Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
This essay analyses the goings on of First Minster’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament. Through the realisation that this spectacle is largely semi-scripted I make the argument that the idea of the state relies on the charisma o…
Abstract:This essay will explore pedagogic engagement in a Dutch sustainability site, De Ceuvel. Self-labelled as the “clean-tech playground”, De Ceuvel is a publically accessible site which houses scientists, creatives and a café, an…
This essay proposes the application of the concepts of ‘small’ and ‘big’ stories theorised by Lyotard (1984) to the discipline of visual anthropology, by focusing on the issues of ‘generalisation’ and ‘individuality’. The primary question on…
This paper looks to investigate how running groups function in public space, both in terms of how they find their way and how they interact with other users. It builds on theories of wayfinding and the study of mobilities to examine how diff…
Historical records allow the lingering presences of people of the past to be traced. This study documents a search for recorded eighteenth-century sex workers in Edinburgh, assessing whether ghosts can be brought under anthropological inquir…
Summary: Since its inception in the 1980s, the US ‘Sanctuary Movement’ has been the source of contentious political debate and academic discussion. Although originally a clergy-based effort of transnational activism, ‘sanctuary’ has since di…
This essay will examine the affective relationships people have with human remains and by extent, the souls of the deceased in Aguni, Okinawa. In conceptualising care, I will explore how senkotsu (bone washing) and other emerging mortuary pr…
The following essay is based on fieldnotes I took during my dissertation fieldwork in Beirut, Lebanon. It focuses on Beit Beirut, a building used by snipers during the height of the Lebanese Civil War, but that has now been repurposed as a m…
Ghost tourism is big business in Scotland and in Edinburgh specifically. This paper is based off ethnographic fieldwork conducted with a number of the Scottish capital’s ghost tour companies. It is concerned primarily with the performa…
Although a population recognised externally for their itinerancy, the mobility of Gypsy Travellers in Scotland has been fundamentally misunderstood. Endowed with creative power, mobility exists for Gypsy Travellers not only in times of trans…
This essay reflects on the politics of abandoned buildings juxtaposed with memorials to a thriving industrial past whilst walking through Leith. I argue that these abandoned buildings reveal capitalism’s inherent obsolescence and counteract …
This essay explores how student members of an LGBTQ+ rights organisation discursively navigate queer identifications and concepts of belonging, based on fieldwork conducted in Quezon City, Philippines. I argue that elements of ‘gay lingo’, o…
What does gun ownership mean to armed women in a city in the Midwestern United States? Gun culture is an aspect of American life which has been neglected in anthropological literature. I examine how armed women I met and shot with told me ho…
My paper is concerned with decolonising contemporary museological practice, specifically in relation to ethnographic collections at the Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver. I propose that display practices can be reformed through Indigenous co…