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When Queer Lovers Collaborate: The Rough Edges of Smooth Knowledge in a Diabetes Research Project

 Lyndsey Beutin, Cal Biruk  October 23, 2025

Connect1d is a Canadian organization that was founded to involve the experiences of type 1 diabetics in research about type 1 diabetes. Its website states, “Many of us have lived experience with T1D, and we want to work closely with the diabetes community to co-create what the future of living with T1D looks like” (accessed Sept 15, 2025). It sounds good, so then, what is wrong with this image (see below)? (read more...)

Behind the Monster: Reading Frankenstein as a Warning Against Isolation, Greed, and Hubris in 21st Century Agritech

 Addison Kerwin  October 21, 2025

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In a 1992 New York Times op-ed, Paul Lewis denounced the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to exempt genetically engineered crops from case-by-case review. He likened modern agricultural scientists to the scientist Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley’s novel and introduced the now famous term “Frankenfoods.” Frankenfoods invokes Shelley’s Frankenstein to capture public unease about the unforeseen consequences of consuming genetically modified foods. The term soon drew scrutiny from proponents of the technology, including industry-sponsored front groups, agricultural businesses (also referred to as agribusiness), respected journalists, plant geneticists, and scientific organizations. Citing evidence of the proven safety of consuming genetically modified foods, they rejected the label as a reactionary, scientifically inaccurate, and fear-mongering indictment of a new and thus, unfamiliar, technology. (read more...)

Necrovitality and Porous Exclusions: On Dying amidst Chemical Vitalities

 Misria Shaik Ali  October 9, 2025

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Note: This post contains images of skin wounds. If you are dermatophobic, read/view at your own discretion. You may instead listen to the post. An entry into the world through the pore urges us to see the chemical and material world as vital, volatile, viscous, transcorporeal–some of the topics addressed in the Platypus series, “Witnessing the porous world.” Jane Bennett, in describing and diving into the “life of metal,” begins by asking, “can nonorganic bodies also have a life? Can materiality itself be vital?” (2009, 53). Life, for Bennett as they converse with philosophers Deleuze and Nietzsche is, “a-subjective” and “impersonal” (54). Bennett’s effort to “avoid anthropocentrism and biocentrism”, leads them to “material” and “metallic vitality” that is imminent from “vacancies,” “holes,” and “cracks” that render material “porous” (59-61). (read more...)

Dreaming of Security through Lanyards and Bollards

 Samuel DiBella  October 2, 2025

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A perimeter is always porous, to certain people. Managing how it is perforated is a kind of professional work. In my fieldwork at a casino, a guard all in black sheepishly hands out blank visitor IDs that we wear only in a closed room. He collects them on our exit to the floor and accompanies us up to the lobby bar because of regulations. In the discussion, a man expresses his exasperation at an embassy’s request for an ambulance during a US National Special Security Event. I don’t understand why he makes an ambulance sound so ominous—he says he didn’t sleep for days—until someone later explains to me that he was worried the ambulance would be filled with explosives and allowed to slip through security lines. In The Filing Cabinet, Craig Robertson describes how information architecture via office furniture soothed clerks of “the particular anxiety produced by the knowledge that paper records create an alternative paper-based reality to which officials defer” (pp. 253). With two tools, the lanyard and the bollard, I consider how security work engenders and manages similar anxieties about the inherent instability of persons and property. (read more...)

Reflexiones Sobre una Antropología Feminista o una Antropología Mutirão: Niñas y Mujeres Karipuna

 Ana Manoela Karipuna  September 30, 2025

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Soy una mujer indígena del pueblo Karipuna y antropóloga que vive en Belém, una de las ciudades más grandes de la Amazonía brasileña, en el estado de Pará. Sin embargo, mi comunidad indígena se encuentra en otro lugar. El pueblo Karipuna vive en las Tierras Indígenas Uaçá, Galibi y Juminã, en el municipio de Oiapoque, al norte del estado de Amapá, en la frontera entre Brasil y la Guayana Francesa. Los pueblos Palikur, Galibi Marworno y Galibi Kali’na también viven aquí. Este contexto es importante para comprender los temas que exploraré. Mi identidad como mujer indígena y antropóloga informa mi escritura, ofreciendo perspectivas sobre las conexiones entre las mujeres indígenas Karipuna, la antropología, el empoderamiento, el movimiento de mujeres y el feminismo. (read more...)

Reflections on a Feminist Anthropology or a Mutirão Anthropology: Karipuna Girls and Women

 Ana Manoela Karipuna  September 30, 2025

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I am an Indigenous woman from Karipuna people and an anthropologist living in Belém, one of the largest cities in the Brazilian Amazon in the state of Pará. However, my Indigenous community is based elsewhere. The Karipuna people live in the Uaçá, Galibi and Juminã Indigenous Lands in the municipality of Oiapoque, in the northern part of the state of Amapá, on the border between Brazil and French Guiana. The Palikur, the Galibi Marworno and the Galibi Kali’na people also live here. This context is important for understanding the themes I will explore. My identity as an Indigenous woman and anthropologist informs my writing, offering insights into the connections between Indigenous Karipuna women, anthropology, empowerment, the women’s movement, and feminism. (read more...)

Reflexões Sobre uma Antropologia Feminista ou uma Antropologia Mutirão: Meninas e Mulheres Karipuna

 Ana Manoela Karipuna  September 30, 2025

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Sou indígena do povo Karipuna e antropóloga, morando em Belém, uma das maiores cidades da Amazônia brasileira, no estado do Pará. Porém, o grupo indígena ao qual pertenço vive em um outro lugar.. O povo Karipuna vive nas Terras Indígenas Uaçá, Galibi e Juminã, no município de Oiapoque, no norte do estado do Amapá, na fronteira entre o Brasil e a Guiana Francesa. Lugar onde também vivem os povos Palikur, Galibi Marworno e Galibi Kali’na. Estas são informações relevantes, para entender os caminhos pelos quais o texto irá passar. O fato de ser indígena e mulher e a condição de ser antropóloga moldam aquilo que escrevo e como chego a uma reflexão que relaciona mulheres indígenas Karipuna e antropologia, empoderamento, movimento de mulheres e feminismo. (read more...)

Digital Colonialism as “Progress”: What Will Convince You to Swap Your Guitar for an iPad?

 Harshit Gujral, Selena Ling, Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed, Tahiya Chowdhury  September 25, 2025

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“I don’t think I could ever be convinced to use an iPad as a replacement,” said Elisabeth Dorion , a songwriter, composer, and musician based in Toronto, in response to Apple’s ‘Crush’ advertisement (Dorion 2025). Elisabeth’s reflection on the physical pain of seeing pianos, sacred tools of artistry, smashed into oblivion in Apple’s flashy tech advert was a raw gut-punch: “It hurts me physically to see these things being crushed.” (read more...)