Dr. Henrici kindly sent along recent press links featuring the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. With thanks, and with thanks for the work that goes into these efforts, here is a selection:

• Immigrants Fill Healthcare Worker Shortage, U.S. News & World Report:
  

  Because of the projected future need of care workers, IWPR’s report puts forth four proposals that would help to keep immigrant care workers in the country, including providing a path to legalization for undocumented care workers, and implementing a provisional visa system that could help workers to transition to permanent visa status. “The wages for a range of reasons are kept low, and we do consider that a problem,” says Jane Henrici, study director at IWPR. “We’re concerned for the workers’ sake that they be able to subsist on those salaries.” Henrici says it’s important to understand how widespread the need could soon become: “We want to avoid exploitation. That needs to be the emphasis. We all need these workers,” she says.

• America’s Fastest Growing Job Pays Poorly, CNN Money:
  

  A recent study by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates immigrants make up 28% of home health care workers, and of those, one in five are undocumented.

• Immigration bill could force hard decisions for domestic workers, employers, Newsday:
  

  “It’s a complicated question,” said Jane Henrici, study director at the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a Washington think tank on domestic women’s issues. “We want families to be able to afford care,” she said. Yet for the workers, she said, “We hope it will elevate the opportunity to earn a better salary overall.”

• The Fastest Growing Job in America Pays Less Than $10 per Hour, Think Progress:
  

  Job growth in the American health care sector doubled from January to February, led by strong gains in ambulatory care givers, hospital workers, and home health aides. And as CNN Money points out, an uptick in America’s elderly population–fueled by aging Baby Boomers–will lead to an explosion in demand for such workers’ services.

• How to Include Domestic Workers in Immigration Reform, The Nation:
  

  As a report released yesterday by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research in collaboration with Caring Across Generations states, “Currently, native-born workers in the United States are not meeting the demands for long-term care, a situation that is unlikely to change as the demand for such care continues to grow. The IWPR report also notes that some immigrants may lack the financial literacy needed to keep careful employment records. The IWPR report outlines specific immigration reform that would reach them. It notes that the current array of temporary visas almost totally excludes domestic workers with the given requirements, and there are so few employment-based permanent visas available for ‘low-skill’ work that there’s a huge backlog for domestic workers seeking to immigrate.

• Is Gender Justice Getting Shafted in Immigration Reform?, Truthout:
  

  Washington will likely ignore the recommendations of Institute for Women’s Policy Research to create a special program to bring domestic workers into the country legally, in response to high demand for home health aides and other care workers.

• Pressure on Home Care Industry, Health Care Finance News:
  

  The demand for in-home care is growing by leaps and bounds, putting pressure on the home care industry to produce enough workers to meet the demand and provide high-quality care. A webinar … addressed some of the ways the industry can ensure it meets the needs of an aging population. Hosted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and Caring Across Generations, a campaign to give voice to home care workers, the webinar’s central theme was that offering training to home care workers is key to being able to attract and keep workers in the industry and provide quality care to care recipients.

• The Real Value of In-Home Care Work in the United States, Mom’s Rising:
  

  A new briefing paper by IWPR, “Women and the Care Crisis: Valuing In-Home Care in Policy and Practice,” outlines these challenges but emphasizes that, despite the growing demand, in-home care work jobs continue to be undervalued and underpaid. While often working long hours to care for others, many in-home care workers cannot afford to take care of their own needs. According to IWPR’s analysis, the median weekly earnings for all female in-home care workers are $308, compared with $560 for all female workers in the U.S. workforce. In-home care workers are also excluded from coverage by the Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal law that helps ensure basic standards of living for U.S. workers by requiring employers to pay minimum wages and provide overtime compensation. The general lack of value placed on paid care work is due to a number of complex factors. Research suggests that what is seen as traditionally women’s labor, at all skill levels, reaps lower economic rewards. The simple fact that the majority of paid care work is performed by women could contribute to its lower average wages. Care work also blurs the lines between formal and informal labor, which can result in the workers being perceived as part of the family and make it more difficult for them to set boundaries that define the requirements and terms of their jobs. Many in-home care workers are immigrants who may lack pathways to legal status, leaving them vulnerable to low levels of pay and to abuses from employers. According to IWPR research analysis, 90 percent of home health care aides in the United States are women, 56 percent are women of color, and 28 percent are foreign-born with the vast majority (60 percent) migrating from Latin America and the Caribbean. Despite the fact that these immigrant workers are filling an essential labor gap, many remain undocumented and without clear access to citizenship or visa status. Many domestic worker and immigrant groups are waiting to see if Congress will address this issue. Among the recommendations in IWPR’s report, Increasing Pathways to Legal Status for Immigrant in-Home Care Workers (published February 2013), is an increase in the number and types of immigration visas available to immigrant care workers to help fill the labor shortage in the U.S. industry.

1. The Journal of Business Anthropology, an open-access anthropology journal has a new issue out.
2. Research in Economic Anthropology has just issued Volume 33 Engaging with Capitalism: Cases from Oceania. Three of the articles are free until 31 July 2013. Check out
   • Insights on Capitalism from Oceania by Fiona McCormack and Kate Barclay
   • “My Land, My Work”: Business Development and Large-Scale Mining in Papua New Guinea by Nicholas A. Bainton and Martha Macintyre
   • Envy, Desire, and Economic Engagement Among the Bugkalot (Ilongot) of Northern Luzon, Philippines by Shu-Yuan Yang
3. The Glossographia blog by Stephen Chrisomalis has three new entries, all worth checking:
   • AAA presidents red-linked about the need to build Wikipedia pages for past presidents of the American Anthropological Association (I’d like to see one for Ongka too, as I discussed via Twitter).
   • A serendipitous Benedict-ion on scientific humanism with reflections on a Ruth Benedict lecture. Alex Golub had also recommended this lecture on the old Savage Minds and I had discussed a bit at Ruth Benedict – Patterns of Culture. Interesting reflections, especially in the light of that strange Human Nature on The Edge event.
   • Three New Anthro Blogs which I will need to update to the big Anthropology Blogs 2013 list.
4. What Hunter-Gatherers May Tell Us About Modern Obesity. Barbara J. King bravely brings peer-reviewed anthropological research to the NPR public. Bravo!
5. Tip of the Iceberg is an article about Marginal Revolution University which reminded me of anthropologist Kerim Friedman’s idea to begin a kind of Khan Academy for Anthropology. Updated this to Black Swan Anthropology which discusses these kinds of links.
6. Been reading Globalization as a discourse of hegemonic crisis: A global systemic analysis by Jonathan Friedman and Kajsa Ekholm Friedman:
   

   Globalization discourse is deeply flawed in its very conception, expressing a gratuitous assumption of the emergence of a new era that is discontinuous with the past and whose conflicts are primarily the product of those who resist this development: nationalists, racists, localists. This discourse is itself an ideological product of a cosmopolitan elite identity that has emerged (again) in recent years and which can be accounted for, in turn, by another approach. A global systemic perspective situates cosmopolitan discourses in periods of hegemonic decline, which are also periods of economic, social, and cultural fragmentation in the hegemonic zones as well as of vertical polarization that creates a new “rootedness” at the bottom and a cosmopolitanization at the top. While these processes are underway today in the West, something quite the opposite is occurring in the emergent new hegemonic centers to the East. A global systemic approach also offers a model of today’s crisis that is absent in globalization discourse.

7. Also reading Anthropology, Economics, and Choice by Michael Chibnik (now editor of American Anthropologist). So far, very plainly and engagingly written, great primer to catch up with economic anthropology:
   

   In the midst of global recession, angry citizens and media pundits often offer simplistic theories about how bad decisions lead to crises. Many economists, however, base their analyses on rational choice theory, which assumes that decisions are made by well-informed, intelligent people who weigh risks, costs, and benefits. Taking a more realistic approach, the field of anthropology carefully looks at the underlying causes of choices at different times and places. Using case studies of choices by farmers, artisans, and bureaucrats drawn from Michael Chibnik’s research in Mexico, Peru, Belize, and the United States, Anthropology, Economics, and Choice presents a clear-eyed perspective on human actions and their economic consequences. Five key issues are explored in-depth: choices between paid and unpaid work; ways people deal with risk and uncertainty; how individuals decide whether to cooperate; the extent to which households can be regarded as decision-making units; and the “tragedy of the commons,” the theory that social chaos may result from unrestricted access to commonly owned property.

1. What Jason Richwine Should Have Heard from his PhD Committee. Wonderful anthropology from Elizabeth Chin! Lots to like here, but especially
   

   Your literature review is consistently biased, incomplete, and cursory. The only work you cite that is openly critical of the IQ-race theory is that of Stephen Jay Gould. For goodness sake, Wikipedia covers more literature than you do on the question of race and IQ.

   As an anthropologist I cannot sign off without seriously challenging the implicit ideas about race upon which your entire thesis is built.

   [Thanks to Matthew Durington for the link!]

2. Call For Papers – Society for Applied Anthropology. The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) invites abstracts (sessions, papers and posters) for the Program of the 74th Annual Meeting in Albuquerque, NM, March 18-22, 2014. The theme of the Program is “Destinations.” Dr. Erve Chambers (Maryland) is the 2014 Program Chair.
3. Who, me? I don’t believe in single-gene causation! (or do I?). Part IV. Do we need the probabilistic hypothesis? Up to Part IV in a series by Ken Weiss at The Mermaid’s Tale. I highlight this also in response to a comment on determinism from Al West:
   

   People should be aware of the issues when they make the kinds of rather hyperbolic claims to the public about the miracles genomics is claiming to deliver, based on statistical survey epistemology. Genomes may be highly predictive and determinitive, at least in specific environments, but the lack of repeatable observations in natural populations raises serious questions about the meaning or usefulness of assuming genetic determinism.

4. On a somewhat related note, although I recently took David Brooks to task for his ideas of culture and cultural problems, his Heroes of Uncertainty column is more compelling:
   

   The desire to be more like the hard sciences has distorted economics, education, political science, psychiatry and other behavioral fields. It’s led practitioners to claim more knowledge than they can possibly have. It’s devalued a certain sort of hybrid mentality that is better suited to these realms, the mentality that has one foot in the world of science and one in the liberal arts, that involves bringing multiple vantage points to human behavior.

5. Reimagine the Masters. Interesting comments from Matt Thompson. Indeed, I would have never recommended pursuing an MA in anthropology 10 years ago, but the situation may be changing.
6. The Afterlife Ethnographic Survey. Franz Boas on Facebook.
7. An exposé of the realities facing poor black children in our consumer society.

   What does it mean to be young, poor, and black in our consumer culture? Are black children “brand-crazed consumer addicts” willing to kill each other over a pair of the latest Nike Air Jordans or Barbie backpack? In this first in-depth account of the consumer lives of poor and working-class black children, Elizabeth Chin enters the world of children living in hardship in order to understand the ways they learn to manage living poor in a wealthy society.

   In order to move beyond the stereotypical images of black children obsessed with status symbols, Elizabeth Chin spent two years interviewing poor children living in New Haven, Connecticut, about where and how they spend their money. An alternate image of the children emerges, one that puts practicality ahead of status in their purchasing decisions. On a twenty-dollar shopping spree with Chin, one boy has to choose between a walkie-talkie set and an X-Men figure. In one of the most painful moments of her research, Chin watches as Davy struggles with his decision. He finally takes the walkie-talkie set, a toy that might be shared with his younger brother.

   Through personal anecdotes and compelling stories ranging from topics such as Christmas and birthday gifts, shopping malls, Toys-R-Us, neighborhood convenience shops, school lunches, ethnically correct toys, and school supplies, Chin critically examines consumption as a medium through which social inequalities-most notably of race, class, and gender–are formed, experienced, imposed, and resisted. Along the way she acknowledges the profound constraints under which the poor and working class must struggle in their daily lives.

1. Microbiomes R Us — another form of science marketing. Anne Buchanan at The Mermaid’s Tale does a nice review of the hype on microbiomes. Although such research could lead us away from ideas of genetic determinism, Buchanan shows how the research is already incorporated into deterministic readings. Reminds me of how attention to maternal environment then became “fetal programming.” Must every science story end with blueprints, programs, and another way to resuscitate determinism?
   [I should clarify this last line as "resuscitate overly-simplistic determinism." See Al West's comment below]
2. Anthropology 207x – Introduction to Human Evolution – My Goals. Adam Van Arsdale does a liberal arts MOOC. Always interesting to hear about pedagogy and goals as anthropology and MOOCs evolve.
3. Speaking of Adam Van Arsdale, see his just-published year-in-review article A Shifting Theoretical Framework for Biological Anthropology in 2012. And even mentions Anthropology Report! Thanks!
4. New issue of anthropologies, Confronting Race & Racism. Check for articles by editor Ryan Anderson as well as Agustin Fuentes, Nicole Truesdell, Francine Barone, Douglas La Rose, Candace Moore, Steven Bunce, Jonathan Marks.
5. Alex Golub’s Gillison, Sahlins, and NAS is a perceptive commentary, updated to the page on Marshall Sahlins, National Academy of Sciences, Napoleon Chagnon. It’s also interesting to note that it’s now two commentaries from Sahlins to appear in U.K. journals.
6. The Social Life of Music–in Mali by Paul Stoller. “As an anthropologist who has spent more than 30 years living among and thinking about the peoples and cultures of Sahelian West Africa, the death of music in Mali is a terrible cultural loss.”
7. Teaching Africa: A Guide for the 21st-Century Classroom. “Teaching Africa introduces innovative strategies for teaching about Africa. The contributors address misperceptions about Africa and Africans, incorporate the latest technologies of teaching and learning, and give practical advice for creating successful lesson plans, classroom activities, and study abroad programs. Teachers in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences will find helpful hints and tips on how to bridge the knowledge gap and motivate understanding of Africa in a globalizing world.”

Anthropology combines statistics and big-picture research with ethnography and detailed examination. Here are some anthropologists studying immigration who immediately come to mind. Ready for the Sunday morning talk-show circuit! And in addition to these anthropologists, see the follow-up Immigration Reform: Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

• Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz is a sociocultural anthropologist with research and teaching interests in political economy, migration, globalization, race/ethnicity/class, applied anthropology, and urban ethnography. Her research with Mexican immigrant workers in Chicago has explored how these workers negotiate perceptions of their labor as they struggle to attain autonomy, security, and dignity as undocumented immigrants in the United States. Her most recent book is Labor and Legality: An Ethnography of a Mexican Immigrant Network.

  Gomberg-Muñoz has just published 2012 Public Anthropology Year in Review: Actually, Rick, Florida Could Use a Few More Anthropologists.

  I’ve used Labor and Legality in my Introduction to Anthropology course, and Gomberg-Muñoz references my Anthropology–Best Major to Change Your Life in her review article. Thanks!

• Josiah McC. Heyman has been studying border issues, immigration, and political economy for many years. He deftly navigates both theoretical and applied anthropology, and is involved with the Immigration Policy Center. He’s also a very nice and incredibly generous person–he helped me through my own fieldwork, thinking, and writing. Heyman wrote a policy-oriented book published by the American Anthropological Association, Finding a Moral Heart for U.S. Immigration Policy. A recent article is Capitalism and US policy at the Mexican border in Dialectical Anthropology.
• Debra Lattanzi Shutika is the author of Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico, an ethnography that explores the lives of Mexican immigrants and their American neighbors in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania and the transformation of their home community in Mexico. She teaches Folklore, ethnographic writing and ethnographic research methods at George Mason University and blogs at Living Ethnography.

• Leo Chavez‘s research examines various issues related to transnational migration, including immigrant families and households, labor market participation, motivations for migration, the use of medical services, and media constructions of “immigrant” and “nation.”

  Leo Chavez’s books include Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society, which provides an ethnographic account of Mexican and Central American undocumented immigrants in San Diego County, California. Covering Immigration: Popular Images and the Politics of the Nation examines representations of immigrants in the media and popular discourse in the United States through the lens of magazine covers and their related articles. His newest book is The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation, which examines issues of anti-Latino discourse, struggles over the meaning of citizenship, and role of media spectacles in society in relation to the politics of reproduction, organ transplants, the Minuteman Project, and immigrant marches and protests.

• Ann Miles works primarily in the southern Ecuadorian highland city of Cuenca where she has explored several research projects in the nearly 20 years she has been doing fieldwork. Her first and longest project concerns documenting the changing lives of families who first came to the city as rural to urban migrants and now engage in transnational migration to the United States. Miles is the author of From Cuenca to Queens: An Anthropological Story of Transnational Migration.

• Jason Pribilsky’s specialties include Ecuadorian and Peruvian Andes; Urban United States (New York City); medical anthropology; science studies; applied anthropology; history of anthropology; ethnographic methods; migration and transnationalism; indigenous identity and activism.

  Pribilsky is the author of La Chulla Vida: Gender, Migration, and the Family in Andean Ecaudor and New York City.

• Jason De León currently directs the Undocumented Migration Project (UMP), a long-term study of clandestine border crossing that uses a combination of ethnographic and archaeological approaches to understand this phenomenon in a variety of geographic contexts including the Sonoran Desert of Southern Arizona, Northern Mexican border towns, and the southern Mexico/Guatemala border. In May 2013 Jason De León was named one of this year’s National Geographic Emerging Explorers. (Thanks to Erick R. for the alert!)
• Arizona Desert Swallows Migrants on Riskier Paths. A New York Times article on immigration, the one instance where I’ve seen anthropologists figure prominently, including forensic anthropologists Bruce Anderson and Angela Soler as well as cultural anthropologist Robin Christine Reineke at the University of Arizona.

Unlike on issues of gun reform, where as Hugh Gusterson points out in Making a Killing there was not much anthropological expertise, anthropologists have been directly studying immigration for many years. In 2011, the American Anthropological Association issued a General Statement on Immigration.

I have been relatively surprised–and this comes as a follow up to the Call for Posts on Immigration–to not see more of the anthropologists studying immigration in the news. The only example I have seen is the article on desert migrants. It may be that anthropologists are working in behind-the-scenes efforts, which are perhaps more effective, but I did want to highlight some of the anthropological expertise on this issue.

The scenes take us back to Franz Boas and the foundations of academic anthropology in the United States. Immigration was supposed to be one of the key public issues for the American Anthropological Association in 2013, but I’m not seeing any updates since the General Statement on Immigration of 2011. The AAA General Statement is important, as it discusses anthropology’s history and obligations, but it was written in opposition to state-level laws and does not comment on current national legislation.

I have also not seen much in the anthropology blogosphere (let me know if I’m missing something!). Michael Scroggins is pursuing a related track with The Political Economy of IQ at Ethnography.com, and Debra Lattanzi has been tracking immigration reform with pieces like Five Myths about the Immigration Line at Living Ethnography, but it would be nice to see more anthropology on the issues of immigration, nation, ethnicity, race, and IQ.

So this is a CFBP, a call for blog posts. I can put your work up as a guest post, promote it, or suggest another outlet in the anthropology blogosphere.

Here are some additional possible resources:

• Josiah McC. Heyman has an extended history working on these issues, including Finding a Moral Heart for U.S. Immigration Policy published by the American Anthropological Association.
• I previously discussed the AAA General Statement on Immigration and Heyman’s work in a September 2011 post Anthropology on Immigration.
• I teach Ruth Gomberg-Muñoz Labor and Legality for my Introduction to Anthropology course (and was delighted when she stopped by to comment!).
• See also Race IQ – Game Over: It was always all about wealth. Ron Unz’s article draws on reports of a rapid rise in Mexican-American IQ in a quite short timespan (and of course Unz has been denounced by the usual Race-IQ suspects). Clarence Gravlee’s work on How Race Becomes Biology is also relevant here, and see Human Skulls for more on the Boas head-shape studies.

1. Marriage and Other Arrangements. The inaugural issue of Open Anthropology, a public journal of the American Anthropological Association. A well-done collection of peer-reviewed work, with immediate social relevance. I’ve also added it to my strangely-popular and search-engine friendly Anthropology, Sex, Gender, Sexuality: Gender is a Social Construction.
   [But see Alex Golub's assessment Yes, The AAA’s new ‘open access’ ‘journal’ is just as disappointing as everyone thought it would be.]
2. Become an Expert in Less Than an Hour. Good tips from Kerim Friedman at Savage Minds.
3. La propuesta de una sola página como herramienta en antropología aplicada. This goes well with the 1-hour expert advice! “Si aceptamos el desafío de elaborar una propuesta de acción concreta, un programa social, un evento cultural, o cualquier otro tipo de intervención debemos saber que no podemos escribir un documento de 200 páginas porque no lo van a leer por las mismas razones ya enumeradas al principio de este artículo: urgencias, falta de tiempo, agenda ajustada. Es preciso ser capaz de sintetizar al extremo en una sola página toda la información necesaria para que quien tiene la responsabilidad esté en condiciones de tomar la decisión sobre nuestra propuesta. Esa información incluye los objetivos del proyecto, las acciones propuestas, los argumentos y datos duros que las justifican, el costo económico de llevarlas a cabo, los beneficios que se obtendrán y qué se ha hecho hasta el momento. Todo en una sola página. Si es más probablemente no lo lean.” I agree that the 1-page skill is desperately needed, although I also see unexpected opportunities for longer formats.
4. Against Signposting. Interestingly, in this post (Kerim Friedman is on a blogging roll!), Kerim takes a somewhat different tack than the short-and-upfront approach.
5. How scholars in the Middle East developed anthropology more than 1000 years ago. Although I generally stick with the academic-disciplinary formation for What is Anthropology, an interesting reflection here.
6. Naturalism and Anthropology. Al West meditates on issues also related to link #5.
7. Transfers of the third kind – what are they? Another off-the-beaten-path-link e-mailed to me by Aldo Matteucci, who is reading French anthropologist Alain Testart’s Critique du don.

1. Paul Stoller or Why Anthropology Still Matters. I’ve very much appreciated the writing Gina Athena Ulysse and Paul Stoller have been doing at The Huffington Post, and this is a double-dip, as Ulysse wrties about Stoller winning the Anders Retzius gold medal. Here’s Ulysse interviewing Stoller: “Anthropology will continue to get a bad rap as long as we anthropologists think and write about the human condition in obtuse ways. When I talk about my life in anthropology and the people I have come to know and love over the years, I find people in the audience moved–not because what I had to say was particularly brilliant, but because I opened my experience–my joy and pain and that of my Nigerian friends–to them and such an opening established a connection. At my last several talks, I’ve seen people shed a tear to two when I talk about the depth of my ethnographic experience and the depth of the humanity of my Nigerian friends. That kind of connect is usually missing in anthropological accounts. In my view of things, this connect should be the centerpiece of what we do.”
2. Anthropologists should do a better job of promoting their field. “Cultural anthropology’s branding problem is largely superficial. Anthropologists possess unique knowledge and skill sets that have real-world value. Anthropology helps us understand the world in a way that cannot be reduced to numbers or captured in surveys. . . . Anthropologists need to take better ownership of our brand. The complexity of anthropological concepts such as culture, power and the global should not dissuade anthropologists from engaging in meaningful public discourse.” Thanks Beatriz Reyes-Foster and Ty Matejowsky for a great column!
3. Stephen Wertheim reviews Diamond in The Nation. Alex Golub not only puts out his own reviews of Jared Diamond, Anthropology, Footnoted, he reviews the reviews. This is important work–for better or worse, Jared Diamond is approaching Margaret-Mead-like reach. Even though Napoleon Chagnon probably got more column-inches and splash in The New York Times, this has faded into a news media blip. Diamond’s book continues to get mentions and coverage. Like it or not, if anthropologists want “ownership of our brand” (link #2), we do need to tackle Jared Diamond.
4. Searching for a Career in Anthropology.
5. Sarah Franklin comments on egg-freezing, a response originally posted on ReproNet to the debate previously highlighted in Link #7.
6. Speaking in Proverbs: Language and Everyday Life in Belize.
7. Prehistoric Drugs – Cultural Tools. A blog by retired anthropologist and pharmacist Pamela Watson, now added to the Anthropology Blogs 2013 list.

Book Description: It is the anthropologist’s fate to always be between things: countries, languages, cultures, even realities. But rather than lament this, anthropologist Paul Stoller here celebrates the creative power of the between, showing how it can transform us, changing our conceptions of who we are, what we know, and how we live in the world. Beginning with his early days with the Peace Corps in Africa and culminating with a recent bout with cancer, The Power of the Between is an evocative account of the circuitous path Stoller’s life has taken, offering a fascinating depiction of how a career is shaped over decades of reading and research. Stoller imparts his accumulated wisdom not through grandiose pronouncements but by drawing on his gift for storytelling. Tales of his apprenticeship to a sorcerer in Niger, his studies with Claude Lévi-Strauss in Paris, and his friendships with West African street vendors in New York City accompany philosophical reflections on love, memory, power, courage, health, and illness. Graced with Stoller’s trademark humor and narrative elegance, The Power of the Between is both the story of a distinguished career and a profound meditation on coming to terms with the impermanence of all things.

1. Alex Golub’s full review–Anthropology, Footnoted: Jared Diamond’s The World Until Yesterday–is up and well worth a read. Added to Anthropology on Jared Diamond – The World Until Yesterday.
2. “I had no power to say ‘that’s not okay:’” Reports of harassment and abuse in the field. Kate Clancy.
3. Commodifying Conception: The Material Culture of Sperm Banks. Paul Mullins.
4. Size Matters, or Does It? Agustin Fuentes.
5. A lesson on lessening, from economics. Ken Weiss: “In the case of recent economics, hugely negative effects have resulted, because politicians bought into convenient ideas, in part citing this influential ‘research’ in their support. The word’s in quotes because it’s treated by the public, politicians, and scientists as if it were the same as gospel. But who knows how many thousands–or millions–of people lost homes or jobs, were driven into crime, disease, divorce or despair and the like, or even died because of lost access to affordable medical care, because government policy did not come to their rescue–because of a polarized commitment to some preconception?” Ideas very much related to a Black Swan Anthropology.
6. 2013 AAA Elections Going on Now.
7. Anthropology Resource. Website under construction sent to me by an international anthropology student. Seeking advice and promotion, feedback welcome.