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Mara Dicenta

@mdicenta.bsky.social

1.1K followers 690 following 22 posts

animals, race & science | environmental knowledges | multispecies ethnography | feminist STS Assistant Prof at William & Mary

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Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · 29d

Submit your book nominations to the Sutlive Book Prize!

It goes to the best book published in prior year, in any discipline, that makes use of anthropological perspectives in order to examine historical contexts and/or the role of the past in the present.

www.wm.edu/as/anthropol...

Vinson Sutlive Book Prize and Lecture

Reposted by Mara Dicenta

MancHSTM @manchstm.bsky.social · Sep 2

Please join us for a discussion event on Extinction, with @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social and Rachel Webster, at Manchester Museum, on 18 Sept 2025.

blogs.manchester.ac.uk/chstm/2025/0...

Discussion Event: Extinction in the Museum

Please join us for a public discussion on 18 September, 6-7:30pm, led by Sadiah Qureshi, historian of extinction and author of Vanished, and Rachel Webster, curator of botany at Manchester Museum.

blogs.manchester.ac.uk

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Sep 2

Heading to #4s #4S2025 anyone else on the CLT - Seattle flight arriving at 6.41pm? Just checking in case we can share a cab? Looking forward to this!

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

sorry!

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Commentary on the Forum - Snap, Crackle, and Hiss: Noise in the System, by Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social

I, too, know how it feels to be a ghost. At least, I think I did. In the early years of this century, I found myself in the eastern...

www.at-commons.com/pub/3ngd8x6m...

Commentary on the Forum - Snap, Crackle, and Hiss: Noise in the System

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

The Anthropologist as ghost, by Emma Kowal @profemmakowal.bsky.social
In 1999, at the age of 23, I completed my first independent research project as part of my Honours year of my Arts degree at the University of Melbourne. For six weeks I was based in a villa...

www.at-commons.com/pub/givlpi3v...

The Anthropologist as ghost

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Transinstitutionalization and the Ghosts of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, by Trevor Engel

I’d like to invite you all to join me on a journey as I tease out some of the layers of loss and removal throughout the nonconsensual journey of the person...

www.at-commons.com/pub/bi2wxnk4...

Transinstitutionalization and the Ghosts of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

The Haunting Legacy of Racism in Anthropology: The Ghosts of Human Remains Identification Methods
by Thiago P. Barbosa @thiago-barbosa.bsky.social & Amanda Domingues @mandadomingues.bsky.social

This article examines the enduring legacies of colonialism and...

www.at-commons.com/pub/x2v2mu1j...

The Haunting Legacy of Racism in Anthropology: The Ghosts of Human Remains Identification Methods

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

The archive as ghost and the possibility of history
by Ricardo Roque.

In thinking about specters in anthropology’s colonial archives the image that comes to mind is of Indigenous people, namely the colonized and the subjugated, whose voices and perspectives...

www.at-commons.com/pub/u9q4ocbz...

The archive as ghost and the possibility of history

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Can orangutans speak? Conjuring the ghosts of human evolution science (by Lisette Jong)

In this essay I conjure a ghost. For long I doubted whether I was summoning or conjuring and whether my doing mattered to the ghostly apparition at all....

www.at-commons.com/pub/pneeteps...

Can orangutans speak? Conjuring the ghosts of human evolution science

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

The demands we place on the spectral Other: mediums, refractions, and the inner lives of ghosts (by Lydia Gibson @lydz-gibby.bsky.social)

What does it mean to be haunted? Good and colleagues (2022: 440) describe haunting as an affective state induced by...

www.at-commons.com/pub/ybaqzlrr...

The demands we place on the spectral Other: mediums, refractions, and the inner lives of ghosts

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

'May the eyes of the missing haunt you.' Attending to things that are not there (by Vivette García-Deister @vivavivette.bsky.social)

I first encountered haunting as a methodology unexpectedly in 2017, while conducting fieldwork in Mexico City...

www.at-commons.com/pub/dbu8b0wc...

'May the eyes of the missing haunt you.' Attending to things that are not there

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Viral Spectres, Haunting Journeys (by Michelle Bootcov)

This paper explores recursive journeys of a blood-borne virus through a Derridean hauntological lens. I trace the spectral presence of the hepatitis B virus and its antigen, and their ghost-like routes...

www.at-commons.com/pub/wyvbup7c...

Viral Spectres, Haunting Journeys

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Haunting as Anti-Method: Ecological Rage in the Wake of Organized Disappearance (by @mdicenta.bsky.social)

In landscapes marked by genocide, state terror, and ecological transformation, ghosts do not simply represent what was lost but return to disrupt...

www.at-commons.com/pub/inj74h5t...

Haunting as Anti-Method: Ecological Rage in the Wake of Organized Disappearance

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Kowal, E., & Domingues, A. (Series Eds.). (2025). Ghostly Lessons: A Forum on Haunting. @profemmakowal.bsky.social @mandadomingues.bsky.social

Haunting is experiencing a renaissance. Derrida has undoubtedly put his stamp on it with hauntology (Derrida 1994)...

www.at-commons.com/pub/k3r17d8f...

Ghostly Lessons: A Forum on Haunting

www.at-commons.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Aug 28

Ghostly Lessons: New Forum at Anthropology Theory Commons @anthrotheory.bsky.social led by Emma Kowal & Amanda Domingues

Right on time before the 2025 AAA Meeting on "Ghosts" in November @americananthro.bsky.social

Essays are short but deep (including mine)! www.at-commons.com/ghosts

Ghostly Lessons · Anthropological Theory

www.at-commons.com

Reposted by Mara Dicenta

Edge Effects @edgeeffectsmag.bsky.social · Jun 12

Today on Edge Effects, our Companion Species series dives into fishy companionship. Wading in the waters of Utah Lake, Teri Harman explores the history, resilience, and culpability of “invasive” carp in Utah Lake. Are carp the villains or victims of this story? 🐟
edgeeffects.net/invasive-carp/

Carp as Villians and Victims - Edge Effects

Teri Harman considers resilience, fishy companionship, and the culpability of "invasive" carp in Utah Lake. Are carp villains or victims?

edgeeffects.net

Reposted by Mara Dicenta

Edge Effects @edgeeffectsmag.bsky.social · May 1

Can companions be kin and consumed? Today on Edge Effects, Mara Dicenta Vilker, Micah Dill, & Elena McCullough argue yes. They take a river-view to companionship by bringing together herring restoration discourse with fishers' oral histories. 🐟 edgeeffects.net/human-herrin...

Losing Touch with Herring in the Rappahannock River - Edge Effects

Herring-human kinships along the Rappahannock River show how herring embody interspecies companionship beyond settler colonial logics.

edgeeffects.net

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Feb 18

Thanks Marisol! I'm so glad Juan Camilo is at William & Mary!!

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Feb 17

2yr Mellon Postdoc in Environmental Humanities, with focus on multispecies politics @williamandmary

Review applications begins March 14!

jobs.wm.edu/postings/64052

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow

The Environment & Sustainability Program at William & Mary, a public university of the Commonwealth of Virginia, invites applications for a two-year Mellon Postdoctoral Research Associate position tha...

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Dec 5

The STS department at RPI (great people and dept) has two Job Searches in Design and STS, one Tenure Track and one Teaching Track

careers.rpi.edu/mob/en-us/jo...

Assistant Professor in Design and Society

The Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute seeks a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the...

careers.rpi.edu

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Nov 30

Silvio siempre, en cualquier ciudad, domingo mañana o viernes noche

Reposted by Mara Dicenta

Anne Fausto-Sterling @birdlady.bsky.social · Nov 26

The National Science Foundation will soon require researchers to gain prior approval from tribal governments for any proposal that “may impact tribal resources or interests”

nativesciencereport.org/2024/03/nsf-...

#science #philsci #HPBio #anthropology

NSF Sets Higher Bar for Research Proposals Affecting Tribes

The National Science Foundation will soon require researchers to gain prior approval from tribal governments for any proposal that “may impact tribal resources or interests”

nativesciencereport.org

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Nov 19

Science as Culture Special Issue:

Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation CfP

think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...

Colonial Relations in Modern Techno-Securitisation

think.taylorandfrancis.com

Mara Dicenta @mdicenta.bsky.social · Nov 14

Deadline for abstracts tomorrow, Nov 15!

CFP: Techno-Environmental Racialization. @sthv.bsky.social

We invite contributions that explore racializing techno-environmental processes and how these are un/done by knowledge practices and multispecies relations. Submit 👇🏾
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...