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Seeing the relevance of Anthropology in Everyday Life

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For the Love of Us All, No More Deplorables, Snowflakes, or Nasty Women

June 8, 2017 by Carie Little Hersh Leave a Comment

For the Love of Us All, No More Deplorables, Snowflakes, or Nasty Women

8 Labels I Never Want to Hear Again There are several words that have gained in popularity over the last few years that I don’t ever want to hear again: Deplorables, snowflakes, libtards, nasty women, fly-over states, urban elite, hillbilly, and liberal bubble, to name a few. These are not words we use to describe ourselves, they are words we stab at others like weapons. These are not words that explain our differences, they are words that reduce us to our differences. It is not difference that divides us, it is our contempt for difference. We can be connected to one another, despite (or because of) our differences, but the minute you start curling your lip at who someone is, the connection is over. Words like snowflakes and deplorables are labels that signal that we aren’t … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Cross-cultural Interaction, Culture, Identity, Language Tagged With: access, communication, contempt for difference, Culture, decolonizing, Deplorables, evangelical Christian, fly-over states, hillbilly, labels, liberal bubble, libtards, linguistic anthropology, nasty women, New Age, power, Representation, snowflakes, social problems, sociolinguistics, subculture, urban elite, voice, Waldorf School

Racial Purity Doesn’t Exist, and Here’s Why

May 4, 2017 by Carie Little Hersh 2 Comments

Racial Purity Doesn’t Exist, and Here’s Why

With the recent increase in folks’ throwing shade and swastikas on other people’s ethnicities, I thought I’d take a moment to remind us all that racial purity is as fictional as Draco Malfoy. Here are four reasons why race categories don’t mean what you think they do. There are No Clear Racial Divides: Like water, human genetics flow around the world, sometimes pooling up in isolated places but never really disconnected from everyone else. American genetics are no different. If there are pools of particularly briny water, or mosquito-laden water, or salt-free water, it’s because that water has been temporarily isolated from the free flow of water around the world. It is never completely disconnected, and it is never completely pure. Even the clearest flowing natural spring water has … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Biological Anthropology, Race Tagged With: biological anthropology, Ethnicity, gene flow, genotype, phenotype, race, racial purity, racism, skin color anthropology

Postmodernism Comes to America

December 5, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 2 Comments

Postmodernism Comes to America

Fake News and the End of Facts I recently had the pleasure (?) of engaging in a fruitless debate on social media with a friend of a friend. One of the innumerable fake news stories circulating this year accused a presidential candidate of some ungodly behavior. While I do not usually spend my time defending politicians, this particular claim was so unfounded and clearly refuted that I had to put in an oar with some supporting credible sources. The response to my response? “Well, anyone can find any facts to support any opinion.” The concern over fake news has been a source of nonstop discussion for the last several months, whether focusing on its influence over the election, its success thanks to social media algorithms, or its connection to foreign sources, foreign governments, and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Law and Politics, Religion Tagged With: alternative facts, Christian, creationism, deconversion, Donald Trump, Donna Haraway, evolution, facts, fake news, inauguration, Jacques Derrida, James Bielo, James Peacock, Kate Fox, Kellyann Conway, Kellyanne Conway, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, New Age, Paul Rabinow, postmodernism, press secretary, public anthropology, public science, science, Scottie Nell Hughes, Sean Spicer, social media, White House

Casual Racism and the Problem of White Identity

November 29, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh Leave a Comment

Casual Racism and the Problem of White Identity

My family is super white. We love brunch at IKEA, we have varying relationships with rhythm, and we feel slightly guilty about everything. Aside from our penchant for recording artists like Taylor Swift and John Mayer, however, our whiteness is hard to define. It is the great unmarked ethnicity, looming large but vague over more discernible ethnic identities. It is the lurking nature of white identity that makes it so oblivious to the oppressions and discriminations faced by other races. It’s what makes it so easy for us to inadvertently perpetuate them. And it’s what often pushes us in dangerous directions when we seek to define and celebrate whiteness. Indeed, the greatest sign of our whiteness is perhaps the fact that we are perpetually surprised by racism, even when it’s our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Cross-cultural Interaction, Culture, Ethnicity, Identity, Race Tagged With: casual racism, colonialism, discrimination, institutional racism, marked and unmarked categories, microaggression, overt racism, race, Rachel Dolezal, racism, Richard Spencer, Robin DiAngelo, segregation, Standing Rock, white identity, White Shamans Plastic Medicine Men

On the Backs of Other Mothers

November 3, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 1 Comment

On the Backs of Other Mothers

I had no idea I was singing the saddest song about motherhood of all time. It all started when I became curious about a lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me. It turns out that “Go to Sleepy Little Baby”, which I now sing to my babies, was from a radio show in the 1940s – The Judy Canova Show. Canova ended each episode with the lullaby, which she remembered hearing from her own mother. But the original song is much more disturbing. Although some connect Canova’s version to a Swedish lullaby, the most likely source is an African-American song, All the Pretty Little Horses, which dates to the time of slavery. Hidden in the sweet lyrics about cake and promises of horses and carriages is an often-omitted verse that is shockingly grim. As the enslaved nanny sings to the white baby … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Children, Cross-cultural Interaction, Culture, Family, Globalization, Kinship, Parenting, Social Class, Social Systems Tagged With: “All the Pretty Little Horses”, “Miss Housekeeping”, allomothers, babysitter, domestic labor, fathers, feminism, globalization, housekeeper, international domestic worker, Judy Canova Show, lullaby, migrant labor, mothers, nanny, neocolonialism, parenting, slavery

The relevANTH Guide to Choosing a Culturally Sensitive Halloween Costume

October 14, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 1 Comment

The relevANTH Guide to Choosing a Culturally Sensitive Halloween Costume

It's that time of year again, when millions of Americans hit the streets dressed as terrifying celebrities, food items, and ethically questionable depictions of others' cultural groups. To prevent West Side Story-like brawls this Halloween, and to save you from seeing the looks of horror in your neighbors' eyes when they open the door and realize you and/or your children have absolutely no moral compass, here's a quick guide to how to judge if your costume is culturally appropriate or whether you need to dig out some cardboard from the basement and get to work on some sad, last-minute, duct-taped robot costume. And as a special seasonal service, feel free to post photos of your costumes on Twitter (@relevANTH_com) and I'll give my expert anthropological opinion on how offensive it is, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Cross-cultural Interaction, Ethnicity, Holidays, Race Tagged With: Anthropology, costumes, Cultural Anthropology, culturally sensitive, Ethnicity, flowchart, guide, Halloween, politically correct, race, racism

There was “no racism before Obama”. Wait, what now?

September 29, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh Leave a Comment

There was “no racism before Obama”. Wait, what now?

Welcome to the (sur)reality that is the American election of 2016. The latest in a series of Perplexing Statements that People Believe Despite Immeasurable Evidence to the Contrary was uttered by an Ohio Trump campaign chair, Kathy Miller: “I don’t think there was any racism until Obama got elected. We never had problems like this.”  Miller, who has since resigned, went on to paint a picture of a nation whose streets were paved with gold, and whose history was as accurate and factual as that of the land of Oz: “If you’re black and you haven’t been successful in the last 50 years, it’s your own fault. You’ve had every opportunity, it was given to you,” she said. “You’ve had the same schools everybody else went to. You had benefits to go to college that white kids didn’t have. … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Race Tagged With: #blacklivesmatter, Anthropology, Barack Obama, Black Lives Matter, discrimination, history deniers, institutional racism, Kathy Miller, Peggy McIntosh, race, racism, social justice, Trump campaign chair, Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack of White Privilege, white privilege

When Nature Has to Conform to Culture: Highly Sensitive People in a Nonsensitive Culture

August 19, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 3 Comments

When Nature Has to Conform to Culture: Highly Sensitive People in a Nonsensitive Culture

Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person was like my own personal Da Vinci Code—riveting, compelling, and totally solved a mystery about myself I didn’t know existed. My whole life I felt more worn out than others, more overwhelmed and overstimulated. But being raised in a Catholic family with a Protestant work ethic and an American intolerance for anything perceived as weak, I saw my sensitivity and heightened perceptivity as personal failings to overcome. Why do I notice the tension in a couple’s conversation across the room when their immediate neighbors are chatting happily unaware? Or the fact that a child is about to fall off a chair fifteen feet away from me when his babysitter is oblivious next to him? <Just mind your own business.> Why do sore muscles, or tight … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Enculturation / Learning Culture, Gender, Sex, & Sexuality, Parenting Tagged With: Canada, China, cultural context, Culture and Personality, Elaine Aron, gender, gender roles, introversion, introvert, Japan, Margaret Mead, mental health, overstimulation, sensitive, sensitivity, shy, shyness, temperament, The Highly Sensitive Child, The Highly Sensitive Person, United States

5 Homophobic Myths Destroyed by Anthropology

July 15, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 3 Comments

5 Homophobic Myths Destroyed by Anthropology

After the horrific mass murder in June focusing on the LGBTQ community at an Orlando club, the only thing worse than the massacre has been the thread of homophobic comments following it. The folks who have been loudest about their disdain for LGBTQ members continue to rely on outdated, subjective, and outright false suppositions about sexuality to justify discrimination against LGBTQ members. It turns out that when you look globally at issues of sex, gender, sexuality, and marriage, it is extremely difficult to summarize human practices as universal or natural. They’re just too damn diverse. So, fighting “truthiness” with anthropological “factiness”, I present the top five homophobic myths that anthropology (and a little social psychology) completely demolish. Myth 1: I know … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Enculturation / Learning Culture, Gender, Sex, & Sexuality, Social Systems Tagged With: American Indian, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, Berdache, biological anthropology, bisexual, Brazil, Cultural Anthropology, disgust, Etoro, evolution, gay, gay sex on the down low, gender identity, Hijra, homophobia, homosexuality, India, intersex, intersexual, Iraq, Jon Haidt, lesbian, LGBTQ, Ma’dan clan, moral disgust, Mustergil, Native American, Ninmah, Orlando, polygamy, Pulse, queer, Raymond Kelly, same-sex marriage, same-sex parenting, Scalia, sexuality as spectrum, Shiva, third gender, transgender, Travesti, Two Spirit

How Karl Marx Ruined My Dinner Party

June 2, 2016 by Carie Little Hersh 4 Comments

How Karl Marx Ruined My Dinner Party

At dinner one night, I made two fatal social errors in rapid succession. First, during casual conversation with two good friends, I began talking about American culture. Not just culture, but how culture is linked to power and the broader social structure. If your eyes are glazing over at this point, you are beginning to understand how my dinner guests felt. Now imagine you are only half-way through dinner and I am seated between you and the door. My second social gaffe was that I invoked the name of the infamous social critic, Karl Marx. And I had the audacity to state my opinion that part of what he observed about culture is correct. The conversation went a little like this: Me: You know, I was thinking lately about Marx’s observation that modern society is divided between the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: American Culture, Culture, Law and Politics, Social Class, Uncategorized Tagged With: advertisements, advertising, American culture, bootstraps, Bourgeois, Bourgeoisie, capitalism, class structure, Communism, Communist Manifesto, consumer culture, Cultural Anthropology, elections, labor, Marx, Marxism, poor, possessions, Proletariat, social class, sociology, superdelegates, voting, wealth gap, wealthy

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Dr. Carie Little Hersh

Dr. Carie Little Hersh is an American cultural anthropologist, former attorney, and teaching professor in Anthropology at Northeastern University. This is her personal blog about anthropology and its relevance to everyday life.

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Disclaimer

As someone who was an attorney for between 3-7 minutes, I feel compelled to state that the views on this blog are mine and don’t reflect those of my employer.

 

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Bonus Disclaimer: References to specific products and services on this podcast do not constitute or imply an endorsement and the views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily state or reflect those of either relevANTH or Dr. Hersh.

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