Anthro/Zine Highlights: Student Report from Bali
Now in its second year of publication, Anthro/Zine is the undergraduate companion to Anthropology Now. Each new issue, published under a Creative Commons license, is released online to coincide with the journal — April, September, and December. Anthropology Now welcomes student author Emily Crawford, whose essay on plants in Bali, Indonesia, appeared in the April […]
Elusive Caimans and the Anthropologist as Devil
books and arts Lucas Bessire. 2014. Behold the Black Caiman: A Chronicle of Ayoreo Life. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 296 pages. Dust In this poignant and insightful ethnography, Lucas Bessire invites the reader to enter a world of shame, violence and all-consuming dust. Haunting descriptions of the vast plains of the South American […]
Remains of the Day: A Native American Burial Discovered in San Francisco Is Shrouded in a Fog of Acrimony
On February 25, 2014, at eight in the morning, the sky had barely turned light. In a muddy excavation site five stories below street level, an equipment operator deftly maneuvered his skid-steer, bathed in powerful electric lights. After two years of digging through sand and mud, the excavation phase of the Transbay Project was only […]
The CRISPR Hack: Better, Faster, Stronger
Science fictions and fantasies are quickly becoming facts with CRISPR, a gene-editing technology that is opening up new horizons for the human species. Some dream of turning horses into unicorns, while others would like to normalize humans — eliminating rare gene mutations from our populations. Biologists are considering hacking the genomes of unwanted insects such […]
April 2016
Volume 8 | Issue 1 | April 2016 This issue includes: Features The CRISPR Hack: Better, Faster, Stronger by Eben Kirksey Remains of the Day: A Native American Burial Discovered in San Francisco Is Shrouded in a Fog of Acrimony by Peter W. Colby Curating the Mexican Days of the Dead: “Intangible Heritage” at the […]
Jubilation During Trying Times: Carnival in Guinea-Bissau
~ an essay with photos ~ For decades, the small West African country of Guinea-Bissau has been plagued by coups, misrule, political instability and non-existent infrastructures. It is often described as a failed state, a narco-state, a volatile country, a collapsed economy. Since its independence from Portugal in 1974, none of its elected leaders have ever completed a […]
Laughter is Social Glue
– After Ritu Khanduri, With apologies Laughter is social glue— When it escapes the blow is softened— The Brits did not know about Laughter Out of Place, said They, Those brown people, have no sense of fun, only satire and malice—Why can they not be happy we’ve won? Laughter is social glue— It cements […]
Zika and Microcephaly: Can We Learn from History?
Brazil is facing an epidemic of a severe birth defect: microcephaly (abnormally small head size), a condition linked with important neurological impairments and developmental delays. Not all children born with an abnormally small circumference of the head suffer from these problems, but many do. The microcephaly epidemic has been linked to an infection with the […]
The Arts of Recognition
Abenójar, like many farming communities in the Spanish Province of Castilla-La Mancha, inhabits the past while also embracing the present. Its serpentine streets are lined with rows of uniform structures; the majority of homes were built or refurbished in the 1970s and 1980s. The architectural aesthetic feels recent and contemporary, not quaint and historic. Only […]
The Politics and Ecology of Water: Notes on the Drought in California
California is great in size and diversity, the third largest state in the union, with the largest population. The state is comprised of distinct regions and countless enclaves, from Silicon Valley to Los Angeles, from arid basins to frigid peaks, from immense agricultural flatlands to unyielding urban growth. Proposals to split the territory have endured […]