Research | Platypus

“It’s like… ‘You’re welcome. Love, science’”: On Doing Critical Anthropology when the Enterprise is Under Attack

 Aaron Neiman  May 1, 2025

Next month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first ever working draft of our species’ entire genetic code. It was a major milestone in the Human Genome Project (HGP), the ambitious international effort which began in 1990 and which remains one of the largest collaborative biology projects in history. The announcement was the subject of much fanfare, making the front page of the New York Times and the cover of TIME (headline: “Cracking the Code!”). In an offical ceremony marking the occasion, President Bill Clinton was joined in the East Room of the White House by NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, the ambassadors of France, Germany, and Japan, and, via satellite, British Prime Minister Tony Blair. The President proudly summarized its top-line finding: race was indeed skin-deep, a trivial outer difference belying a profound biological sameness. (read more...)

Laughter and Dreaming of Wins in Recovery

 Hannah Ali  April 29, 2025

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“Hannah, roll a six!,” Mahad, Alliance Wellness recovery program resident, pleaded as the game of Ludo intensified. Ludo, a strategic and competitive board game, was popular among Somali American men, such as Mahad, who were in the process of renegotiating their dependency on substance use. These men also held vivid memories of playing Ludo in Somalia and neighboring countries that they moved through as they sought asylum from Somalia’s civil war. I first heard about Ludo when I began fieldwork at Alliance Wellness, a recovery program for an East African communities that was developed out of community need in Bloomington, Minnesota. With increasing rates of opioid related addiction and deaths among Somali Americans, Yussuf Shafie recognized a need for culturally appropriate therapy and recovery programs for Somali Americans in Minnesota (Feshir 2019). (read more...)

What are “Walking Simulators,” Ethnographically?

 Yifan Xia  March 4, 2025

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“Gaming” is conceptually branching out. It “virtually” overlaps with museum visuals and actively engages with lived cultures and heritage. Both developments point out that perhaps even with the prevalence of computation, there is still something we can learn from sociocultural anthropology, especially the anthropological ways of writing cultures – ethnography. (read more...)

Thinking with Epistemic Things: Quality and its Consequences in Agri-Commodities Markets

 Amrita Kurian  January 28, 2025

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This is a thought experiment on the consequences of technical rationality, the dominant epistemology of practice that tells us that “professional activity consists in instrumental problem solving made rigorous by the application of scientific theory and technique” (Schön 2017, 22). My aim is not to demonize technical rationality at the outset. Instead, I attempt to lay out the stakes of such a project when scaled beyond the confines of the spaces where experts conceive them. What happens when an “epistemic thing”—an unstable, experimental object of scientific research—is taken out of the controlled confines of the lab or the pages collated from a scientific symposium and introduced into the real world (Rheinberger 1997)? To borrow Anna Tsing’s phrasing, what happens when you increase the scale of an experiment without altering its frame for the differences encountered in the real world (Tsing 2015, 38; 2019, 506)? (read more...)

On Menstruation and Feeling Shame

 Rosario Rm  December 19, 2024

Este contenido también está disponible en Español

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Menstruation as a subject of study is not new. Margaret Mead, Mary Douglas, Chris Bobel, Miren Guillo, and Karina Felitti, among many others, have discussed how menstruation has been related to specific practices, and how taboos present great dynamism and variability as specific cultural constructions frequently linked to systems of bodily control and gender. In this post, I present research that explores how taboos associated with menstruation are reflected in the bodily and emotional trajectory of menstruating women and people through the implementation of a methodology based on the collective construction of emotional corpobiographies (Ramírez, 2024). Although the relationship between taboo and shame around menstruation has been widely documented from various scientific and theoretical perspectives, this research seeks to delve into the moments, key actors, and narratives that make emotions and attitudes become embodied and acquire deep meaning in the menstrual experience. The study focuses on the trajectory of university women in Guadalajara, Mexico, and is a qualitative analysis that builds upon the results of the “Fluye con seguridad” survey, conducted in 2023 in the University of Guadalajara network. (read more...)

Green Lady Cambodia: A Small Initiative for A Big Change on Menstrual Health and Hygiene Education

 Aikaterini Mitselou, Isabell Hedke  November 21, 2024

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Authors’ Note: The following essay uses the words “women” and “girls” in order to mirror the phrasing and experiences of cited literature as well as the responses of the participants in our studies. We wanted to represent and relay the insights provided by all parties in the manner in which they were expressed to us directly or as they were published. This wording was not chosen to deliberately exclude the range of people who experience menstruation in Cambodia and around the world, as we recognise and understand that menstruation is not a gender-specific experience by any means. If anything, we support that MHH is an effort to be tackled by all. Achieving menstrual health is crucial for attaining good health and well-being, ensuring quality education and promoting gender equality. Although it is slowly gaining recognition on a global scale, menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) needs are still not met in many countries. Particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), many girls are not informed or prepared before experiencing their first period (Chandra-Mouli & Patel, 2017). In Cambodia, girls and women follow strong cultural beliefs about menstruation, such as avoiding certain foods and drinks when on period (Sommer et al., 2014). Information is seldomly provided, as the topic is not openly discussed at home and teachers lack confidence to educate about reproductive health (Conolly & Sommer, 2013). WASH infrastructure in schools is inadequate with not enough toilets and a lack of privacy, leading to feelings of discomfort and avoidance of facilities (Sommer et al., 2014, Conolly & Sommer, 2013). This results in menstrual accidents like leakages, and being labeled as unhygienic (Daniels et al., 2022). If MHH needs are not met, girls experience fear and shyness throughout menstruation, impacting their lives by having to miss social activities, transit locations to change sanitary pads, and missing school days (Daniels et al., 2022). (read more...)

Connections between Health, Science, and Technology: What Does Anthropology Have to Do With It?

 Hellen Caetano  November 12, 2024

Este conteúdo também está disponível em português.

As I became acquainted with social studies of science and technology, particularly through anthropological research, I realized it opened new doors for me, offering fresh perspectives and new possibilities for conducting scientific research. During my graduate studies, I sought to bring together two fields that had always intrigued me: the anthropology of health and the social studies of science and technology. In recent years, I have focused specifically on the regulation of cannabis derivatives for therapeutic use in Brazil. This topic, which naturally sparks heated debates and strong opinions, is fraught with controversies (Latour, 2012), especially regarding cannabis’s historical role, nationally and internationally, as both a recreational drug and a medicine. To delve deeper into these controversies, I decided to conduct research that would focus on public health discourses and scientific practice around cannabis, incorporating the Brazilian debate on public safety. The discussion of health and public safety is deeply tied to the unique position cannabis holds in Brazil. When legislators or civil society engage in debates about cannabis, distinctions between recreational and therapeutic uses often blur. One form of use tends to receive greater moral acceptance, while the other is frequently disqualified. Thus, any conversation about regulating cannabis as a health technology must consider its social and political classifications and the perceptions surrounding it. (read more...)

Chaotic Oscillation: Understanding the Paradoxical Presence of Video Games in Contemporary Society

 Iván Flores  October 1, 2024

Esta publicación también está disponible en español

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Common sense tells us that play and work are opposing categories. However, in our society we often encounter situations where the boundaries between these two categories become difficult to distinguish. It’s common that people earn money from hobbies—activities not typically associated with the effort required for any form of work, mostly because they are fun. These include recording oneself dancing on the street, doing product unboxings, or streaming while playing video games. The variety of activities that can now be monetized is vast; almost any activity can become a niche ready to be used by the market to maintain a consumerist dynamic. (read more...)