AnthroPod

Rachel Watkins, an Associate Professor of Biological and Cultural Anthropology, dives into the tangled web of scientific racism. She explores how early anthropologists falsely linked physical traits to intelligence, shaping harmful perceptions. Watkins highlights the colonial roots of racial constructs and their enduring impact. She also challenges misconceptions about race in sports, critiquing outdated stereotypes. Her discussion underscores the need for more inclusive and culturally aware approaches within biological anthropology to combat the legacies of racism.

Lilly Irani discusses the human labor behind artificial intelligence technology. Irani helped create a platform called Turkopticon to support workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk, a website that outsources micro data processing work. Irani also talks about her current book project on entrepreneurialism and national development in India.

Keith Murphy discusses the anthropology of design through his work on Swedish design as well as bringing design methods into ethnography through ethnocharrettes.

Cassandra Hartblay discusses design and ethnography through her work on disability in Russia.

Theory, method, and politics of studying human-animal relations from anthropological perspectives with Nikhil Anand, Philippe Descola, Radhika Govindrajan, Laura Ogden, and Paige West.

Guest podcaster David Lein examines the impact of Pokémon GO on communities, both digital and physical, in conversation with Michigan-based scholars John Cheney-Lippold, Eric Montgomery, and individuals in Detroit who are using Pokémon GO.

In the third and final episode in our trilogy on outer space, anthropologist Valerie Olson discusses systems thinking in the Anthropocene, off-world architecture and garbage, as well as food and health beyond Earth.

In the second episode in our trilogy on outer space, anthropologist Debbora Battaglia discusses cosmo/politics, the diary of a space zucchini, and the social life of moon dust. For more, visit culanth.org.

The role of race, class, gender, neoliberalism, and more in the 2016 election discussed by leading anthropologists.

In the first episode in our trilogy on outer space, anthropologist David Valentine discusses haircuts in space, the colonization of Mars, the rise of the billionaire-led NewSpace community. For more, visit culanth.org.