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Seeing the relevance of Anthropology in Everyday Life

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An Anthropologist’s Obsession with Outlander

May 3, 2018 by Carie Little Hersh 139 Comments

An Anthropologist’s Obsession with Outlander

I have been on hiatus from blogging for some time, mainly due to two factors. First, I launched a public anthropology podcast, Anthropologist on the Street (huzzah!), which has been a fabulous excuse to spend hours talking to brilliant, and often funny, anthropologists and to force them to explain in plain English why their work is important. It’s like free college, but with fewer exams and hangovers. The second reason is because I recently discovered the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. Eight books and 7500 pages later, I popped my head up to observe that my children had outgrown all their clothes and had resorted to eating grass, as mommy hadn’t bought groceries because MOMMY WAS READING. After feeding the darlings and reenrolling them in school, I dragged my husband into watching … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Fiction, Gender, Sex, & Sexuality, Identity, Social Systems Tagged With: #MeToo, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, An Echo in the Bones, Anthropology, Caitriona Balfe, Claire Fraser, Cultural Anthropology, Diana Gabaldon, Dragonfly in Amber, Drums of Autumn, gender, humanism, Jamie Fraser, Outlander, Sam Heughan, Starz, The Fiery Cross, Voyager, Written in My Own Heart's Blood

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

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

Surviving the Holidays, Anthropologist Style

December 19, 2015 by Carie Little Hersh 1 Comment

Surviving the Holidays, Anthropologist Style

As the holidays inch closer, and you’re beginning to dread joining the bag of mixed nuts you call your family, consider approaching them with anthropologists’ eyes this year. Participant-observation is the primary way cultural anthropologists come to understand people who live very different lives from their own, but we use it also to understand people who are *ahem* uncomfortably close to us, too. Rather than hitting the eggnog too hard and arguing with Aunt Fifi about her political views, pretend you’re writing a book on people you don’t know anything about and respectfully ask auntie about her politics. Sit at the kids’ table and check out how different the conversations (and the table customs) are from the grown ups’ table. Notice with new ears how, despite the fact that your black … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Kinship, Participant-Observation Tagged With: biological anthropology, Christmas, Cultural Anthropology, Dian Fossey, family, holidays, interview, Jane Goodall, mindfulness, participant-observation, primate studies, stress

How creating your own ritual can bring surprisingly deep meaning

November 9, 2015 by Carie Little Hersh 3 Comments

How creating your own ritual can bring surprisingly deep meaning

New Year’s Eve of 2007 was grim. My husband and I hosted a party of battered friends, most of whom were under the age of 35. Within the group, two were recovering from cancer, two were the primary caregivers and spouses of those recovering from cancer, and one was grieving the loss of a husband who had died unexpectedly, leaving her a single parent of a 2 year old son. Others were wrestling with “normal” life stuff: struggling to conceive, feeling overwhelmed at work or frightened by the job market, helping ailing parents, or striving to finish their education. All were stricken with the amount of suffering the others in the room had experienced, and had spent the year supporting each other: dropping off meals, visiting hospitals, attending funerals, or traveling to offer support. In … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Ritual, Symbol Tagged With: Anthropologist for Hire, Anthropology, Arnold Van Gennep, Bar Mitzvah, Catholicism, Claire Farrer, Communion, Cultural Anthropology, Liminal Phase, Liminality, Marriage, Meaning, Miranda Wedding, Navy Ritual, New Year's Eve, Rites of Passage, Ritual, Sex and the City, Symbols, Thunder Rides a Black Horse, Transformation, Victor Turner, Wedding

So What Exactly is ANTHROPOLOGY?

August 21, 2015 by Carie Little Hersh 12 Comments

I had no idea what anthropology was when I began college, I just knew I loved the course titles.  “Language and Culture”. “Gender, Sex, and Sexuality”. “Religion and Modernity”. The cultural anthropology classes covered everything, everywhere, from race to medicine to law to food, from the Caribbean to Africa to Southeast Asia to Kansas. The archaeology classes covered history around the globe, from the birth of nation states to ancient trade routes to the way people made cloth, and everything in between. The biological anthropology classes examined the biology of humans and our ape cousins, and how we adapted over time to survive in amazingly diverse settings. The linguistic anthropology classes examined how we are physically designed for language to the innumerable forms that language … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Culture Tagged With: Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Culture, Public Anthropology blog

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.

 

relevANTH is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

 

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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