I remember when I was a little girl, I was fascinated with war memorials. Stone colossi towering over people, gravely staring into the infinite as if seeing something none living can see. Looking at these selfless men and women who exchanged their mortal lives for the immortality of memory made me wonder why certain people and events are chosen to be remembered, and others – to be forgotten.
Ep # 92 Emergency Contraceptives & Hymenoplasty: Lisa Wynn on Sexual & Reproductive Health Tech
The Familiar Strange · Ep # 92 Emergency Contraceptives & Hymenoplasty: Lisa Wynn on Sexual & Reproductive Health Tech This podcast contains themes or topics that may be distressing or graphic for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Lisa L. Wynn is Professor in the School of Social Sciences (Discipline of Anthropology) at Macquarie University … Continue reading Ep # 92 Emergency Contraceptives & Hymenoplasty: Lisa Wynn on Sexual & Reproductive Health Tech
A Nation of Mini-Me’s: Why White Nationalists Need to “Save the Children”
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.
Ep # 91: The Hiking Middle Class & Perspectives on Perspectives This month on TFS
The Familiar Strange · Ep # 91: The Hiking Middle Class & Perspectives on Perspectives This month on TFS Welcome back to the Familiar Strange! This week is Familiar Stranger Ruonan’s first panel as a host! We think she did pretty well! Ruonan is joined this week by Familiar Strangers Alex, Andy and Irina! Alex … Continue reading Ep # 91: The Hiking Middle Class & Perspectives on Perspectives This month on TFS
Book Review: ‘Ethnicity and Democracy in the Eastern Himalayan Borderland’
In the book Ethnicity and Democracy, Mona Chettri offers a rich ethnography originating from fieldwork conducted in three EH borderland areas: Darjeeling (India), Sikkim (India), and Ilam in East Nepal. These three areas were traditionally seen as continuous cultural landscapes bounded by fluid and porous borders, defining trade, livelihood, and everyday life in the region. Chettri’s book is one of the first few works to identify the continuous yet discrete nature of Darjeeling, Sikkim, and East Nepal. Invoking the EH as a conceptual, geographical, and political space, Chettri offers a new framework within which questions of ethnic revivalism, ethnic politics, representation, political and economic vagaries, and political rights across these regions can be analysed.
Do Not Adjust Your Dial (Ep. #18 Re-release)
Apologies strange familiars. We had some technical difficulties this morning and you might have noticed an podcast briefly go out this morning that wasn't supposed to. Just a few behind-the-scenes hiccups. We will return you to your regular programming shortly. In the meantime, here's a re-release of one of our personal favourite episodes. "Livestock are … Continue reading Do Not Adjust Your Dial (Ep. #18 Re-release)
Living with Long COVID: A Reflection
As a COVID long-hauler, I inhabit a liminal space of intractable uncertainty with regards to diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and prognosis. COVID infections have blurred the boundary between the two kingdoms of the well and the sick. A new biosocial identity has emerged from the collective experience of long Covid on a global scale, where we exist ‘betwixt and between’ yet belong to neither kingdom.
Ep # 90: The First Year Special: This Month on TFS.
The Familiar Strange · Ep # 90: The First Year Special: This Month on TFS Welcome back to the Familiar Strange. We’re back with a special panel episode with familiar stranger Alex sitting down with some of the First year PhD students doing Anthropology at ANU. Mamta, Maddy and Andy were kind enough to take … Continue reading Ep # 90: The First Year Special: This Month on TFS.
A Trinket, a Trifle, and a Novel New Disciple: Fandoms and Consecrated Commodities
Religious commodification is an arena that has gained increasing interest among social scientists, especially where religious symbols and artefacts are being appropriated by both adherents and non-adherents in an attempt to capitalize on growing worldwide markets. In what Sophia Rose Arjana calls the “mystical marketplace,” these objects, many of which are distinctly associated with orientalist versions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, are stripped of their original contexts and then reimagined as representatives of a kind of timeless, exotic, spirituality to be consumed by economically dominant Westerners. But this short thought-piece is about those consecrated objects whose marketing and sale is what made them sacred in the first place (like the Tibetan Singing Bowls but drawn from Harry Potter and Star Wars rather than the Tripitaka and the Mahayana Sutras). This is about a growing link between religion and fandom and the “ritual objects” that the latter now produces.
Ep # 89 Growing Pains in the Valley: Dr Eric Hirsch on Growth in the Colca Valley
The Familiar Strange · Ep # 89 Growing Pains in the Valley: Dr Eric Hirsch on Growth in the Colca Valley Welcome back to the Familiar Strange! This week Familiar Stranger Alex sits down with Dr Eric Hirsch. Dr Eric Hirch is currently an assistant professor at Franklin & Marshall College in the department of … Continue reading Ep # 89 Growing Pains in the Valley: Dr Eric Hirsch on Growth in the Colca Valley