All stories
How Virtual Reality Is Restoring Liberia’s Culture
Traveling Treasures is a new project led by a team of anthropologists that puts Liberians directly in touch with their dispersed cultural heritage through immersive technologies designed to bridge continents and histories.
In Japan, Rethinking What It Means to Care for the Dead
Facing an increasing aging population and other societal shifts, people are looking beyond traditional family-based mortuary practices.
Huh? The Valuable Role of Interjections
Utterances like “um,” “wow,” and “mm-hmm” aren’t garbage, they keep conversations flowing.
When Calls for Vengeance Go Online
An anthropologist reckons with how digital media has changed youth gang culture dynamics—and what can be done to combat the spread of deadly rumors.
A Poetics of Liberation: An Imagined Archive
A Tanzanian historian and poet conjures alternative engagements with Black African women who were marginalized by violent colonial histories and imprisoned in the archives. As the 2024 poet-in-resident at the magazine, she imaginatively reaches for new possibilities.
The Hopes and Hazards for AI in Reconstructing Ancient Worlds
An archaeologist explains how generative artificial intelligence has the potential to reshape our views of ancient people, arguing that a critical perspective is needed to use this technical innovation and avoid misrepresentations.
“Stop This Invader!”—The War on Spotted Lanternflies
An anthropologist reflects on the racist undertones of some U.S. efforts to eradicate the spotted lanternfly, an insect from Asia deemed invasive.
Erasure I and Erasure VI
In two erasure poems, a poet-anthropologist imagines alternative futures using text from the 1846 Treaty of Amritsar, through which the British “sold” Kashmir to a despotic Dogra ruler. The poems are from a six-part series titled Song of the First Spring.
How Heavy Metal Fuels Indigenous Revival in Patagonia
An anthropologist plunges into the world of Patagonian heavy metal music in Argentina to explore how the genre relates to language and cultural revitalization.
Tallahassee Ghazal
Using an ancient Arabic poetic form, a poet-archaeologist from Florida cycles through feelings of entrapment growing up queer in the U.S. South. But in the end, they celebrate love for this place—and that “most of us are breathing.”
Fighting for Justice for the Dead—and the Living
A group of forensic anthropologists argues their field must reject the myth of pure objectivity and challenge systemic inequities through advocacy and activism.
Debitage
Using an original poetic form, a poet chips away at a difficult history—becoming an agent of her own remaking and more than just an estranged daughter.
Tracing Roti’s Pasts, Presents, and Futures
The Roti Collective, a community-based research project, explores the layered histories that brought a flatbread from the Indian subcontinent around the world.
In Iron Age Britain, Descent Was Matrilineal
New analyses from Iron Age burials reveal that women remained in their natal communities and provided the key to kinship. The findings offer essential clues about gender roles and social structures in ancient Europe.
Broken Sonnets for the Anthropocene
The speaker in this broken sonnet form utters disobedience for structures that extract care in the Anthropocene.
David Graeber’s Lasting Influence on Anthropology and Activism
When activist and anthropologist Graeber died unexpectedly in 2020, scholars gathered to mourn him. Contributors to a resulting volume, As If Already Free, reflect on his legacy.