===In response to the terrible devastation in Haiti, Anthropology Now is offering special coverage of events in Haiti. For the next few weeks, Press Watch will be a dedicated Haiti Watch. Elizabeth Chin, a professor of anthropology at Occidental College who has worked for many years in Haiti joins us as a Featured Special Report guest blogger.For her previous posts, Click on 'Read More' in Press Watch. We will also be tracking news coverage of anthropologist Paul Farmer and his work on the relief efforts. And we encourage all concerned readers to donate generously to Partners in Health, the organization Paul Farmer co-founded that is working on the ground in Haiti. Please contact us with links and news on Haiti that we can share with our readers.=== *Special Report blogger Elizabeth Chin is an anthropologist who has studied Haitian Folklore dance for over 20 years, both in the US and...

Research takes perseverance and grit, but there is no denying that it comes with certain pleasures, too. In Palestinian society, research feeds both mind and body. Once, I was interviewing two young men who were in a hurry to go on an afternoon excursion. Still, they presented me with soda and then coffee on a shiny round tray. During another interview, I enjoyed watermelon and ice cream cake. As I ate, I pondered: What could be easier than research in which people conceive of the researcher as a guest? Obviously, though, the work of research is more than just managing the watermelon juice that threatens to escape from the sides of one’s mouth as one poses the next question. Another juicy challenge of this project has been tracking key terms as they circulate between U.S. news articles and Palestinian interpretations. The word “chaos” popped up often in U.S. news...

CUNY Graduate School Student Collective: Akissi Britton, Risa Cromer, Chris Grove, Carwil James, Martha Lincoln, Michael Polson, Sophie Statzel, John Warner This column, a new regular contribution to Anthropology Now, will highlight emerging anthropological research that has the potential to reshape contemporary social and political debates. A series of short reviews will be coauthored and edited each issue by a diverse student collective from The Graduate Center of the City University of New York, which has historically supported publicly engaged anthropology. The members of the collective would like to thank Katherine McCaffrey, Ida Susser, and the rest of the editorial board for this opportunity and their continued support. In addition, the members express their appreciation to the “Discoveries” student collective of the sociological journal Contexts for generously...

Even now,  I'm sure, so much of Haiti is breathtakingly beautiful.  There is something of an upside to the country not having had enough money or cachet to get utterly overdeveloped and paved over.  The mountains up above Miragoane, for instance, with their breezes that arrive from both sides of land, are cool, misty, piney, and clear-skied; meanwhile I'm sure that many of the little pocket beaches along the southern coast near Jacmel are still as magically warm and blue and seaweedy as I remember. I'm sick to death of hearing about the ugliness of Haiti -- and so much of the beauty goes beyond anything natural and is deeply cultural.  There is, of course, the painting tradition for which Haiti is rightly famous, and the sequin art is something staggeringly rich and imaginative, especially the beaded flags with their overlays of Catholic and Vodou imagery. The language, too, is...