Author: Guest Contributor

Quaran-Teens 2020: Familial Belonging in Quarantine: Balancing Personal and Family Identities at Home

By Guest Contributor | May 18, 2020

[The following students are high school seniors at “KTH School” taking International Baccalaureate Social and Cultural Anthropology. After their final IB exams were cancelled, they decided they would like to do an auto-ethnography of their life in coronavirus quarantine. They have collected data for three weeks (including photographs, screenshots of social media and virtual school, interviews, and personal reflections) and written anthropological analyses focused on different terms (communication, society, belonging, materiality, classification, the body, health, and conflict).] By Will Neff, {+}

No Longer a Field

By Guest Contributor | May 15, 2020

by Rachel Howard (Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus series) Suspending my fieldwork due to the COVID-19 pandemic inspired a set of questions about the nature of ethnographic research: about how it is different from other kinds of research. About how the rituals that mark our initiation into the discipline proscribe a kind of boundary-making in which the field becomes a liminal time of exception. And about how these boundaries, especially in the context of a global health emergency, disappear. {+}

Quaran-Teens 2020: Our Constantly Evolving Society

By Guest Contributor | May 11, 2020

Video conferencing and the limits of representability

By Guest Contributor | May 9, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Christian Elliott, an undergraduate senior majoring in cultural anthropology at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. Video conferencing and the limits of representability by Christian Elliott It is Friday the 13th of March. Not a particularly auspicious day, as it would turn out, though I’ve never been particularly superstitious. I am sitting at a long seminar table in a small classroom in Old Main, the pale-yellow stone bell tower-topped academic building at the center of Augustana {+}

Fieldwork and the Nation Under Threat: Rethinking Critique, Recentering Relationships

By Guest Contributor | May 8, 2020

by Josh Babcock (Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus series) Singapore emerged early as a global success story in COVID-19 containment and response, with low infection rates, stable food systems, and functional medical infrastructure. In March, the WHO commended Singapore for its swift, “all-of-society, all-of-government approach.” Media routinely referred to Singapore as a “model” and “lesson” for the world. A Trump staffer even tried to take credit for the response, and Barbara Streisand made waves after tweeting in praise of {+}

Quaran-Teens 2020: How Communication Has Changed through Quarantine

By Guest Contributor | May 4, 2020

[The following students are high school seniors at “KTH School” taking International Baccalaureate Social and Cultural Anthropology. After their final IB exams were cancelled, they decided they would like to do an auto-ethnography of their life in coronavirus quarantine. They collected data for three weeks (including photographs, screenshots of social media and virtual school, interviews, and personal reflections) and written anthropological analyses focused on different terms (communication, society, belonging, materiality, classification, the body, health, and conflict).] By Alexandria Weaver, Emma {+}

Introduction: Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus (new series)

By Guest Contributor | May 1, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Josh Babcock. Ph.D. Candidate in Sociocultural and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research examines the public co-construction of language and race in the making of a multimodal image of Singapore. Fieldwork—a core dimension of ethnography—has, for generations of researchers, been seen as a necessary method in many kinds of qualitative investigations, and a rite of passage in its practitioners’ professionalization. Despite severe critique from both within and outside its host disciplines, fieldwork remains a {+}

Walking becomes political during the pandemic

By Guest Contributor | April 30, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Bicram Rijal, PhD. Candidate in Anthropology at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC., Canada. His doctoral thesis focuses on the politics of sanitation and toilets, and transformation of defecation habits in Nepal. Walking becomes political during the pandemic by Bicram Rijal During these pandemic times, empty parks and playgrounds are common sightings. The crowded cities across the world look all empty. The vibrant and busy streetscapes of major metropolises have {+}

What 9/11 Taught Me about COVID-19

By Guest Contributor | April 27, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger David Vine, Professor of Anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. He is the author of Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009). His new book, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State (University of California Press) will be released in October. What 9/11 Taught Me about COVID-19 by David Vine On the morning of September {+}

Digital Migration

By Guest Contributor | April 11, 2020

Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger Patricia G. Lange, an anthropologist and associate professor of Critical Studies (undergraduate program) and Visual & Critical Studies (graduate program) at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. She is the director of Hey Watch This! Sharing the Self Through Media (2020) and the author of Thanks for Watching: An Anthropological Study of Video Sharing on YouTube (2019). Follow her on Twitter: @pglange. Digital Migration By Patricia G. Lange Migration patterns have long drawn the attention {+}