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A long-term view of the California coast in JCR
I have a new article coming out in the Journal of Coastal Research (JCR) soon. The article takes a long-term anthropological and archaeological look at the California coast, focusing on the issues of erosion, shoreline loss, sand replenishment, and the whole question of retreat. The photograph of the Oceanside pier (above) is one of a… — read more
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ATG #3: From Blade Runner to Luis Arraez Edition
After a bit of a fall hiatus due to all the stuff that’s happening everywhere, here’s another installment in my Anthropology the Gathering (ATG) roundup: 1) Blade Runner and anthropology: I got to teach my class on culture, film, and media this past fall quarter. We watched Blade Runner 2049 and read a 2021 piece… — read more
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News: Anthro community spotted this past week
This is just a brief news report that a bit of the old anthro community was spotted online this past week, thanks in part to this post from the folks at Cultural Anthropology (hi Adam): What would it take to make #AnthroSky what #AnthroTwitter was?— Society for Cultural Anthropology (@culanth.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 6:01… — read more
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Eric Wolf for this Friday morning
Here’s a quote from Wolf’s 1982 book that remains applicable in so many ways here in 2026. You just need to update some of the names that have been turned into things and subsequently turned into targets of war (although in many ways the names, things, and targets of war remain largely the same): By… — read more
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About those ancestry dot com commercials (2018)
Editor’s note: This a piece from 2018 that was originally published on Anthrodendum. Slightly edited for clarity. In the fall 2017 quarter I kicked off my intro to cultural anthropology course with one of those Ancestry dot com videos. These are all over the place, and many of them carry the same basic theme. They… — read more
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The economic and social meanings of rebuilding on an unruly coast
This was originally published on The Exchange, via the Society for Economic Anthropology, in 2023. Why, after disasters, do communities keep rebuilding? And why, in particular, would they keep rebuilding certain problematic structures, like seawalls and piers? These are questions that often get asked every time another storm, or hurricane, hits a coastal town. It’s… — read more
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Anthropology The Gathering #2 (Bundt cake and aristocratic power edition)
Welcome back to my semi-regular roundup of anthropology-related happenings. Here’s what I have for you this time around: 1) Now is a time for Bundt cakes Considering all the madness in the world, the logical place to start here is with Bundt cakes. I was cleaning out our garage this past month and I happened… — read more
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small photographs forgotten (2015)
This was originally published on Savage Minds in 2015. Republished here for archival purposes and just for fun. -RA A box of photographs. Disheveled, sitting in a corner in our garage. Left behind by previous residents. Nobody seems to know where it came from or who it belongs to or whose faces are mixed in… — read more
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Anthropology The Gathering #1
I think it’s fair to say that the discipline of anthropology feels…quiet these days. I’m mostly talking about anthropology online. Much of this is likely because the discipline and what it stands for is basically under attack in the current political moment. It also did not help that one of our main channels of public… — read more
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