The “great replacement theory”, “white genocide”, and “demographic winter” are all pseudoscientific conspiracy theories that did not begin, nor will they end, with Tucker Carlson or other FOX News personalities. Rather, they represent a number of deeply held American beliefs that remain at the very core of everything you’ve read in the news recently about abortion bans, anti-immigrant legislation, and conflicts over teaching race and history in public schools.
Current Affairs
Taking Stock in California: Inequity & Grief
Having meaningful conversations about systemic racism and social immobility can connect people as much as the act of absorbing someone else’s microcosm of grief and relating to it. Ideally, I think, the conversations should encompass both the macro issues and the micro everyday scenes: acknowledging the social values that might hinder social change and communicating the process of witnessing everyday pain that reminds us of our shared humanity.
Mission By Mail: Evangelism in a Pandemic
Religion is no "opiate of the masses." Rich and poor, educated and ignorant alike flock to the call of certainty in these uncertain times. Rather than action based on the fear of an angry deity’s surveillance and judgement, this is an escape from the unease within. Certainty is a kind of social power. It indicates authority. Certainty reinforces identity through the use of prescribed language. Certainty is a foundational part of action. Today’s pandemic religion is about something you can be sure of. It’s about a bid for authority seen as stolen by science, by government, by secularism, and by technology. In the same way that 'thoughts and prayers' are more of a dismissive platitude than an actual step towards healing, it’s “Amen” at a distance without much in the way of getting directly in the trenches to rescue the drowning.
Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS
Simon [1:00] begins our chat by asking what happens to your identity when you become a dependent spouse; that is, when your partner is supporting the household financially and you are not, especially in a new country. “For the last maybe 20 or 30 years, the assumption has been that both men and women will … Continue reading Ep. #45: Financial Identity, Quiet Fields, Silencing Students & Angry Anthropologists: This Month On TFS
Does Anthropology Have a Point?
Even as I attempted to (re-)present my research as anthropological, on its journey into the public sphere and a wider audience, it was interpreted and reinterpreted as ‘international relations’. When I was interviewed, I was introduced and thanked as a generic ‘PhD researcher’.
Forgotten Violence against Backpackers in Australia
While backpackers extensively contribute to the national economy as tourists and workers, they are only here on a short-term basis. Being temporary non-citizens there is less emotional investment into backpackers’ wellbeing and security. It is important to evaluate whether national policy overlooks (or even supports) the ongoing pattern of violence against backpackers because their presence benefits the national economy.
Australian families: Who’s counting?
Author: Jodie-Lee Trembath I’m writing a chapter at the moment for The Research Handbook of Global Families (due out in 2019 - stay tuned!), which is, in essence, about how families cope, adapt and sometimes collapse when they find themselves internationally ‘on the move’. As I’ve been writing it, I’ve been quizzing friends and colleagues … Continue reading Australian families: Who’s counting?
To adult is human. To outsource your adulting? Divine.
Author: Jodie-Lee Trembath My life reached a whole new level of weird recently. I signed up to a fortnightly subscription for deodorant delivery. My husband and I, as busy, professional DINKs (sort of – I’m on a PhD scholarship, but still, there are two of us) outsource a lot of our adulting responsibilities – we’ve … Continue reading To adult is human. To outsource your adulting? Divine.
A look back at the Pulse Nightclub Massacre: feelings in fieldwork
Author: Ian Pollock About one year ago, on June 13th, 2016, I was in a village down the Flores coast, south of my primary field site, where I had been invited to attend a wedding. I expected I would be in that village all day, bopping around the various rituals, feasts, and celebrations, taking notes, … Continue reading A look back at the Pulse Nightclub Massacre: feelings in fieldwork
Getting Iran right: The myopia of Trump’s Muslim visa ban
Author: Simon Theobald Most of us will have seen over the past few days images of refugees, green card holders, and travellers, arriving in US airports only to be told that they have been denied entry on the basis of President Trump’s executive order banning entry to citizens of Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia … Continue reading Getting Iran right: The myopia of Trump’s Muslim visa ban
The Familiar Strange 