Yesterday, I started an email to my supervisor with the opener “I am wearing shoes today and it seems to make me more productive. How’s it going in your kitchen-office?”
Author: The Familiar Strange
Ep #56: Imagined Communities, Freedom, Death and not blaming Capitalism: This month on TFS
Given the recently instigated social distancing rules in Canberra, this week we bring you a special “online” episode! For the safety of everyone, and especially in line with our own efforts to flatten the curve, we recorded this panel from the comfort of our own homes using the increasingly popular online video conferencing tool: Zoom. … Continue reading Ep #56: Imagined Communities, Freedom, Death and not blaming Capitalism: This month on TFS
Taking it Seriously: Comparing COVID-19 to malaria
The situation in which we now find ourselves in the privileged postcolonial West is a new one in the postwar period, but one that is more known to more people across the world, than not known. In these places, people know that caring about your community is often the most rational, logical thing that one can do for survival and well-being. Never is this logic more evident than now.
Beyond the Irish Border: A plague on both my houses in the time of COVID-19
Differing approaches to COVID-19 divided by the rolling hills and windy roads (of which there are many) of one of Europe’s most porous borders, have precipitated a personal sense of panic. To move, to cross at that moment would be to transit between contrasting regimes of existential risk, from caution to putative disregard. It has been hard to bear.
Ep #54: Social Duties: This month on TFS
This month on TFS, we are joined by special guests Sophie Pezzutto and Saidalavi P.C., two PhD candidates from the Australian National University. Sophie's research interests are on social media and the gig economy in relation to the transgender community, while Said is working on caste among Muslim communities in Southern India. You can check … Continue reading Ep #54: Social Duties: This month on TFS
A Cultural Zoo: Shaligram Stone in an Ammonite World
Author: Holly Walters, a cultural anthropologist at Wellesley College, United States. Her work focuses on religion, language, and ritual practice in South Asia. Her current research addresses issues of political practice and ritual mobility in the high Himalayas of Mustang, Nepal among Hindu and Buddhist pilgrims who venerate sacred ammonite fossils, called Shaligrams. Holly is … Continue reading A Cultural Zoo: Shaligram Stone in an Ammonite World
Ep #52: An exploration of truth & trust: This month on TFS
Welcome to our first podcast of 2020! And to kick of the new year season of TFS, we are joined by the lovely Kirsty Wissing, PhD candidate from the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University. Alex [1:16] begins off our discussion with a bit of activism. Referring to the work … Continue reading Ep #52: An exploration of truth & trust: This month on TFS
Ep. #51: Newsworthy stories, Becoming projects, Ethics of danger & Balancing values: This month on TFS
Jodie [1:26] begins our panel this month with a recent incident in Canberra, Australia, where a woman was shot by a 'random' gunman. Luckily her wound was not life-threatening. This story was HUGE here, but at the same time the story was released, Australia was (and currently still is in some places) on fire. Jodie … Continue reading Ep. #51: Newsworthy stories, Becoming projects, Ethics of danger & Balancing values: This month on TFS
Other People’s Clutter
perhaps the most perplexing item she had kept from her time was the empty casing of an artillery shell from World War Two. She told me that many of the ladies would find these shells (sometimes still live) and would commission a local Papua New Guinean man to convert them into modest flower vases.
BONUS EPISODE: Faire une anthropologie multilingue, avec Monica Heller et Émilie Urbain: TFS in French
Monica Heller est professeure en anthropologie linguistique à l’Université de Toronto (Canada). Émilie Urbain est professeure adjointe de linguistique au département de français de l’Université Carleton. Elles sont bilingues (français/anglais). Elles ont grandi et travaillent dans des zones périphériques des marchés linguistiques dominants de production du savoir anthropologique que sont les États-Unis et la France … Continue reading BONUS EPISODE: Faire une anthropologie multilingue, avec Monica Heller et Émilie Urbain: TFS in French
The Familiar Strange 