Around the Web Digest: Week of May 17

 

And we’re back for the shift into the summer blogging season! Thank you for your submissions… send anything of interest to me at rebecca.nelson.jacobs@gmail.com.

Bioarchaeologist Kristina Killgrove is blogging at Forbes. Several recent posts look interesting but I pulled out this one on dentistry: Roman Forum Yields Stash Of Teeth Extracted By Ancient Dentist 

This post on The Conversation describes the discovery of ancient stone tools that have reset the boundary for toolmaking yet again: Our Stone Tool Discovery Pushes Back the Archaeological Record by 700,000 Years 

Anthropologists for the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions is hosting a series of posts by Palestinian anthropologists, such as this one: We Are All Uncomfortable: On Academic Boycott & What Is Productive

Given that my own perspective is admittedly centered in the USA, I enjoyed this post on the Dutch blog Standplaats Wereld that explores the question of standpoint: Confessions of a Native? Anthropologist in the Making

This series in Scientific American has been exploring food culture in Queens, NY. I’ve often thought about the question of genre myself in working with handicrafts in Central America: how do regional styles come about? Rice and Beans: How Does Culture Become Generic?

What does it mean for games to be “representative,” especially along gender lines? The Geek Anthropologist reviews recent work on this topic: Pixels and Politics: Representation in Video Games 

Culture Matters describes the case of New South Wales Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages v Norrie, in which a Scottish person’s non-specified gender disrupted the legal need to classify people according to gender binaries: Biologically Constructed

I hope you’re reading this next to a pool! You deserve it.

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Rebecca Nelson

Rebecca Nelson is the executive director of América Solidaria U.S. She recently graduated with a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on volunteer tourism in Guatemala and how it is opening up new avenues for tourists and hosts to develop more cosmopolitan understandings of the world (as well as opening up new forms of friction over the circulation of knowledge).