ISSN 2562-9948
How Orthodoxy, Professionalism, and Unresponsive Politics Finally Doomed a 19th-century Project What a sight to behold. These are the dying days, counting down soon to the final hours, of the defeated political project of liberalism, inherited from the 19th-century. The centre—if there ever was one—could not hold after all. What a thing it is to […]
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Probably the most memorable year in decades, 2016 was a non-stop accumulation of turning points and landmark events. In broad terms, we began to witness the demise of globalism, the rise of deglobalization, and the sunset of (neo)liberal imperialism. Not only did the nation matter once again, so did the triumph of local narratives and […]
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“Obama, the cerebral son of an anthropologist”—this is how the Associated Press touted soon to be ex-president Barack Obama on his visit to Laos this week. The AP went even further, declaring Obama’s approach “soft diplomacy”. One has to wonder where all of the “soft diplomacy” was in the seven brutal wars simultaneously fought by […]
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What follows are transcripts of the two speeches given today by Cuba’s President, Raúl Castro, and US President Barack Obama, on the establishment of diplomatic relations: STATEMENT BY THE CUBAN PRESIDENT (Havana, December 17, 2014) Fellow countrymen, Since my election as President of the State Council and Council of Ministers I have reiterated on many […]
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The following are a series of extracts from Hilary King’s chapter, “Queers of War: Normalizing Lesbians and Gays in the US War Machine,” published in Good Intentions: Norms and Practices of Imperial Humanitarianism (Montreal: Alert Press, 2014), pp. 89-101: Overview: Hilary King’s chapter is a very welcome addition to the subject of gender, sexuality, and […]
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Within the question of the professionalisation of the discipline lies a still largely unexplored area of how Anthropology serves as a western, largely white, middle-class mode of ‘consumption’, specifically the consumption of knowledge about the world that has been ‘appropriately’ filtered, organized, and translated. Of course getting a degree in Anthropology is not just like any other form of consumption, just as it is not merely an expression of curiosity: the process results in formal certification.
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This is an Op-Ed by Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela, as published in the New York Times: CARACAS, Venezuela — THE recent protests in Venezuela have made international headlines. Much of the foreign media coverage has distorted the reality of my country and the facts surrounding the events. Venezuelans are proud of our democracy. We have […]
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Only When in Russia When were the last modern Olympic games that openly endorsed gay rights? Where were those Olympic games held? The short answer is: never, nowhere. However, suddenly, gay rights issues matter when deciding to attend the Olympics. Sochi, for reasons that are not altogether mysterious, now stands out as an exception being […]
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In October 2011, days after the brutal murder of the Libyan Leader, Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi, NATO General Secretary, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, declared that the NATO mission in Libya had been one of the most successful in NATO’s history. In his new book, Professor Horace Campbell sets out to analyse that claim, and to analyse the […]
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The following is my transcription of the spoken statement delivered at the 68th Session of the United Nations General Assembly by Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe. The statement below begins at the 8:43 mark of: 26 Sep 2013 – Address by His Excellency Robert Mugabe, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe at the general debate of the […]
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September 9, 2013, 11:43pm–The morning on this side of the Atlantic started with John Kerry’s hoarse voice on the radio, addressing journalists in London and bellowing that the U.S. was not talking about going to war when it talked about military aggression against a state that never attacked the U.S. Acts of war, apparently, are […]
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Special thanks for leads and commentary that were useful for this report goes to Crossed Crocodiles, a website devoted to Africa and U.S.-African relations. This report–the last Encircling Empire Report for 2013–is fairly long given that it provides detail on a relatively comprehensive pattern of recent events which, taken together, paint a portrait of what […]
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In a relatively short piece, Glen Ford is able to trace the genealogical links from racism and Eurocentric perspectives of “civilization” to neoliberalism, heightened militarism, and the expansion of the national security state. He then ties these historical streams together in current phenomena, such as the “responsibility to protect” and the work of the U.S. […]
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Does the U.S. have “friends and allies”? Or does the world merely consist of targets and tools? As we learned today the U.S. National Security Agency has been spying on a series of buildings and offices of the European Union, spying on Internet communications, phone calls and more. NATO headquarters has been used to spy […]
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Troops are the new disposable items of a militarized consumer society that devours without care for consequences. There are always consequences. The destruction wrought by the U.S. on other nations, comes back home. This is a consistent fact of all wars, and it is especially true of imperial wars of choice. “Thank you for your […]
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY 