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These blog-posts are about the intersection between anthropology and politics. They are often guided by the wisdom of Michel-Rolph Trouillot in Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World.

Many people believe anthropology should have nothing to do with politics or that anthropology can only analyze political configurations but not contribute to them. Others believe that their academic anthropology job is their politics. Trouillot pushed for a middle ground, an academia that was not explicitly political while insisting that anthropologists should have academic projects outside of academia. As Trouillot once commented in a seminar, an academic anthropology job is not activism: “You can’t have your job and eat it too.”

Here are some classroom resources that might be helpful:

  • The 2021 Intro-to-Anthropology class on politics using the textbook Anthropology: What does it mean to be human?
  • The 2020 Intro-to-Anthro class on political organization using the textbook Through the Lens of Anthropology.
  • The Cultural Anthropology 2020 class on politics and power using the textbook Essentials of Cultural Anthropology.
  • This Anthropology 2017 class attempted to ask the question “Why does politics matter?”

Bring Sanity to Gun Violence

War, Peace, and Human Nature - Gun Control Podcast

As gun violence continues in the United States, this gun control podcast reflects on how anthropology can bring sanity and contribute to political debate.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags ambushing anthropology, cultural relativism, culture, gun violence, human nature, political economy, politics, racism Leave a comment

Anthropology’s Brief Reign (2015)

Articulating Hidden Histories - Anthropology is Taking Over the World Bank

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.

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Categories Anthropologists Tags anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, Eric Wolf, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, Ruth Benedict 5 Comments

hope: the first anthropological emotion

Anthropological Hope

“The first anthropological emotion is hope” (Carole McGranahan) and also via Ingold, Trouillot, Lennon & Ono “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)”

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags empathy, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics, Tim Ingold 2 Comments

Humans Just Like Us?

Open Anthropology - Humans Just Like Us

Is the time gone for reaffirming that the Bongobongo are “humans just like us”? And does Open Access anthropology spell out the stakes for a wider public?

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags anthropology branding, cultural relativism, immigration, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics 4 Comments

Margaret Mead & Jared Diamond

Shankman - Trashing Margaret Mead - Public Anthropology

What makes Jared Diamond possible? Discussant commentary for the panel “Margaret Mead and Jared Diamond: Past Publics, Current Engagements.”

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Categories Anthropologists Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, Eric Wolf, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, Ruth Benedict, Sidney Mintz 13 Comments

Is the State Relevant?

Anthropology of the State

Globalization was supposed to render the national state irrelevant. Such claims had already been disproved by an anthropology of the state.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags anthropology branding, capitalism, fieldwork, gun violence, immigration, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, occupy, planning, political economy, politics, racism 9 Comments

Fetishizing Fieldwork on the Road to Essentialism

Anthropology Beyond Culture - Adieu Culture

Fieldwork and the ethnographic monograph invited closure around cultural wholes. Anthropology can defend the concept of culture while jettisoning the word.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, David Brooks, education, fieldwork, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics, race, racism, Ruth Benedict, textbooks, Tim Ingold 9 Comments

How do we get out from culture?

Bourdieu - Outline - Gang Culture

Are there ways to counter the notion of “gang culture” without promoting myths of individualism? Can we usefully bring anthropology to the courtroom?

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics, racism, Ruth Benedict 35 Comments

Anthropology Is Your Ally

Wallerstein - End of the World as We Know It - Social Science and Humanities

An impassioned plea to lower the arrogance decibels. In the wake of Steven Pinker’s “Science Is Not Your Enemy” assessing humanities & science together.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, education, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, planning, political economy, politics, Sidney Mintz, Tim Ingold 12 Comments

White-Race Problems

White - Richard Dyer - White Hispanic

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.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags capitalism, culture, immigration, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, race mixing, racism 44 Comments

We Cannot Abandon Humanity

Virtual War and Magical Death - Bill Gates

When Bill Gates recommends Jared Diamond & Steven Pinker, reiterate anthropology’s calling: “the fate of no human group can be irrelevant to humankind” (Trouillot).

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Categories What is Anthropology? Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, Eric Wolf, gun violence, human nature, immigration, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, occupy, political economy, politics 9 Comments

Epigenetics & Human Nature

Everett - Language The Cultural Tool - Epigenetics

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.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, David Brooks, ethnobiogeny, evolution, genetics, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, natural selection, politics, racism, Sidney Mintz, Tim Ingold 13 Comments

Power & the Culture of Greed

Words at Work and Play: David Brooks is a Cultural Problem

Brooks uses culture to bypass power, inequality, economics, politics, and history. That’s the real cultural problem–and a problem anthropology must tackle.

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Categories Cultural Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, culture, David Brooks, education, language, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, racism 10 Comments

Party Like It’s 1999… with Napoleon Chagnon!

War in the Tribal Zone & Napoleon Chagnon

If “anthropology’s future depends largely on its ability to contest the Savage slot” (Trouillot) then what about Napoleon Chagnon?

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Categories Anthropologists Tags agriculture, ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, Eric Wolf, fieldwork, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Nicholas Wade, political economy, politics, Sidney Mintz 23 Comments

Gun Control & Shoddy Anthropology

Douglas Fry - Beyond War - Gun Control and Shoddy Anthropology

Arguments against gun control are rooted in shoddy anthropology: ideas about human nature, culture & history which anthropology does not support.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, culture, gun violence, human nature, Jared Diamond, political economy, politics, Ruth Benedict 23 Comments

Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes – Survival Intl

Angry Papuan leaders demand Jared Diamond apologizes

Papuan leaders jump into the discussion, as Stephen Corry and Survival International challenge two very public figures–Jared Diamond and Steven Pinker.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, cultural relativism, culture, Eric Wolf, human nature, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, politics 8 Comments

Indigenous Allies & Politics of Empire

Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

The indigenous allies in Matthew Restall’s Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest point to contingent histories, not the inevitability of guns, germs & steel.

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Categories Archaeology Tags capitalism, Eric Wolf, Jared Diamond, Latin America, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, racism, textbooks 17 Comments

Anthropology, Gun Reform, American Anthropological Association

Younge - Another Day in the Death of America - Gun Reform Anthropology

As the US was in limbo about gun reform, the American Anthropological Association issued an important statement on gun violence and need for research.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags anthropology branding, culture, gun violence, politics Leave a comment

#GunReformNow for #AnthroDay

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Saturday Night Special - Anthropology of Gun Violence

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.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags anthropology branding, capitalism, culture, David Brooks, gun violence, human nature, politics 8 Comments

Yes, the guns really do matter.

How America Got Its Guns - Semi-Automatic Anthropology

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.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, culture, education, gun violence, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race 18 Comments

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.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags gun violence, politics Leave a comment

Sidney Mintz, Franz Boas, Anthropology – A Celebration

Mintz Three Ancient Colonies Caribbean Themes and Variations

At the 2012 American Anthropological Association, Sidney Mintz received the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology and papers in honor.

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Categories Anthropologists Tags agriculture, capitalism, empathy, fieldwork, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, race mixing, racism, Sidney Mintz 4 Comments

Anthropology & Politics in 2012 Elections

Political Punditry and Anthropology

Anthropology should be front and center–the 2012 Obama Romney election concerns race, culture, history, and power, key issues for political anthropology.

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Categories Moral Optimism Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, cultural relativism, culture, David Brooks, education, Jared Diamond, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, race mixing, racism, Sidney Mintz 4 Comments

Conservative Goldmine

Between Barack and a Hard Place - Social Construction of Race

The “social construction of race” is a goldmine for conservative politics, offering endless denunciation, delusions of anti-white bias, & political venom.

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Categories Scathing Anthropology Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, human nature, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, political economy, politics, race, racism, sports 12 Comments

Anthropology: Best Major to Change Your Life

Casino Capitalism - Anthropology Major College Major

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.

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Categories Anthropology Courses Tags ambushing anthropology, anthropology branding, capitalism, education, occupy, planning, political economy, politics 50 Comments
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© 2011-2023 Jason Antrosio. All Rights Reserved. This blog is a personal project and does not represent the views of any institutions or employers, current or previous. The opinions expressed here are mine alone.