Idols that ring hollow
For the occasion of this year’s Durga Puja festival in Kolkata, the likeness of a migrant woman was chosen for […]
Today’s Totalitarian Menace
Wherever one looks across the globe today democracy is in decline and trends towards what was once called “totalitarianism” are
Connected by extension – How paying connects old regimes and new isolations
The situation in Myanmar during and shortly after my fieldwork in March 2020 reminded me of the uncertainty of
Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Me
In the depths of the Depression, two girls were born to Jewish parents in New York City. One, in 1933,
“Imperialist Goats” & Tanzania’s Oct. 28 Elections
If you look at one of those world maps that show where Covid-19 cases are currently spiking, you will notice
The Montanelli Case: Sexuality, Race, and Colonial Forgetting in BLM Italy.
Indro Montanelli (1909-2001), the most famous journalist in Italian history, is an intellectual figure whose memory commands respect across Italy’s
Tasting Qualities
How does one reproduce the taste, smell and appearance of any craft based/ industrially produced food commodity? Tea is one
Tasting Qualities
Sarah Besky’s ethnographically and historically rich study of the Indian tea industry begins with a deceptively simple question: what makes
Tasting Qualities
As I write this, in the uncertain and tumultuous times of early June 2020, there is a storm brewing in
Atmospheres of change
This month, Chileans will decide whether to set in motion a process to change the country’s dictatorship-era constitution while marking