Provincializing Electricity by Émile St-Pierre (Osaka University) emil.stpierre@gmail.com October 30, 2020 . In the beginning, there was the steam machine. Or so starts one of the ways the Anthropocene story has been told. Much like the biblical Genesis, the Anthropocene discussion is inhabited by multiple versions, some starting with plantations, or with post-WWII U.S. petro-imperialism. … Read more
by Paul Hansen (Hokkaido University)hansenanthro@gmail.com September 17, 2018 Growing up a farm boy near Canada’s Rocky Mountains, I was surrounded by, enmeshed in, what I thought of as a world of non-human friends and foes (dogs, cats, and cows; coyotes, bees and bears; rifles, tractors and thistles). I escaped the mundanity of farm life through … Read more
Comparing Feelings of More-than-Human, Immaterial Meshworks? by Andrea De Antoni (Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto) deantoni@fc.ritsumei.ac.jp June 20, 2018 “So, do you believe in spirits?” I have been asked this question countless times, by my research partners in the field, but also by students, scholars at conferences, or even during random conversations in bars, regardless of my … Read more
Food Allergies in Japan and the UK by Emma Cook (Hokkaido University) cook@imc.hokudai.ac.jp July 4, 2018 In February 2014, as I was anticipating the start of hay fever season in Japan, I happened to turn the TV channel to a program that mentioned a particular brand of yoghurt that is said to mitigate hay fever … Read more
Introspection for Affective Anthropology by Daniel White (Free University of Berlin) daniel.white@fu-berlin.de June 20, 2018 The first time I held a robot in my arms I was overcome with a wave of sympathy. Pepper had arrived in our laboratory in a large box from SoftBank Robotics. Powered down and angled slightly forward, when I removed … Read more