Closer to Home
What can squatting—occupying otherwise unoccupied buildings without any title, right, or payment—teach us about how cities work?
Closer to Home
Economics
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Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
Some of Madagascar’s farmers, made wealthy by this year’s vanilla crop, will spend their cash in crazy “hot money” sprees. But their profligate spending may not be as illogical as it first appears.
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How Globalization Has Broken the Chain of Responsibility
In today’s accelerating and overheating world, the gap between the people affected by change in local environments and the people in charge is growing ever wider.
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Can Cryptocurrency Revolutionize the Rituals of Money?
Some people are turning their backs on traditional banks in favor of cryptocurrencies. Beneath the financial and technological conversations surrounding this shift is a story about how trust shapes the culture of money.
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Why Political Ambiguity Appeals to the Masses
A movement in 1990s India illuminates the allure of vagueness from our leaders.
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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.