Fetishizing Fieldwork on the Road to Essentialism
Fieldwork and the ethnographic monograph invited closure around cultural wholes. Anthropology can defend the concept of culture while jettisoning the word.
politics
How do we get out from culture?
Are there ways to counter the notion of “gang culture” without promoting myths of individualism? Can we usefully bring anthropology to the courtroom?
Anthropology Is Your Ally
An impassioned plea to lower the arrogance decibels. In the wake of Steven Pinker’s “Science Is Not Your Enemy” assessing humanities & science together.
White-Race Problems
Don’t worry White people! White Hispanics and our White Black President will save us! Geraldo Rivera’s Fox News fact-twisting shows race retrenchment.
We Cannot Abandon Humanity
As Bill Gates reads Jared Diamond & Steven Pinker, reiterate anthropology’s calling: “the fate of no human group can be irrelevant to humankind” (Trouillot).
Epigenetics & Human Nature
Could epigenetics finally re-write the script about human nature? Maybe, but first we have to go over The Edge’s promotional tribute to Napoleon Chagnon.
Power & the Culture of Greed
Brooks uses culture to bypass power, inequality, economics, politics, and history. That’s the real cultural problem–and a problem anthropology must tackle.
Party Like It’s 1999
If “anthropology’s future depends largely on its ability to contest the Savage slot” (Trouillot 2003:9), then how to take Napoleon Chagnon’s Noble Savages?
Gun Control & Shoddy Anthropology
Arguments against gun control are rooted in shoddy anthropology: ideas about human nature, culture & history which anthropology does not support.
Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes – Survival Intl
Papuan leaders jump into the discussion, as Stephen Corry and Survival International challenge two very public figures–Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker.
Indigenous Allies & Politics of Empire
The indigenous allies in Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest point to contingent histories, not the inevitability of guns, germs & steel.
Anthropology, Gun Reform, American Anthropological Association
As the US was in limbo about gun reform, the American Anthropological Association issued an important statement on gun violence and need for research.
#GunReformNow for #AnthroDay
Can gun violence ever lead to new gun control resolve or just to new guns? Anthropology can push for sanity on gun violence and gun control.
Yes, the guns really do matter.
In our urge to understand complexity, anthropologists can make things more complicated than necessary. The guns matter. The U.S. needs a semi-automatic ban.
The Future of Gun Reform
Gun reform is important, but the U.S. needs to reduce the weaponry, buying back 50 million semi-automatic weapons. Australia did it. We can do it too.
Sidney Mintz, Franz Boas, Anthropology – A Celebration
At the 2012 American Anthropological Association, Sidney Mintz received the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology and papers in honor.
Anthropology & Politics in 2012 Elections
Anthropology should be front and center–the 2012 Obama Romney election concerns race, culture, history, and power, key issues for political anthropology.
Conservative Goldmine
The “social construction of race” is a goldmine for conservative politics, offering endless denunciation, delusions of anti-white bias, & political venom.
Anthropology: Best Major to Change Your Life
Check out an Anthropology Major! It’s the worst college major for instant pay, but best major to change your life. And Anthropology can change the world.
(on Race/IQ)
Ron Unz gives my reading of Race/IQ a place in The American Conservative, asking if it is “Game Over” for Race IQ.
Race IQ – Game Over: It was always all about wealth
The publication of “Race, IQ, and Wealth” by Ron Unz effectively is game over for Race IQ peddlers–it was always about wealth & inequality.
Jared Diamond won’t beat Mitt Romney
The really scary part of the Diamond Romney dustup is how Romney recaps Diamond: European imperialism is accidental but societies choose to fail.
Darwin in Mind–The End
“Darwin in Mind: New Opportunities for Evolutionary Psychology” (2011) marked the end of evolutionary psychology as foil for anthropology.
Gun Culture
An analysis of “gun culture” provides lessons for talking about culture in anthropology at a time when culture–and guns–are everywhere.
The Headline We Should Be Reading
The headline I wish we were reading is how the nation gathered to reflect on Trouillot’s work and legacy: Anthropology Changed Everything.