...time is not natural: it is a social product. A year might be the duration that has elapsed as the Earth circles the sun, but our planet’s orbital position tends to have little bearing on how I conduct myself as a person. However, a New Year’s Eve party? There you’ll see me reflecting, resolving, disclosing, mourning, celebrating, making amends, taking chances, jumping into new beginnings, and, above all, falling back into the same old patterns. Time is made knowable through the procession of meaningful events that we use to punctuate its abstract passage.
Month: August 2022
Ep#95: A Hex for My Ex: Witchcraft & AI Podmen: This Month of TFS
The Familiar Strange · Ep#95: A Hex for My Ex: Witchcraft & AI Podmen: This Month of TFS Welcome back to the Familiar Strange! This week we welcome Emma, one of the newest familiar strangers! For this panel, we dive into some of Emma’s work as a “Witchy” Anthropologist and how it plays into her … Continue reading Ep#95: A Hex for My Ex: Witchcraft & AI Podmen: This Month of TFS
Reflections on Novel Writing in Anthropology
Ethnographers have long struggled with the nebulous in-between spaces of science on the one hand, and story-telling on the other. It was what my frustrated seminar professor described as the tension between “a world” and “the world” in the writing of ethnography. Are we, the researchers, tasked to be faithfully re-creating the world as it actually was during our fieldwork? Or are we simply weaving a fiction; complete with dramatis personae, compelling character arcs, and promises of redemption that exist purely in a world of our own perspectives? Are we following the clues to solve our case, or are we leading our audience down a path that was already drawn from the beginning? A little of both and neither?
Ep #94 : Social clinics of solidarity: Dr Letizia Bonanno on the Practices & Modes of Care in Athens
The Familiar Strange · Ep #94:Social clinics of solidarity: Dr Letizia Bonanno on the Practices & Modes of Care in Athens This week Familiar Stranger Tim speaks with Dr Letizia Bonanno. Dr Letizia Bonanno is a medical anthropologist working on issues of care and pharmaceuticals. In March 2019 she earned her PhD in Social Anthropology … Continue reading Ep #94 : Social clinics of solidarity: Dr Letizia Bonanno on the Practices & Modes of Care in Athens
Book Review: ‘Abject Relations: Everyday Worlds of Anorexia’ (2009) by Megan Warin
From screens and tabloids, we are fed images of slender bodies. For decades sleek and angular silhouettes were said to be icons of style, fashion, beauty, youth, and desire. This trend is often blamed to be the source of anorexia. But is anorexia nervosa as simple as that? In her book 'Abject relations: everyday worlds of anorexia' (2009), Megan Warin takes us on a journey to find the answer.
The Familiar Strange 