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” [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Tracy Kidder’s widely read documentary book about Paul Farmer’s work in Haiti is called Mountains beyond Mountains. The title comes from a Haitian proverb which is translated into English as: “Beyond the mountains, more mountains.” In other words, every challenge is followed by another.
Have you by any chance read Rose George’s book, The Big Necessity: [...]
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 [...]
Guest post by Laura Wilson
By focusing attention on a single but critical resource, Jessica Barnes sheds light on the complexities of social, economic, and political change in rural Egypt. The resource is water.
Barnes is currently completing her doctorate in Columbia University’s new multidisciplinary Ph.D. program in Sustainable Development. She combines training and perspectives in cultural [...]
by Barbara Miller
A category of local conflict in Peru is called conflictos mineros, mining conflicts. The existence of this specific term reflects the frequency of such conflicts in Peru following neoliberal economic reforms in the early 1990s. Fabiana Li, now a Newton International Fellow based at the University of Manchester, conducted research for her doctoral [...]
