Guest post by Barbara Rose Johnston
I received last week copies of two very different publications reporting on outcomes from the scientific assessment of life in a nuclear warzone. These studies consider, first, the health experience of resident populations living in areas contaminated by nuclear weapons fallout, and, second, the health of people as affected [...]
Possibly trillions of dollars worth of mineral deposits lie untouched beneath the surface in Afghanistan. A recent New York Times report generated a flurry of discussion about whether this subterranean wealth would help Afghanistan and its people or prove to be a “resource curse” that instead brings more violence.
One thing is certain, if the minerals [...]
Journalist and filmmaker Sebastian Junger says that he wanted to make you feel like you are actually there in a remote combat outpost in Afghanistan in Restrepo. He and his partner Tim Hetherington, succeeded. After the documentary’s powerful 90 minutes, people in the packed AFI theater in Silver Spring, Md., on Friday June 28 [...]
Jeffrey Cohen, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Ohio State University, is an expert on Mexican-U.S. migration. In an interview published in his university’s faculty and staff newspaper, he critiques Arizona’s new immigration law, SB1070.
U.S.-Mexican border, by Flick user Nathan Gibbs, creative commons licensed.
Cohen argues that such a law is unjust, inefficient and actually irrational [...]
While out running errands this morning on Connecticut Avenue in the far northwest part of Washington, D.C., I was struck by how quiet it was — even compared to other Sundays — in terms of low traffic density. And quietness.
Then I heard it: the noise of several Harleys in unison moving south on the [...]
On April 15, a panel at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, focused on a newly released study, “Progress Report on Women in Peace and Security Careers: U.S. Executive Branch.” Jolynn Shoemaker, Executive Director of Women in International Security (WIIS) presented highlights from the report. Major findings include: the situation for women [...]
Please join the Department of Anthropology and the College of Arts and Sciences of American University for the following special event:
The Insecure American: Book Reading and Signing
With co-editor Hugh Gusterson
and authors Susan Hirsch, Roger Lancaster, Janine Wedel, and Brett Williams
Thursday, February 25, 7-9pm
Hughes Formal Lounge
American University Main Campus, Washington, DC
Refreshments will be served
Directions: http://www.american.edu/maps; [...]
In the late 1970s, Haiti’s rural population was 80 percent of the total population, while today it is 55 percent. This rapid shift has led to Haiti being “terribly out-of-balance” as Robert Maguire testified (PDF transcript) before the Subcommittee on International Development, Foreign Assistance, Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection of the U.S. Senate Committee [...]
Despite an abundance of aid materials and the good intentions of relief agencies, relief efforts in Thailand following the December 2004 earthquake/tsunami were afflicted by skewed distribution.
Jin Sato, associate professor in the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia at the University of Tokyo, analyzes the factors that skewed relief good distribution in an article [...]
Despite the American Anthropological Association’s condemnation of the
