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 [...]
Vice President Al Gore and Tipper Gore, married for 40 years and an iconic couple of marital endurance against high odds, are quietly separating. I am sure that thousands of other people join me in wishing them both the best as they move on into new directions.
While the media buzz about the separation, I note [...]
What do cultural anthropologists know about love? To mark Valentine’s Day, a widely celebrated occasion in the United States, I did some research. Using the Anthropology Plus database available through my university library, and with love as my only search term, I came up with the following list of articles published by cultural anthropologists from [...]
The Tenderloin is the poorest neighborhood in San Francisco. Some of its poorest residents are immigrants who come from the poorest regions of Yemen. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Ninety percent of Yemeni immigrants to the US are single males, and this pattern prevails among the approximately 1,000 Yemenis in the [...]
by Barbara Miller
A loud and hopeful buzz on twitter about toilets and women’s empower in India has followed the publication of an article in the Washington Post on October 12 that has been picked up by CNN and other mainstream media. “No toilet no bride” is the slogan of a growing number of families when [...]
