I’m a scholar of gender and state violence, and I live and work at the US-Mexico border. For the past several years, I’ve worked collaboratively with large teams of Latinx-identified students to study the impacts of US immigration policies on migrants from Mexico and Central America. We realized that even though about half of immigrants are women, around 95% of deportees are men. So, we started to think about how US policies criminalize immigrant men. I became especially interested in how immigration enforcement (at the border and beyond) intersects with mass incarceration. In the list, I pick up books that trace the multinational reach of the carceral apparatus that comes to treat migrants as criminals.
Muehlmann’s beautiful, gripping book reveals how cartels and drug violence are not separate from everyday life, but instead interwoven with almost all facets of life on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border.
In a narrative style, she traces how everyday people unwittingly get into supporting the drug trade, or find themselves wrapped up in supporting traffickers without their knowledge. She also illustrates how the figure of the “narco” (drug trafficker) gets idealized in the borderlands. An incredible read for anyone interested in the complexity of the US-Mexico border.
When I Wear My Alligator Boots examines how the lives of dispossessed men and women are affected by the rise of narcotrafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border. In particular, the book explores a crucial tension at the heart of the "war on drugs": despite the violence and suffering brought on by drug cartels, for the rural poor in Mexico's north, narcotrafficking offers one of the few paths to upward mobility and is a powerful source of cultural meanings and local prestige. In the borderlands, traces of the drug trade are everywhere: from gang violence in cities to drug addiction in rural…
Life well-being has many domains beyond finances, including family, friends, health, work, education, religion, and more. I know that financial well-being is necessary for life well being but it is not sufficient. Our older daughter lives with bipolar illness. Our life well-being was decimated years ago when my daughter’s illness was diagnosed. But we’ve learned to alleviate well-being injuries in one domain from well-being medicine from the same domain and from other domains. Our younger daughter loves her sister and cares for her, and our ample finances domain lets us support our older daughter without constraining our own budget.
Members of the elite are different from the members of the working class in terms of college degrees and high incomes. I am a member of the elite. Marianne Cooper’s book helped me understand the lives of members of the working class as it places their financial and life well-being next to those of the elite.
Family is central to the life well-being of the working class. A working-class woman described her grandmother to her children as a woman who worked hard her whole life, and when she was old, she lived with her daughter and got a small amount of money from Social Security. But she would give the grandkids little amounts of money and say, “Here’s a little bit of Gran to take with you.”
In contrast, Cooper quotes the sad words of a child in an elite family whose father, a college graduate, earns high income as…
Cut Adrift makes an important and original contribution to the national conversation about inequality and risk in American society. Set against the backdrop of rising economic insecurity and rolled-up safety nets, Marianne Cooper's probing analysis explores what keeps Americans up at night. Through poignant case studies, she reveals what families are concerned about, how they manage their anxiety, whose job it is to worry, and how social class shapes all of these dynamics, including what is even worth worrying about in the first place. This powerful study is packed with intriguing discoveries ranging from the surprising anxieties of the rich…
Elesha Coffman writes about religion and ideas in twentieth century America. A journalist before she trained as a historian, she’s especially interested in the circulation of ideas—how they were communicated, how they were received, why some ideas gained traction and others did not. Her first book examined how a magazine, The Christian Century, helped define the religious tradition known as the Protestant mainline. She didn’t realize that Margaret Mead belonged to that tradition until she was invited to write about Mead for the Oxford Spiritual Lives series, billed as spiritual biographies of people who are famous for something other than being spiritual. Elesha lives in Texas, but she’d rather be at the beach in North Carolina.
The reader gets a three-for-one deal in this incredibly thoughtful book: an intimate look at two towering anthropologists by their daughter, a distinguished anthropologist herself. Mary Catherine Bateson understood her difficult parents and their groundbreaking work as well as anyone could.
Talking to her father, she wrote, was “a form of argument that was also a dance.” Her mother was “a one-person conference.” The reader gets to know each member of this remarkable family through insightful anecdotes, rare family photos, conceptual diagrams, and lucid prose.
In "With a Daughter's Eye," writer and cultural anthropologist Mary Catherine Bateson looks back on her extraordinary childhood with two of the world's legendary anthropologists, Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. This deeply human and illuminating portrait sheds new light on her parents' prodigious achievements and stands alone as an important contribution for scholars of Mead and Bateson. But for readers everywhere, this engaging, poignant, and powerful book is first and foremost a singularly candid memoir of a unique family by the only person who could have written it.
My kids tease me that I’m the family member (Nordic-European ancestry all the way) who first became fascinated with Korean culture despite their dad having been born in Busan. (Like me, my husband was raised on bologna and French’s mustard sandwiches, not bibimbap and kimchi). My research journey led me to travel to Korea multiple times. There, I discovered the remote island of Jindo, famous for delectable seaweed, the Jindo dog, a decisive battle in which Admiral Yi Sun-shin outwitted the Japanese, as well as a mysterious land bridge that parts the sea every year. I photographed the magnificent sunset overlooking Jindo and pictured my characters there.
Because I have a mudang(Korean shaman) in my novel, I wanted to research everything I could about the shamanic tradition. Among the many sources I read, this one stands out as both informative and approachable. Shamanism in Korea is an ancient religious form, yet the custom is still honored in modern Korea, and people consult mudangs for business or personal advice even today. Laurel Kendall, a cultural anthropologist, takes readers on a journey into the lives of these remarkable women as they consult with ghosts, dispatch malign spirits, and offer advice and comfort to families. I am a believer in the power of women, especially women who navigate a patriarchal society,
This exceptionally well-written book is good reading, not only for specialists but also for beginning students interested in women, Korean culture, and shamanism.
I come from a family of some of the earliest big-game hunters turned conservationists of India and grew up treading jungles with my naturalist father. As a child, I was often found trying to catch a snake or spin a yarn or reading from the collection of wildlife and natural history books at home. Jungles were as much a part of growing up as was going to school, and I learnt precious life lessons from them. To pursue the cause of conservation, I’ve written several fiction and non-fiction books, as well as articles in national dailies/magazines on wildlife and nature, and I was appointed the Honorary Wildlife Warden of Udaipur, India.
Another book (1958 edition) from my father’s fascinating library.
When I began penning my first book, I wanted to be as true as I could to a rainforest and bring forth the actual characteristics and legends of the jungles. On the Track of… gave me ideas for unusual creatures, instead of the normal elves and dwarves and fairies of fantasies. I came to know about the less-known local legends, ‘hidden’ animals, and strange creatures from the remote wild corners of our planet, be it tatzulwurms or Kongamato, the last flying dragon.
The author has combined zoology and cultural anthropology in a captivating account.
I was passionate about anthropology in the 1970s when I was in my twenties and am still passionate about anthropology in the 2020s in my seventies. Throughout the years I have expressed my passion for anthropology in university classrooms, in public lectures, and in the 16 books I have published. As my mind has matured, I understand more and more fully just how important it is to write powerfully, cogently, and accessibly about the wisdom of others. In all my books I have attempted to convey to the public this fundamental wisdom, none more so than in my latest book, Wisdom from the Edge: Writing Ethnography in Turbulent Times.
Anna Badkhen, a writer of creative non-fiction and fiction, publishes lyrical descriptions of people, place, and character. She has written about social life in Afghanistan as well as the challenging lifeways of people in Mali and Senegal.
Fisherman’s Blues, which is situated in the artisan fishing village of Joal, Senegal, is an inspiring story that describes how Senegalese fishermen employ practical wisdom, passed down from generation to generation, to maintain their way of life in environmentally challenging times.
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR AND PASTE MAGAZINE
An intimate account of life in a West African fishing village, tugged by currents ancient and modern, and dependent on an ocean that is being radically transformed.
The sea is broken, fishermen say. The sea is empty. The genii have taken the fish elsewhere.
For centuries, fishermen have launched their pirogues from the Senegalese port of Joal, where the fish used to be so plentiful a man could dip his hand into the grey-green ocean and pull one out as big as his thigh. But…
I’ve always been fascinated by how we remember the past and why some things get written into histories and other things don’t. I realized that Nothing happens all the time but no one has thought to ask how we remember it. Once I started looking for how Nothing was being remembered, I found it all around me. Books I read as a kid, movies I’d seen, songs I’d heard – these were my sources. So when I started working, Nothing got done (yes, I love puns!).
UFOs? Really? That’s not normally something I would want to read. But Lepselter embedded herself in a New Mexico community of people who believe they were abducted by aliens and makes it feel, well, real.
Do You think Nothing happened to those people? Lepselter shows how they know you’re skeptical, but they’re also traumatized and need that community of people who get it. Is the Truth out there? Did she become a believer? The ending is a stunner.
The Resonance of Unseen Things offers an ethnographic meditation on the "uncanny" persistence and cultural freight of conspiracy theory. The project is a reading of conspiracy theory as an index of a certain strain of late 20th-century American despondency and malaise, especially as understood by people experiencing downward social mobility. Written by a cultural anthropologist with a literary background, this deeply interdisciplinary book focuses on the enduring American preoccupation with captivity in a rapidly transforming world. Captivity is a trope that appears in both ordinary and fantastic iterations here, and Susan Lepselter shows how multiple troubled histories-of race, class, gender,…
I strive to inspire others through my writing, yoga card decks, and workshops; therefore, I’m passionate about finding inspiration and passing it on to others. For me discovering a dose of wise counsel or learning how someone else endured and overcame challenging times is a lifeline…especially when I feel hopelessly stuck. These 5 books are a balm for the soul, quieting the negative self-talk long enough to clear a path to joy, optimism, and creativity. I hope these recommendations bring the same sense of inspiration for you…just when you need it most!
This is a favorite resource when I feel stuck, confused, or at a crossroads. Time to seek guidance from the universe! I’ve always been a sucker for the synchronicity of messages from “beyond”—tarot cards, angel cards, the I Ching, etc. Asking a big question, choosing a rune and reading its corresponding message unfailingly provides clarity and inspiration. In fact, I just selected a rune: Inguz, symbolizing new beginnings. Here is a portion of the message: “…Inguz counsels preparation. Being centered and grounded, freeing yourself from all unwanted influences, and seeing the humor, you are indeed prepared to open yourself to the Will of Heaven, and can await your deliverance with calm certainty.”
A new age classic and bestseller for more than thirty-five years, The Book of Runes by cultural anthropologist Ralph H. Blum is the most renowned volume on the subject of learning how to consult this ancient Viking alphabet for self-counseling.
Based on a tradition more than two millennia old, Ralph H. Blum presents contemporary interpretations of Rune casting for Spiritual Warriors, people seeking wisdom and guidance to affect positive change in their present lives to build a better future.
Michael Corballis is a psychologist and brain scientist. His interests lie in how the mind works, how it maps onto the brain, and how it evolved. Much of his work is published in books and scientific articles, but he has also written books aimed at a general readership. These include Pieces of Mind, The Lopsided Ape,The Recursive Mind, The Wandering Mind, and The Truth about Language.
For more than half a century, the science and philosophy of language have been dominated by Noam Chomsky, who holds that language depends on an innate, uniquely human capacity to generate complex structures. In this view, language is an aspect of thought, and communication is of little interest or relevance. In his own words, Daniel Dor “turns Chomsky on his head,” so that communication itself becomes the focus. Language is a means of expression, collectively invented by our ancient forebears, to go where the senses do not go—into our minds. This book should help transform our understanding of language as a practical technology rather than a biological oddity.
The book suggests a new perspective on the essence of human language. This enormous achievement of our species is best characterized as a communication technology - not unlike the social media on the Net today - that was collectively invented by ancient humans for a very particular communicative function: the instruction of imagination. All other systems of communication in the biological world target the interlocutors' senses; language allows speakers to systematically instruct their interlocutors in the process of imagining the intended meaning - instead of directly experiencing it. This revolutionary function has changed human life forever, and in the book…
As a family law professor, I spend a lot of time thinking about marriage. Although it is an extremely personal decision, the legal, social, and even political ramifications can be tremendous. Marriage is not just an individual choice. Each year, I teach my family law students that there are three parties to every marriage, the two spouses, and the state. The books on this list reveal how the state has influenced marital decision-making and also, how individual marital decisions have influenced the state. These books show that marriage can protect and benefit spouses, but that it can also harm them through the promotion and acceptance of society’s biases and prejudices. As the actress Mae West once stated, “Marriage is a great institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.” The following books highlight the wisdom of West’s words.
Primates of Park Avenue provides a gripping and somewhat horrifying look at love and marriage within the elite social circles of Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The book reveals that among the uber-wealthy, marriage has more in common with the Victorian marital bargain than with modern-day ideas about partnership and equality. Readers will likely be both repulsed and enthralled by the world Martin describes; a world in which women trade professional success for wealthy husbands and receive year-end “wife bonuses” when they have performed their wifely roles well. Primates of Park Avenue proves the old adage, “when you marry for money, you’ll earn every penny.” At the same time, it also shows why, for many, the allure of marrying for money remains irresistible.
An instant #1 New York Times bestseller, Primates of Park Avenue is an "amusing, perceptive and...deliciously evil" (The New York Times Book Review) memoir of the most secretive and elite tribe-Manhattan's Upper East Side mothers. When Wednesday Martin first arrives on New York City's Upper East Side, she's clueless about the right addresses, the right wardrobe, and the right schools, and she's taken aback by the glamorous, sharp-elbowed mommies around her. She feels hazed and unwelcome until she begins to look at her new niche through the lens of her academic background in anthropology. As she analyzes the tribe's mating…
![Book cover of Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad [1695-2010]](https://res.cloudinary.com/hzpwrwfdi/image/upload/w_220/media/covers/61-5BRaHc3L_uyqt7s.webp "Book cover of Shapely Ankle Preferr'd: A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad [1695-2010]")
