Inside Mexico City’s Surveillance State
An anthropologist investigates how one city’s rapidly expanding video surveillance system is transforming criminal investigation—sometimes in deeply flawed ways. ✽ In September 2022, a criminal prose…
An anthropologist investigates how one city’s rapidly expanding video surveillance system is transforming criminal investigation—sometimes in deeply flawed ways. ✽ In September 2022, a criminal prose…
For decades, soldiers at the border between Attari, India, and Wagah, Pakistan, have staged an elaborate ceremony for onlookers. An anthropologist reflects on the ceremony as a legacy…
A poet-historian reflects on the legacy of colonial-era collecting practices in Tanzania that tore Black Indigenous ancestors from their communities and history. ✽ Euro-American colonial collections o…
An anthropologist working in Baltimore argues that safety for Black communities requires an end to policing. That also means taking a hard look at how policing intersects with…
A multidisciplinary poet-scholar and suicide attempt and multi-suicide loss survivor unveils complex anthropological threads that shape suicidal ideation. ✽ Worldwide, most people know someone who ha…
An archaeologist explains how recent archaeological finds in Egypt expand our knowledge of a violent revolt discussed on the now-famous Rosetta Stone. This article was originally published at…
A sociocultural anthropologist from Pakistan speaks to how women in asylums in a patriarchal culture are in a battle between their realities and their lost dreams. Yet those…
A poet-anthropologist evokes a popular myth that speaks to the repercussions of—and possibilities of repair from—U.S. violence in the Philippines during colonialism. “Apparition in SugarlandR…
A Ghanian American poet-anthropologist crafts her own African diasporic and Indigenous identity through weaving herself into a famous story of African resistance and survival. “A Birth and a…
An Indigenous poet-anthropologist speaks to the survivance of Native communities in the face of colonialism and genocide. “In the Event of Flooding” is part of the collection Indigenizing…
One day, a woman in Baltimore received a text message from her mother wishing her a happy holiday. But something didn’t feel quite right. Jeri Hutton Green is…
In the fifth season of the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone…
Archaeologists can help communities retake what colonialism and racism tried to erase through a new goal of “archaeological reclamation.” The following individuals co-authored this essay: Lindsay M. M…
An Indigenous poet-anthropologist and new mother interrogates the idea that, overall, historic Indigenous boarding schools brought a lot of “good.” “Born of ‘All That Good’” is part …
Over the past two decades, the subway system has reshaped social relations in India’s densely populated capital—especially for women, who continue to face everyday violence in public spaces.…
Falkof’s book discusses the everyday experiences of fear and moral anxiety in the city of Johannesburg in post-apartheid state South Africa. Drawing on narrative accounts from political protests,…
Falkof, Nicky (2022): Worrier State. Risk, anxiety and moral panic in South Africa. Manchester: Manchester University Press. South Africa 2022 is a troubled nation: a continuing energy crisis…
A contributor to a special series on decolonizing anthropology argues that true decolonization would require the complete dismantling of existing global power structures, including academic discipline…
A contributor to a special series on decolonizing anthropology rejects the discipline’s colonial and racist roots and instead pursues ways of doing science that center human liberation and…
In recent years, anthropology has increasingly reckoned with its colonial and racist roots. In a special forum, scholars weigh in on what “decolonizing” means—and share their visions for…
In a year of continuing global conflagrations, anthropologists investigated a wide range of pressing and curious questions about humanity’s past, present, and future. Here are the editors’ picks…
The recent violent attack on Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, happened in a place shaped by decades of anti-LGBTQ organizing by evangelical Christian groups. ✽…
Stubborn substances and toxic legacies Toxic substances are often portrayed as stubborn molecules that resist being restricted to the places where we would like to contain them in…
A poet-anthropologist speaks to the labyrinthine experiences of domestic violence—the entrapment, the hope for freedom. ✽ During the final week of domestic violence awareness month in October, I…