Category Archives: Humans as a social species

What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 4: A Conversation with Physician-Anthropologist, Dr. Bjørn Westgard

Recently, I checked in with Dr. Bjørn Westgard, to see how he was doing. Back in the ‘90s, Bjørn was enrolled in a wildly demanding, combined M.D./Ph.D. program at the University of Illinois, where I had the pleasure of serving as his academic advisor.  After completing his medical school coursework,

What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 2: An Optimist’s Scenario

Here’s what I imagine could–and should–emerge from this viral nightmare. Locally, stranger-neighbors will (re)discover each other. Re-appreciate the bonds of co-residence. Translate that appreciation into forging new relationships, even new neighborhood groups. Friendly elevator chats, book groups, block parties, children’s after-school clubs. Remember that our common humanity unites us more

What Anthropology Teaches Us about COVID-19, Part 1-Early Thoughts

Lesson 1: Like the ducks and brants my husband and I see congregating regularly by the dozens along the shore’s edge of Narraganssett Bay near our coastal home, we humans are a social species.  (Audobon’s description of the Brant: “Feeds in flocks at most times of year”), Whether indoors or

When Women’s Laughter Keeps Men in Line; or, What Gathering-Hunting Women of Central Africa Have in Common with Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, et al.

Among the Mbendjele gathering-hunting people who live in the Republic of Congo, “women’s laughter manages to keep men in line.” Drawing from ethnographic research by Jerome Lewis, anthropologist Chris Knight relates that among the Mbendjele, “senior women exercise a special privilege, seeing it as their enjoyable role to bring down

Environmental Anthropology: An Ethnographer’s View of a Cove Cleanup

The curse of the anthropologist: finding culture everywhere in nature. Publicly posted signs reinvent the medieval European town crier, or the West African village drummer   Today, the coastal neighborhood in which my husband and I now live hosted a cleanup in a nearby cove.   Of course, this effort

We Are All Africans

An impressively interdisciplinary team of geneticists, biological anthropologists, archaeologists, and geologists has just published an article detailing the genetic makeup of a man who lived in Ethiopia some 4,500 years ago. Why is this relevant today? The analysis shows close genetic ties between some contemporary Sardinian farmers, German farmers from

A Tale of Two Chins

Cell phones . . . couches . . . gyms and community centers . . . archaeologists of the future will unearth countless artifacts and buildings that will testify to the nature of our lives as social creatures. Recently, anthropologists have argued for evidence of a different sort that tells a