Social Science Space

In this Social Science Bites podcast, social anthropologist Karin Barber offers a specific case study of the application of the verbal arts by examining in depth some of the genres common in the Yoruba-speaking areas of Western Africa.

“We feel diminished,” says Alessandra Hora dos Santos. “It’s like we were lab rats. They come in nicely, collect information, collect exams on the child, and in the end we don’t know of any results. It’s like we are being used without even knowing why that is being done.”

The Association of Indigenous Anthropologists requested that the American Anthropological Association officially pause land acknowledgments and the related practice of the welcoming ritual, in which Indigenous persons open conferences with prayers or blessings.

Martha Newson, linked to the universities of Oxford and Kent, describes how fans of football often fuse their own identities into a tightly bonded group (even as they retain their individuality).

When Jim Scott mentions ‘resistance,’ this recovering political scientist isn’t usually talking about grand symbolic statements or large-scale synchronized actions by thousands or more battling an oppressive state. He’s often referring to daily actions by average people, often not acting in concert and perhaps not even seeing themselves as ‘resisting’ at all.

With a virus running rampant across the world, the value of a global perspective becomes obvious: We must remember to observe the nuances of cultural and […]

Leith Mullings, an anthropologist whose work on what she dubbed the Sojourner Syndrome created a baseline understanding of the “weathering” that the amplified stresses of race, class, and inequality have on African Americans, and in particular African American women, died on Cancer on December 12.

In the wake of COVID-19, researchers can become trusted figures of authority who can purposely use their institutional privilege and re-appropriate their research networks, skills and knowledge to better the lives of vulnerable populations during a pandemic.

In light of the global coronavirus pandemic, anthropologists around the world have been preparing to utilize knowledge gained from past […]

“You don’t have to go back many months,” says Hetan Shah, the chief executive of the British Academy, in this Social Science Bites podcast, “for a period when politicians were relatively dismissive of experts – and then suddenly we’ve seen a shift now to where they’ve moved very close to scientists. And generally that’s a very good thing.”

Being moved, touched, team pride, patriotism, being touched by the Spirit, burning in the bosom, the feels, or even nostalgia. Many names for what Alan Fiske and his colleagues have determined is one emotion. So theycoined a scientific term for it, ‘kama muta.’

The late South African musician Johnny Clegg was also an anthropologist both formally, as a lecturer on ethnography, and informally as he continued a teaching career from the stage.