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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · 13h

Congratulations to Kristina Douglass on being named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow! Check out their new #OpenAccess article "Writing in community: Relationship building and accountability in knowledge production" #Anthropology #Archaeology #MacFellow

doi.org/10.1111/aman...

American Anthropologist | AAA Anthropology Journal | Wiley Online Library

As anthropology reckons with its past, present, and future, anthropologists increasingly seek to challenge inequities within the discipline and academia more broadly. Anthropology, regardless of subd...

doi.org

American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · 13h

Congratulations to Ieva Jusionyte on being named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow! Check out their 2018 article "Called to 'Ankle Alley': Tactical Infrastructure, Migrant Injuries, and Emergency Medical Services on the US–Mexico Border" #Anthropology #MacFellow

doi.org/10.1111/aman...

American Anthropologist | AAA Anthropology Journal | Wiley Online Library

In southern Arizona, emergency responders rescue and transport unauthorized migrants who get hurt crossing the border, either when scaling the steel fence in urban areas or taking remote and dangerou....

doi.org

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · 2d

New Vital Topics Forum: "Archaeology, Politics, and Environmental Crisis." The fourteen contributions consider how the discipline might respond to our age of intertwined environmental crises. #Anthropology #Archaeology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

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Social Science Research Council @ssrc.org · 16d

In @amanthro.bsky.social, Kristina Nielsen’s investigation of India’s business process outsourcing industry considers the impacts of workers forced to remove their regional accents to meet industry standards.
anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology @anthroencyclo.bsky.social · Sep 4

On love and war: in #Cambodia, deminers’ #love for landmine-detecting rats transforms former enemies into collaborators.

Read more about #postwar #ecology, #nonhuman #love and the concept of "metta" in this new #OpenAccess article by Darcie Deangelo!

#Anthropology #OA

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Jing Xu @jing-xu.bsky.social · 28d

Our new publication @amanthro.bsky.social, interview with Mun Young Cho, on youth precarity, poverty, and inequality in China, South Korea and the responsibility and value of anthropology doi.org/10.1111/aman...

American Anthropologist | AAA Anthropology Journal | Wiley Online Library

This interview with Professor Mun Young Cho, a leading cultural anthropologist at Yonsei University, explores her intellectual journey and research on poverty, labor, development, and youth in China ...

doi.org

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · 27d

Check out "'We Are All Implicated': An Interview With Korean Anthropologist Mun Young Cho" by Mun Young Cho, Yang Zhan, and Jing Xu. Out now! #Anthropology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · 29d

Read Dela Kuma's new #OpenAccess article "Trade Networks and Consumer Practices in Amedeka, Ghana: Negotiating 'Nkudzedze' From the Late 19th to Mid-20th Centuries" #Anthropology #Archaeology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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Social Science Research Council @ssrc.org · Aug 21

In @amanthro.bsky.social, Mallory E. Matsumoto finds that in Guatemala, local practices generate forms of disruption, resistance, and refusal that challenge institutional constraints.
anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This article takes a scalar view of “friction” (Tsing 2005) and “refusal” (Ortner 1995) between ethnography and the archive. The concept of friction was originally formulated in the context of a globalizing world, but friction's perception and experience are highly local. By recurrently destabilizing interactions, friction generates the constant possibility of contestation at the same time that it fosters ongoing renewal and reshuffling of social relations. Refusal, in turn, is shaped by a combination of individual agency and the contextual parameters delimiting any given social interaction. Based on a K'iche’ Maya narrative recorded by Catholic missionary James L. Mondloch in the area of Nahualá, Sololá, Guatemala, I illustrate how refusal not only informs interpretation of the oral history but shaped its 1968 telling. As debate continues over the ethics and logistics of working with legacy fieldwork data, I consider the frictions that anthropologists have to live with when working with archival data and those that we ourselves may generate.

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Candace Lukasik @clukasik.bsky.social · Sep 2

The second review of Martyrs and Migrants @nyupress.bsky.social written by Helana Marie Boutros has just been published in @amanthro.bsky.social. I have so much gratitude for this engagement with the book that centers its theological aspects and methodological-conceptual work.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Sep 3

New #OpenAccess article! Read "Learning to Love Rats: A Postwar Ecology in a Cambodian Minefield" by Darcie DeAngelo #Anthropology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Aug 28

New issue alert! The September issue of American Anthropologist is out now. It features two special sections, a year-in-review article, a multimodal collection on vanishing fieldsites, and more! #Anthropology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15481433...

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Aug 20

We're more than halfway through 2025, so we're revisiting some of the most-read AA articles so far this year! First up is Alpa Shah's "When decolonization is hijacked" #OpenAccess #Anthropology

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Aug 5

🎙️ Highlights | Check out our own @armanc.bsky.social l in conversation with @emmabunkley.bsky.social about her powerful article, “The Weight of Rumor,” from the June 2025 issue of American Anthropologist.

Listen here: www.americananthropologist.org/online-conte...

#AnthroSky #MedAnthro

#EmmaNelsonBunkley — American Anthropologist

by Armanc Yildiz In this edition of Highlights, Emma Nelson Bunkley joins us to discuss her compelling article, “ The Weight of Rumor ,” published in the June 2025 issue of American Anthropologist...

www.americananthropologist.org

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EASA @easainfo.bsky.social · Jul 29

📣 Call for Mentees!
EASA’s free, remote Academic Mentorship Programme returns Sept 2025–May 2026.
For late-PhDs, postdocs & early-career scholars (PhD ≤8 yrs).
⏰ Apply by 31 Aug 2025
🌍 Open to EASA members
🔗 easaonline.org/jobs-calls/m...

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EASA @easainfo.bsky.social · Jul 29

📣 Calling all early career anthropologists!!
🔎 @culanth.bsky.social is looking for more contributing editors to join the SCA!
Check out the posting here and express interest in joining their podcast, social media, member blog, or visual and new media team by July 30: www.culanth.org/about/about-...

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American Anthropological Association @americananthro.bsky.social · Apr 9

The search is on for the next #EditorInChief (or Co Editors-in-Chief) of #AmericanAnthropologist! This is a rare opportunity to shape the future of #Anthropology’s flagship journal & guide the discipline forward.

Learn more & apply by April 28 l8r.it/LlQJ

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Social Science Research Council @ssrc.org · Jul 21

In @amanthro.bsky.social, Emma Nelson Bunkley finds that in Senegal, women with Type II diabetes combat social stigma from weight loss that negatively affects their physical health and community participation.

Read more: anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

In Senegal, Type II diabetes often causes rapid weight loss. Weight loss is usually the reason women will finally seek out a biomedical diagnosis for their ailment. Loss of weight has many negative connotations for Senegalese women—HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, financial troubles, or an unhappy marriage. When women lose weight, they become the subject of rumors and gossip in their communities. This leads to isolation. Research has shown that isolation has deleterious mental health effects, especially in places as communal as Senegal. Worsening mental health can also exacerbate diabetes. This article explores Senegalese women's experiences with weight loss due to Type II diabetes and the effects their weight loss, in addition to their diabetes, has on their lived experience and their social networks.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Jose Leonardo Santos's article, "'Eliminate Anthropology': Attitudes toward social science in the public discourse"

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Abstract: What do people think about anthropology and other disciplines in the social sciences and liberal arts? How do negative views of anthropology influence the discipline's future? A review of public discourse from news, commentaries, scholarly literature, monographs, and institutional reports reveals anthropology's current state and direction. The results point to great distress. Analysis demonstrates powerful disapproval of higher education, the liberal arts, and social sciences threatens the instruction, practice, and ethos of anthropology. Narrative domains in popular discourse reveal active attitudes demanding and executing audits, cuts, and closures of anthropology departments; legislation restricting teaching and research; and the dissolution of anthropology's legitimacy. This review demonstrates the existence and power of such popular narratives, analyzes how they reflect a common political-economic threat to the discipline, then asks difficult, critical questions before offering recommendations to confront one of the discipline's darkest moments.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Mallory E. Matsumoto's article, "Friction in the field: Milpa, missionary, and scales of refusal in 1960s highland Guatemala"

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Abstract: This article takes a scalar view of “friction” (Tsing 2005) and “refusal” (Ortner 1995) between ethnography and the archive. The concept of friction was originally formulated in the context of a globalizing world, but friction's perception and experience are highly local. By recurrently destabilizing interactions, friction generates the constant possibility of contestation at the same time that it fosters ongoing renewal and reshuffling of social relations. Refusal, in turn, is shaped by a combination of individual agency and the contextual parameters delimiting any given social interaction. Based on a K'iche’ Maya narrative recorded by Catholic missionary James L. Mondloch in the area of Nahualá, Sololá, Guatemala, I illustrate how refusal not only informs interpretation of the oral history but shaped its 1968 telling. As debate continues over the ethics and logistics of working with legacy fieldwork data, I consider the frictions that anthropologists have to live with when working with archival data and those that we ourselves may generate.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Carol Chan's article, "Hostile friendships: Dynamics of care and conflict between migrant women in Chile"

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Abstract: Friendships between low-wage migrant workers can provide mutual support and information, as well as generate suspicion, jealousy, and competition. Indonesian and Filipino migrant women in Chile maintain counter-intuitive social relations where, despite never fully resolving ongoing conflicts over money, men, or reputations, women continue to attend to new emergencies and provide significant economic, practical, or emotional support to one another. Such friendships take on a hostile quality, where women can be aggressive or antagonistic while caring for the other's needs. These friendships that endure despite open wounds raise questions about the nature of care and obligation in contemporary urban nonkin relations. They highlight how women affectively navigate the potential harm of friendship to survive structural and everyday violence from other social relations. In decentering the role of positive affect in analyses of friendship and caring relations, I propose that a focus on such “ambivalent relationality” can present us with more realistic, although perhaps unromantic, models of how to care for one another in an imperfect world.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Emma Nelson Bunkley's article, "The weight of rumor"

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Abstract: In Senegal, Type II diabetes often causes rapid weight loss. Weight loss is usually the reason women will finally seek out a biomedical diagnosis for their ailment. Loss of weight has many negative connotations for Senegalese women—HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, financial troubles, or an unhappy marriage. When women lose weight, they become the subject of rumors and gossip in their communities. This leads to isolation. Research has shown that isolation has deleterious mental health effects, especially in places as communal as Senegal. Worsening mental health can also exacerbate diabetes. This article explores Senegalese women's experiences with weight loss due to Type II diabetes and the effects their weight loss, in addition to their diabetes, has on their lived experience and their social networks.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

Lorenzo Ferrarini's article, "Tools for relatedness: 'Fetishes' in Burkina Faso and the work of enacted metaphors"

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Abstract

In West Africa, certain objects can act in the world and interact with people as subjects. Labeled “fetishes” by Europeans, these material things have generated centuries of debates on the nature of their agency. In this article, I rely on participant fieldwork as a student in a group of initiated donso hunters in Burkina Faso, which involved using my own fetishes as operator and other people's as client. Starting from this ethnography, I suggest that the agency of fetishes is neither primary to their materiality nor ascribed by humans. Instead, it arises by mediating a three-way identification between the person who uses them and a spirit. Despite recent anthropological critiques of their use to explain away practices and beliefs, I propose using metaphors to make sense of the practical ways people enact such identification with powerful domains of being. Often found alongside metonymies, these enacted metaphors are at work in sacrifice, in embodiment, and in the sharing of substances, where a fetish acts as the body of a normally intangible spirit. While rejecting a symbolic reading of fetishes, I propose reevaluating metaphors as tools to practice relatedness and expand the limits of one's life-world.

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American Anthropologist @amanthro.bsky.social · Jul 21

🚨 Our June 2025 issue is out! 🚨
Includes 5 research articles + two special sections:
✨ Unsettling the Self: Autoethnography and Related Kin
🕯️ Ethnographies of a Dying Discipline—Anthropology in the 21st Century

Read here: anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15481433...
#AnthroSky #Anthropology

American Anthropologist | AAA Anthropology Journal | Wiley Online Library

Click on the title to browse this issue

anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Andrew Brandel @aobrandel.bsky.social · Jun 6

Since everyone is online today, it seems like as good a time as any to remind everyone to send me proposals or initial ideas for book review essays for @amanthro.bsky.social. Open to all kinds of creative and critical ideas!

Read more here:
tinyurl.com/4f2987rc

Re-envisioning Book Reviews — American Anthropologist

By Andrew Brandel

tinyurl.com

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