Anthropology with lift-off
Anthropology with lift-off Go to Source
Antidomestication in the Amazon: Swidden and its foes
Antidomestication in the Amazon: Swidden and its foes John Locke never acknowledged the existence of any agriculture and hence of property in the Americas. Yet, one can say that in…
Shedding light on diverse cultures of mathematical practices in South Asia: Early Sanskrit mathematical texts in conversation with modern elementary Tamil mathematical curricula (in dialogue with Senthil Babu)
Shedding light on diverse cultures of mathematical practices in South Asia: Early Sanskrit mathematical texts in conversation with modern elementary Tamil mathematical curricula (in dialogue with Senthil Babu) Discourses promoting…
Rhetorical antinomies and radical othering: Recent reflections on responses to an old paper concerning human-animal relations in Amazonia
Rhetorical antinomies and radical othering: Recent reflections on responses to an old paper concerning human-animal relations in Amazonia Notions of animals as social subjects held by Amazonian Indians have played…
Modeling, ontology and wild thought: Toward an anthropology of the artificially intelligent
Modeling, ontology and wild thought: Toward an anthropology of the artificially intelligent The question at the heart of this essay begins with a curious mid-twentieth-century co-occurrence in the Anglo-American world:…
Objective functions: (In)humanity and inequity in artificial intelligence
Objective functions: (In)humanity and inequity in artificial intelligence It is hard to say which is more satisfying: the discovery of order in the material world (science), or the imposition of…
Is there mathematics in the forest?
Is there mathematics in the forest? Scholars from different fields and epistemological orientations —including anthropologists, science historians, and mathematicians—have argued that technical and social practices of indigenous peoples, exemplified by…
Mathematical traditions in Ancient Greece and Rome
Mathematical traditions in Ancient Greece and Rome There were different ways of doing mathematics in the ancient Greek and Roman world. This essay will explore historiographical approaches to this diversity,…
A clash of ontologies? Time, law, and science in Papua New Guinea
A clash of ontologies? Time, law, and science in Papua New Guinea Stimulated by recent discussions of temporality, this essay is about abrupt transitions. What is happening when such transitions…
Inventing nature: Christianity and science in indigenous Amazonia
Inventing nature: Christianity and science in indigenous Amazonia Based on long-term ethnographic research among the Wari’ Indians from Amazonia, this essay aims to analyze the ontological and moral changes related…
Different clusters of text from ancient China, different mathematical ontologies
Different clusters of text from ancient China, different mathematical ontologies Sources attesting to mathematical activities in ancient China form at least four distinct clusters of texts, bespeaking at least four…
New publishing demands new magic
New publishing demands new magic Go to Source
The clash of ontologies and the problems of translation and mutual intelligibility
The clash of ontologies and the problems of translation and mutual intelligibility We face interlocking questions: (a) of translatability/mutual intelligibility and (b) ontology/reality—that is, what is there to be understood.…
What is a polity? 2018 Lewis H. Morgan Lecture
What is a polity? 2018 Lewis H. Morgan Lecture In this revised text of the 2018 Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture, we encounter two communities—one a village in highland Crete, the…
Deconstructing anthropology: First Annual Stephen F. Gudeman Lecture
Deconstructing anthropology: First Annual Stephen F. Gudeman Lecture This lecture makes a start at deconstructing some of anthropology’s most venerable avatars. Classical theories invoked a certain kind of person as…
Future orientations
Future orientations Go to Source
The semi-scholars
The semi-scholars Go to Source
Introduction to The semi-scholars, by Arnold van Gennep
Introduction to The semi-scholars, by Arnold van Gennep Go to Source
Total social phenomena and social dynamics
Total social phenomena and social dynamics Go to Source
Precariousness and prosperity among Javanese fish traders
Precariousness and prosperity among Javanese fish traders Fish traders in a port on the north coast of Central Java say that they work as hard as they do so that…