near the Tree of Life Synagogue on Monday, October 29, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Salwan Georges/Getty Images On the last…
For One Forensic Anthropologist, Resilience Is Bone Deep
Jonathan Bethard’s life is anything but dull. He analyzes human remains to determine people’s identities, understand their lifeways, and figure out how they died. And while his work…
Becoming Human: Malala Yousafzai and the Politics of Representation
by Carlo Ceglia Malala. It is enough to say her first name. How did this 21-year-old Pakistani girl – the youngest, as well as the only female Pakistani,…
Narrating MeToo by Pamela Runestad
Bill Cosby is in prison, and Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer have been fired. Donald Trump is in office despite his own admission that he has grabbed women…
Survivors of sexual violence need #supportnotsuspicion
by Hannah Rose Last Thursday night, the feminist direct action group Sisters Uncut delivered 30,000 sheets of paper marked ‘confidential’ to the door of the Crown Prosecution Service,…
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste
Nuclear State, Nuclear Waste: Emily Simmonds on Canada as a nuclear nation & ongoing colonialism through uranium mining.
Why Are So Many Guatemalans Migrating to the U.S.?
On May 23, a bystander filmed 20-year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez González after a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot her in the head. The young woman had recently crossed…