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Under an arched ceiling, a person wearing a white headwrap and T-shirt nestles a pencil in the palm of their hand while drawing with charcoal on a large white canvas. The scene they are sketching depicts a building and public square flanked by flowering trees.

The Vibrant Worlds of Batuan Paintings in Bali

A new multimedia project connects the development of a Balinese regional painting style with anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, who began commissioning art in the region in the 1930s.
A close-up shot shows a hand gripping a live bullfrog by its back legs.

Looking Into the World of Frog Gigging

Hunting rituals have long been a focus of anthropological analysis. An ethnographer explores how hunting frogs for meat using gigs, or multipronged spears, is a beloved family tradition in some parts of the U.S.
An elderly woman with short brown hair and glasses wearing a blue, black, and white shirt stands in front of a portrait of a seated woman wearing a blue dress in front of pink curtains in Cyprus.

A Lens on Cyprus Reunification

An anthropologist walks around the circumference of this Mediterranean island, photographing people separated by political conflict and reflecting on the ties that bind divided communities.
A black-and-white portrait shows a woman in a white shirt with light hair against a white background.

Kenyan Mothers Take on Police Violence

In Nairobi, members of the Mothers of Victims and Survivors Network, who have lost family members to police violence, are turning their grief into determined activism.

What Problems Does Organic Cotton Solve?

Organic cotton agriculture in India fails, resoundingly, to produce as much cotton as conventional methods. But what if that’s not the point?
Antioch colony texas

Preserving the Voices of the Antioch Colony

Archaeologists are working with descendants to preserve the history of a community in Texas formed by Black freedmen and women after the Civil War.
native american boarding schools

Native American Children’s Historic Forced Assimilation

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the United States government used family separation and schools to try to erase Native American children’s traditional cultures and languages. A newly published archive of photographs visually documents some Indigenous peoples’ struggle for survival.

How Hearts Align in a Muslim Ritual

An important Sufi ritual brings participants together in a shared experience of trance and movement that actually synchronizes their heartbeats.

Cultivating Peace in the Heart of the Balkans

Decades after the violence of the Yugoslav wars, veterans are starting to heal and find reconciliation.

Why Are So Many Guatemalans Migrating to the U.S.?

As poverty and violence force Guatemalans to leave their country, one anthropologist reflects on her work with Indigenous peoples in the highlands—and shows how the U.S. is implicated in its own “migrant crisis.”
Highly pure silica sand is used in hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, Wyoming, and North Dakota, among other states. Along with water and various chemicals, the sand is injected deep underground, where it props open tiny fractures in bedrock formations to allow for the release of hydrocarbons. With its round and smooth granules, frac sand is extremely strong and durable, and resists being crushed under high pressure.

How Fracking’s Appetite for Sand Is Devouring Rural Communities

Small towns in western Wisconsin are being divided by a little-known mining boom. An anthropologist who lives in the region set out to understand why.

The Death of a Hungry God

The electrocution of a wild elephant in a village in northeast India illustrates how these formidable beings are experienced as both animal and deity.
The bright-red cuchi wila quinoa has a bitter-tasting outer coating, called saponin, that protects the plant from predators and houses a black seed. This heritage variety of quinoa is increasingly difficult to find, even though it has been used for thousands of years for recipes like the fermented beverage chicha.

Cooking Up an International Market for Quinoa

In Peru, a chef and an agronomist are using the kitchen of a five-star hotel to create an appetite for threatened varieties of a traditional crop.
amazon gold mining

Gold Glimmers in the Amazon

Daily life in the remote gold-mining camps of the Amazonian rainforest is difficult, dirty, and sometimes treacherous. But that’s only part of the story.
maternal death rate tanzania

The Dangers of Birth in Tanzania

East Africa’s largest country has made great strides in reducing its maternal death rate, but many obstacles remain.
A man in Mauritius gets skewered through his cheeks during an ancient Hindu ceremony. The terror in his eyes will soon give way to more positive feelings. Painful rituals like piercing, flagellation, and fire-walking can release endorphins (natural opioids) in the brain and produce a state of euphoria. In a study of a ritual involving prolonged suffering, my colleagues and I showed that those who went through the most intense ordeals felt less tired and more euphoric after the event than onlookers who did not participate. These rituals can provide a sense of catharsis and redemption.

The Perennial Power of Ritual

Rituals soothe, excite, and unite people throughout the world. But how exactly do they work, and what makes them so meaningful?