Guest post by Morgan Keay
This post is an analytical literature review, with bibliography, of recent sources that use anthropological methods to explore threats to indigenous peoples, the implications of the threats/factors, and the responses of indigenous groups. It was originally prepared for a graduate seminar at George Washington University on “Culture, Risk and Security” [...]
11th Annual Northeast Historic Film Summer Symposium
July 22 – 24, 2010
85 Main Street
Bucksport, Maine
From the official press release:
Among the presenters are your AMIA-list associates Jennifer Jenkins, University of Arizona; Ross Lipman, UCLA Film & Television Archive; J. Fred MacDonald, and Paul Spehr.
The NHF Summer Symposium is a multi-disciplinary gathering devoted to the history, theory, and [...]
So-called honor killings take the wind out of a form of cultural relativism that I refer to as absolute cultural relativism. According to absolute cultural relativism, anything that goes on in a particular culture, and is justified within that culture, cannot be questioned or changed by insiders or outsiders. For insiders, such questioning is cultural [...]
European colonists came to North America seeking religious freedom and economic opportunity. They destroyed the very same for those who had lived here for centuries.
One person’s liberty often means someone else’s shackles. One group’s success often means another group is in ruins.
The boom and crackle of Independence Day fireworks in the United States are [...]
I hope that some people reading this blog have seen the 1965 documentary, Dead Birds. If you haven’t, please try to do so. It’s a very long film, in black and white. I viewed it in a college class many years ago. For me, the big lesson was that the Dani people of highland New [...]
One can hardly blame Kristof for admiring the beauty of Gabon, pictured here in a creative commons licensed Flickr image from carlosoliveirareis, but maybe he could have said more about the ugliness masked by the idyllic landscapes?
Nick Kristof’s in love. It’s so great for him and for his readers, who grow weary with all the [...]
The Nacirema are a large and diverse group of people who live south of Canada and north of Mexico (spell the tribal name backward in case you haven’t figured out who they are). In the mid-20th century, Horace Miner wrote a clever parody about the culture of this tribe. The nickname continues to have some [...]
Guest post by Terence Turner
“Debating Belo Monte Hydroelectric Complex on the Xingu River,” creative commons licensed content by Flickr user International Rivers. March 14, 2007.
UPDATED: Once again, the indigenous peoples of the Xingú valley in the Brazilian Amazon are planning to make the long journey to the town of Altamira*, where the Trans-Amazonica highway crosses [...]
Spring is a perilous time for sheep. Lambs are born in the spring, and often capricious weather can spell their doom. In the spring, many one year-old lambs are slaughtered to provide meat for a feast. It is the time of the sacrifice of the lambs.
Sheep are one of the earliest domesticated animals, and they [...]
• Yo-Yo Ma’s anthropological soul
Classical cellist Yo-Yo Ma is, according to an article in the Washington Post, “one of the most recognizable classical musicians on the planet.” Besides being a star of the musical world, he is also a social activist, in his own way. “I realized late in life,” Ma says, that my twin [...]
