FGM
Speaking to Voice of America, Medical Anthropologist Elise Johansen joins the widespread call to end Female Genital Mutilation: …FGM, a practice which dates back thousands of years, persists despite widespread recognition of its harmful physical and psychological effects on girls and women. Involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, FGM’s immediate health […]
Cultural Anthropology: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt
Cultural Anthropology, the journal for the Society for Cultural Anthropology, has just posted a forum titled: Hot Spots: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Egypt. Check it out for videos and links to discussions and reflections on the first anniversary of the ‘official’ start of the Egyptian Revolution. Some excerpts: Video: The Women of Tahrir from Yasmin […]
Border Crossing
Fox News Latino reports: Shoes, backpacks and other objects discarded in the desert by undocumented immigrants have been collected by a team of anthropologists to document the difficult journey they make to get into the United States. “For me, these objects aren’t trash. They reflect the history of all the great migrations,” Jason de Leon, […]
Margaret Mead: This I Believe
The Hindu newspaper published a piece commemorating the recording of Margaret Mead‘s “This I Believe” essay for Edward R. Murrow‘s radio series: I believe that to understand human beings it is necessary to think of them as part of the whole living world. Our essential humanity depends not only on the complex biological structure which […]
Weather Control
This interesting anthropology-related news bite appeared at ESPN: BOGOTA, Colombia — Colombia’s top prosecutor is questioning why a shaman, or medicine man, was paid $2,000 to keep rain away from the closing ceremony of the Under-20 World Cup. The attorney general’s office opened the investigation Tuesday after the comptroller’s office in Bogota questioned cost overruns […]
Breaking Up in a Digital Age
Illana Gershon of Indiana University appeared at WBEZ91.5 and discussed some the finding presented at her book, The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media: When anthropologist Illana Gershon interviewed her Indiana University students as part of her research on social media and relationships, she posed this question to one of her classes: If you and your […]
The Banking Sector
BBC Business Daily dedicated its 29th of December program to “The Banking tribe:” Anthropologists spend decades studying the culture and rituals of obscure tribes in Africa and the Amazon but Dutch anthropologist Joris Luyendik tells Justin Rowlatt why he’s decided to study bankers instead. Press here or here to stream to program online, or alternatively press here to […]
More Anthropology Blogs
Anthropology Report provides an extensive collection of anthropological blogs: Anthropology boasts rich and varied blogs. Veteran anthropology blogs feature deep content and now have a history of stimulating commentary. Sophisticated newcomers have joined the field, demonstrating the importance of the online form. There are blogs from each of anthropology’s four fields and at the intersections […]
New Guinea
Hugh Brody, a British Anthropologist and a filmmaker writes at Open Democracy about New Guinea, one of the most culturally and ecologically diverse regions in the planet. Tragically, industrial and international politics have devastated life there. Thursday, December 1, 2011, is the fiftieth anniversary of West Papua’s independence. On this day in 1961 West Papuans were […]
Anthropologists Write on Afghanistan
The New York Times Sunday Book Review discusses the books of Noah Coburn and Thomas Barfield, two Boston University anthropologists who conducted fieldwork at Afghanistan: Ten years after the Taliban’s leaders fled their country in apparent defeat, the war in Afghanistan has become what one observer calls “a perpetually escalating stalemate.” As in Iraq, the […]