Race, Racism, & Protesting Anthropology
Get 15 free-to-read articles on “Race, Racism, and Protesting Anthropology.” Available July-August 2020 in the “Confronting Anti-BIPOC Racism” resources.
Anthropology – Understanding – Possibility
The “Anthropologists” category of Living Anthropologically contains blog-posts related to a specific anthropologist or anthropologists. These posts are primarily about the internal workings of anthropology and anthropological associations, unlike other sections of the site that are more focused on the external promotion of anthropology.
A very helpful book is Matthew Engelke’s How to Think Like an Anthropologist. In the UK, Think Like an Anthropologist got a good review in the Guardian as how to understand the human condition. This is indeed what anthropology strives to do! In the US, anthropologist Barbara J. King reviewed the book for NPR:
We learn to think critically about our own assumptions regarding people across the globe who may seem exotic to us. The trick, Engelke explains, is to avoid exoticizing these “others” and, at the same time, also to avoid “reducing cultural differences to the point of inconsequence.” That balance sits at the heart of good anthropology.
And King asks for more work like this to be done. “A sequel: More Ways To Think Like An Anthropologist, perhaps? In short, I believe in the project Engelke is engaged in and hope it may expand.”
This category includes posts related to work on Open Anthropology, the first public electronic journal of the American Anthropological Association. The articles curated in Open Anthropology are free to access for one year. I was co-editor for Open Anthropology and tried to incorporate it with other Anthropology Blogs.
Get 15 free-to-read articles on “Race, Racism, and Protesting Anthropology.” Available July-August 2020 in the “Confronting Anti-BIPOC Racism” resources.
Please share your thoughts on the best anthropological readings on trade and exchange! The December issue of Open Anthropology will feature 15 articles on trade.
Readings and suggestions on Volunteer Tourism for an undergraduate anthropology student doing qualitative research in Costa Rica.
The Society for Economic Anthropology invited #AmAnth2018 sessions. Topics included: global adaptation finance, energy economics, moral economies, labor & care work, cycles of economic boom and bust, migration, …the list goes on!
Open Anthropology highlights anthropological research for understanding and teaching about gun violence & the #MarchForOurLives for gun reform
Contemporary Anthropological Theory is a course meant to change how we think. Teaching Trouillot as “Burning Questions” provides relevance for anthropology.
Articles on “Music – Anthropology – Life” were free to read from June 2017 to June 2018 on Open Anthropology.
Sponsored by the Hardy Chair Lecture Series, a public lecture by Dr. David H. Price: “Tracing Funding, Tracing Impacts: The CIA and Anthropology.”
What Would Sid Do? Reflections on the Sidney Mintz legacy in anthropology. Teaching Introduction to Anthropology as Global History & Interconnection.
The BDS Movement merits support, but an anthropology boycott of Israeli academic institutions by the AAA is a too easy “take a stand” moment from academe.
With President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan, President Barack Obama of the US, and World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Anthropology is taking over the world.
What makes Jared Diamond possible? Discussant commentary for the panel “Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements.”
If “anthropology’s future depends largely on its ability to contest the Savage slot” (Trouillot) then what about Napoleon Chagnon?
Marshal Sahlins resigns from the National Academy of Sciences to protest the election of Napoleon Chagnon. Newsbreaking disputes conceal excellent anthropology.
Ruth Benedict’s Patterns of Culture wins Jared Diamond for conceptual clarity, writing style, ethnographic example, and impact. Pretty good for 1934.
Jared Diamond’s 2012 book, The World Until Yesterday encloses people in traditional cultures rather than dynamic Interconnection.
nn Gibbons in Science asked if 2012 was “An Annus Horribilis for Anthropology?” But beyond the headlines: Great year for anthropology!
At the 2012 American Anthropological Association, Sidney Mintz received the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology and papers in honor.
The headline I wish we were reading is how the nation gathered to reflect on Trouillot’s work and legacy: Anthropology Changed Everything.
Katrina Karkazis, author of Fixing Sex: Intersex, Medical Authority, and Lived Experience, explores Olympic sex verification.
The 1987 Jared Diamond article “Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race,” takes from Richard B. Lee–mongongo nuts without credit.
The time is gone when anthropologists could find solace in open access, and the reaffirmation that the Bongobongo are “humans just like us.”
Dr. Elizabeth Brumfiel, Professor of Anthropology & Archaeology at Northwestern University and an inspiring scholar, will be greatly missed.
Positive possibilities from the news on anthropology in Florida: Greater unity in anthropology and across humanities & sciences.
Fernando Coronil worked toward the moral optimism of anthropology, “energizing struggles to build a world made of many worlds.”