Category Archives: Blog
Bruce Kapferer and Roland Kapferer: The Trump Saga and America’s Uncivil War: New Totalitarian Authoritarian Possibilities
Times are a Changing. The Trump phenomenon as a whole, his election, his presidency, the events of the Capitol, Joe Biden’s accession and Donald Trump’s impeachment are moments of radical process. They form a dynamic in and of themselves. They express the chaos and transition of the moment but they are also and at the […]
Remembering Leith Mullings (1945 – 2020)
Leith Mullings, Social Justice Anthropologist Jeff Maskovsky, City University of New York Leith Mullings’ death is a terrible blow to anthropology – and a heartbreaking loss to those of us who were lucky enough to have worked and collaborated with her. For many of us, Leith’s death, which happened on December 13, 2020, is still […]
Stephen Campbell: What can workers expect in post-coup Myanmar?
International media coverage of the February 1st military coup in Myanmar has been rather consistent. The focus, overwhelmingly, has been on the detention of State Counsellor and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, with speculations about the political machinations of Myanmar’s commander-and-chief, Min Aung Hlaing. In this way, the developing story has orbited around the […]
Lesley Gill: Can the Left Revive the ‘Pink Tide’ amid a Global Pandemic?
As Covid-19 has washed over Latin America like a tsunami and the pillars of shaky economies have shuddered under lockdowns, the priority of profits over public welfare stands out in starker relief, restating the need for effective public policies and demanding government intervention more than ever. Such an unprecedented moment poses strong challenges for the […]
Sanderien Verstappen: Hidden behind toilet rolls: visual landscapes of COVID-19
During the lockdowns of spring 2020, short videos became a popular means of reflecting on new experiences of quarantine and social distancing. Passed around on social media platforms, downloaded in microseconds, and stored on smartphones where they became nested amidst other videos and photos, Corona videos brought about smiles amidst anxious circumstances and reflected meaningful […]
Ida Susser: Covid, police brutality and race: are ongoing French mobilizations breaking through the class boundaries?
On May 31, 2020, the US exploded in protest to address the super-exploitation of racism, which has uniquely scarred its history. This was followed by international demonstrations, including massive demonstrations in Paris against police brutality, a common theme of the Gilets Jaunes, a protest starting in November 2018 that I was studying. However, this time […]
Samuel W. Rose: Disconnected Development Studies: Indigenous North America and the Anthropology of Development
The purpose of this work is to examine and elaborate on the relationship between the people of Native North America and the material and ideological content of developmentalism as examined within the fields of anthropology and Native American or Indigenous studies. I observe that Indigenous North American peoples are frequently excluded from discussions of economic […]
Fiona Murphy: Irish State to seal records of Mother and Baby Homes for 30 years: Urgent call for action
Tiny bodies, the remains of little children entombed without name or mercy, are uncovered in Tuam, a small Irish town in Co. Galway in the west of Ireland, at the site of a former Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in 2017. The excavation, part of a Mother’s and Baby’s Home commission of inquiry (set up in […]
Nicole Weydmann, Kristina Großmann, Maribeth Erb, Novia Tirta Rahayu Tijaja: Healing in context: Traditional medicine has an important role to play in Indonesia’s fight against the coronavirus
The first two cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia were announced on 2 March 2020, quite late compared to other countries. The first patient was a 31-year-old woman who came into contact with a Japanese citizen – who later tested positive – at a dance event in South Jakarta. She then passed it on to her […]
In Memoriam: David Graeber
David Graeber: Anthropologist and Revolutionary