Conspiracies are U.S. : On Making Up Truthers, Birthers and Deathers, Part 2
This is Part 2 of a two part series by Prof. Joshua Reno on conspiracies in the U.S. You can read Part 1 here. In the August 2011 issue of American Ethnologist, I discuss how it is that evidence becomes inadmissible, stopping us from giving an argument due consideration. According to Marilyn Strathern, the use […]
Conspiracies are U.S. : On Making Up Truthers, Birthers and Deathers, Part 1
It is both disturbing and fascinating to follow the role of conspiracy theories in U.S. politics over the last decade and their apparent relationship to the Internet. One could claim that nothing has really changed, that mysterious and powerful cabals have always played a significant part in the U.S. political imagination. Consider the Anti-Masonic Party […]
Anarchy in the UK?
Sean Carey writes at anthropologyworks.com about the attribution of the UK Riots to “outsiders:” But how true is the “outsider” hypothesis in accounting for riots? In the UK in the early 1980s, people often thought that “outsiders” were responsible for disorders simply because a large crowd would gather when there was an incident which then […]
Terrorism
Thomas Hylland Eriksen, a professor in the department of social anthropology at the University of Oslo, discusses the terror attacks at Norway at opendemocracy.net : By coincidence, I was in Oslo on Friday 22 July 2011. During this time of the year, the main holiday season in Norway, the cities tend to be empty and quiet. […]
Women’s World Cup
Anthropologists discuss football/soccer and culture at The New York Times and CNN: Beatriz Vélez, former anthropology professor at the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, studied the gender dynamics of football in her home city beginning in the 1990s. First, she wrote about the grudging acceptance girls received as token participants in the Football for Peace […]
Anthropology and Chess
The Boston Globe discusses Robert Desjarlais’ latest book, “Counterplay: An Anthropologist at the Chess Board:’’ Anthropology is the study of humanity and its many aspects. It generally divides its work into four fields: cultural, archeological, linguistic, and biological. Its horizons, of course, are simply as infinite as the experiences of mankind. We have never thought […]
The Meanings of Debt
David Graeber discusses economics at CNN.com Blogs: …If the study of history shows us anything, it’s that it all comes down to power. The people on the top know that everything is negotiable. If there’s a real problem, you can always work something out – which is what we saw in 2008, when the financial […]
Bearing Witness
CNN runs a two-part story on the traumas of rape in wartime. The first part highlights the work of Vitoria Sanford among Mayan women in Guatemala: It began as a headache. Then her throat started to feel tight. A dull pain welled in her chest and her joints ached. But Victoria Sanford continued to do […]
Open Access Anthropology
Several anthropologically minded open-access journals and blogs emerged across the web in the last few months. AnthroNow presents several of the most interesting ones. Ethnosense is a new blog which moves beyond the disciplinary boundaries of anthropology and is dedicated to the sharing of ethnographic practices and experiences “This blog is for those who have experienced […]
Anthropology, Pole Dancing and Tax Exemption
Anthropologists sometimes serve as expert witnesses at courthouses. In this “exotic” case, the anthropological testimony did not impress the court. “NEW YORK— “Looking for a nightclub experience that isn’t the same old, same old? Nite Moves is an upscale juice bar featuring all the amenities you’d expect from a luxury bar — plus a few […]