We All Love Roses

SAPIENS Poet-in-Residence Jason Vasser-Elong reflects on horrific cycles of violence—and highlights injustices that are often papered over. We All Love…

How a Coerced Confession Shaped a Family History

A researcher delves into her family’s oral history and local archives to tell the story of a relative—falsely accused as…

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. (Content warning: The images and text include graphic descriptions of hunting and butchering animals.)

Difficult Truths: Confronting Irish Industrial Schools

An anthropologist delves into the archives to uncover her family’s early 20th-century experiences with Catholic-run Irish industrial schools—institutions later revealed to be rife with child abuse.

Maize and Okra

A poet-anthropologist recollects when Muscogee (Creek) people offered his formerly enslaved ancestors refuge, extending the bonds of kinship.

Haunted by a Secret War

In a new book of ethnographic fiction on the lingering effects of the United States’ Secret War in Laos, the living must find ways to pacify the ghosts of those who suffered past violence.

Repatriation Is Our Future

In the SAPIENS podcast season 4 finale, listeners hear the story of Dr. Rachel Watkins and why repatriation matters for African American communities.

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis’ Double Standard

The warm welcome Ukrainian refugees have received from neighboring European countries contrasts sharply with the punitive treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers from the Middle East and Africa.

What Kenya’s Killer Cops Reveal About Police Culture

Anthropologists studying police violence in Nairobi are uncovering systemic problems that shed light on brutal law enforcement tactics around the world.

Slavery, Sustenance, and Resistance

In this SAPIENS podcast episode, meet the archaeologists who are investigating how “slave cuisine” can be a new site of understanding Black survival and resistance.