Avatar 2 indulgences
Avatar 2 seems like its channeling every Hollywood Vietnam War fantasy ever – what is up with that? Western cowboy military in the delta and includes an apocalypse…
Tag: war
Club-Wielding Ancestors: Myth or Reality?
Inspired by pop culture depictions of cavepeople, an archaeologist searches for elusive evidence of ancient wooden clubs. ✽ Growing up in the 1990s, I first encountered the ancient…
Who tells your story? The politics of recounting Ukraine
by Anastasiia Omelianiuk – There is a striking contrast between significant attention to Ukraine after the 2022 re-invasion and the pre-February abstinence of Ukraine in the global cultural…
Valérie Robin Azevedo on her book, Los Silencios de la guerra
https://lasiniestraensayos.com/libro/los-silencios-de-la-guerra-memorias-y-conflicto-armado-en-ayacucho-peru/ Interview (and translation) by Emily Fjaellon Thompson English version below …
Mihai Varga: Crisis-tested, yet forgotten: Family farms in wartime Ukraine
It was often said, in the course of the transition from communism to capitalism in the 1990s and 2000s, that Eastern Europeans are good at surviving. The IMF…
When Life Imitates Art in Ukraine
Photographs from Russia’s war on Ukraine dissolve an archaeologist’s fondness for a Soviet-era sculpture. ✽ On February 24, 2022, the Russian Federation invaded Ukraine. Counter to Russian President…
Between privilege and precarity: European soldiers remobilising as private security contractors in Africa. An interview with Jethro Norman
What happens to soldiers after they leave the military? From the Middle East to Africa, increasing numbers of demobilised soldiers have found work in private military and security…
Pawn or War Crime? – you choose who gets voted off the island (two votes allowed per person)
Secret weapons sales (not so secret) and fancy dress panto season – really beyond the pale (white supremacy evil tricksters all). Justification here: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1…
Is War Inevitable? Consider the Ancient Maya
Two archaeologists show how investigating tactics, weaponry, and the logistics of battle helps answer questions about social conflict in the human experience. ✽ Arresting trails of light arc…
Oct 22 1965 Sydney arrests
The report on this 1965 anti-war protest is marginally better than most current press release churnalism, of course it favours the Police and the future PM McMahon (who…
Tim Page
Fighting the lurgie seemed the right time to read Tim Page’s book on train trips in Vietnam 20 years after his war photo stint – the Dennis Hopper…
What Commentators Get Wrong (and Right) About North Korea
An anthropologist argues that unfair portrayals of North Korea as a hopelessly irrational hermit state has huge implications for policy and security. ✽ This month, North Korea tested…
Maria Gunko: Violent faces of the Russian state
“Our whole state manifested itself in [Verkhniy] Lars, in a concentrated form: violence, mess, corruption, and indifference” – told me Vadim, who left Russia through Georgia shortly after…
Letter to Jane
Lecture on Jean-luc Godard’s film “Letter to Jane” – much to discuss at TDTU.
When Women Answer the Call of Duty
From Syria to Ukraine, the sight of women taking up arms to fight for a cause calls audiences to attention. Why? ✽ In 2019, the video game Call…
We All Love Roses
SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over. We All Love Roses – Listen Some say it’s human nature…
We are probably all black centipedes at heart
Dream note: I have to arrange my own boat, a massive crustacean-covered barge rowed with huge crab/octopus like mechanical oars and a front that folds over with a…
Netaji aggregator post
I do not want to attract new madness, the old madness does well enough. Here, a summary of various items of fun fact* where *I use the term…
Don Nonini: The China Conundrum and The Current Conjuncture
Strategic Ambivalence or Disguised Conflict? China’s Reactions to Russia’s War on Ukraine and to Covid Why does China’s response so far to the Russian invasion of Ukraine “not…
Focaalblog: New Times? Confronting the Escalating Crises of Global Capitalism
Karl Polanyi Research Center for Global Social Studies and the Commission on Global Transformations and Marxian Anthropology – IUAES, in cooperation with the Working Group for Public Sociology…
Céline Cantat: The reception spectacle: on Ukrainian displacement and selective empathy at Europe’s borders
Since the beginning of the Russian offensive on Ukraine on February 24th, over 5 million people have registered for temporary protection programmes and other schemes across Europe. By…
Denys Gorbach: Ukrainian identity map in wartime: Thesis-antithesis-synthesis?
The cultural and linguistic heterogeneity of Ukraine is a well-known fact, used and abused in explanations of the ongoing war. Having taken root in the early modern period…
Volodymyr Artiukh: The political logic of Russia’s imperialism
The debate around the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the previous contributions in FocaalBlog, has shifted from the ‘either NATO or Russia’ dichotomy to a more nuanced exchange…
Sexist methods of warfare: How does war affect women?
Anthrodendum welcomes Aleksandra Cejovic, a Montenegrin anthropologist based in the United States whose work is focused primarily on female embodied experiences, mainly menstrual and sexual health. Se…