Not just in the past: Racist and sexist biases still permeate biology,anthropology, medicine,and education

In the past decades, it has been increasingly recognized that some areas of science, such as anthropology, have been plagued by racist, Western-centric, and/or sexist biases. Unfortunately, an acculturation process to racism and sexism has been occurring for generations leading to systemic inequities that will take a long time to disappear. Here, we highlight the existence of current examples of racism, Western-centrism and sexism within: (1) the most popular anatomical atlases used in biological, anthropological and medical education; (2) prominent natural history museums and World Heritage Sites; (3) biological and anthropological scientific research publications; and (4) popular culture and influential children's books and educational materials concerning human biology and evolution.     

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Since the professionalization of US-based forensic anthropology in the 1970s, ancestry estimation has been included as a standard part of the biological profile, because practitioners have assumed it necessary to achieve identifications in medicolegal contexts. Simultaneously, forensic anthropologists have not fully considered the racist context of the criminal justice system in the United States related to the treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; nor have we considered that ancestry estimation might actually hinder identification efforts because of entrenched racial biases. Despite ongoing criticisms from mainstream biological anthropology that ancestry estimation perpetuates race science, forensic anthropologists have continued the practice. Recent years have seen the prolific development of retooled typological approaches with 21st century statistical prowess to include methods for estimating ancestry from cranial morphoscopic traits, despite no evidence that these traits reflect microevolutionary processes or are suitable genetic proxies for population structure; and such approaches have failed to critically evaluate the societal consequences for perpetuating the biological race concept. Around the country, these methods are enculturated in every aspect of the discipline ranging from university classrooms, to the board-certification examination marking the culmination of training, to standard operating procedures adopted by forensic anthropology laboratories. Here, we use critical race theory to interrogate the approaches utilized to estimate ancestry to include a critique of the continued use of morphoscopic traits, and we assert that the practice of ancestry estimation contributes to white supremacy. Based on the lack of scientific support that these traits reflect evolutionary history, and the inability to disentangle skeletal-based ancestry estimates from supporting the biological validity of race, we urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation.     

The struggle that cannot be named: violence,space and the re-articulation of anti-racism in post-Duggan Britain

The history of black struggles in Britain has often centred on spaces of violence and resistance. While there has been significant attention paid to how racism is articulated through particular places, less has been said about anti-racism being communicated through its associations with space and place. Using Tottenham (north London) as a case study, I draw on ethnographic observations at demonstrations and public meetings, in addition to semi-structured interviews with anti-racist activists resisting policing in post-2011 London. This paper argues that, over time, racist metonyms describing places racialised as black have led to the rise of a metonymic anti-racism. Metonymic anti-racism is used alongside more overt anti-racist language, and has profound implications for understanding struggles against police racism in Britain. The paper analyses these implications, contextualizing them historically, in light of neoliberalised racial discourses and how anti-racist metonyms shape articulations of black struggle against policing in post-2011 Tottenham.     

Biological anthropology's critical engagement with genomics,evolution, race/racism,and ourselves: Opportunities and challenges to making a difference in the academy and the world

Biological anthropology can, and should, matter in the Anthropocene. Biological anthropologists are interested in human biology and the human experience in a broader ecological, evolutionary, and phylogenetic context. We are interested in the material of the body, the history of the body, and interactions of diverse bodies, communities, ecologies, and evolutionary processes. However, the cultural realities of bodies, histories, communities, livelihoods, perceptions, and experiences are as central to the endeavor and inquiry of biological anthropology as are their material aspects. Biological anthropology is a constant dialectic between the cultural and the biological. In this essay, I argue that Biological Anthropology has much to offer, a history to contend with, and a future that matters. To illustrate this, I highlight theoretical and methodological issues in genomics, evolutionary theory and connect them to the study of Race and Racism to emphasize specific arenas where Biological Anthropology has a great capacity, and a strong obligation, to play a central role. However, Biological Anthropology also has substantive internal issues that hinder our ability to do the best possible science. If we are to live up to our potential and make a difference in the 21st century we need to ameliorate our structural shortcomings and expand our voice, and impact, in academic and public discourse. The goal of this perspective is to offer suggestions for moving us toward this goal.     

生物人类学和人体组成学的渊源关系

随着人体组成学中文版的发行和人体组成测量培训班在中国的举行, 中国生物人类学家对人体组成测量方法在科研中的运用有了更大的兴趣。该文对人类学家,如Jindr?ich Matiegka和Stanley MarionGarn在人体组成学发展中的历史贡献做了基本的介绍。此外, 作者还以Garn博士的工作为例, 去激励中国生物人类学家开展人体组成学的研究工作。文章讨论了人体组成成分的测量方法在生物人类学中的用途, 并介绍了人体组成学的基本理论和概念及近年来人体组成学的变化: 如影像技术的发展, 影像技术作为"金标准"对评估其他人体组成测量方法的用途, 双能量x线吸收法的优势, 生物电阻分析法的广泛运用, 和多种人体组成测量方法相辅相成的现象。作者对常用的人体组成测量方法的优缺点做了比较, 并指出人体组成成分测量是人体测量方法的自然延续, 人体组成学和生物人类学的关系渊源已久; 因此中国人类学家应当更多地利用人体组成测量方法对人体差异做更深入的研究, 并注重人体差异同健康疾病和生物医学的关系, 以便让生物人类学更好地为当今社会服务。     

中国法医人类学三十年

法医人类学在上世纪80年代开始引起中国法医学界的重视。改革开放后, 经济发展人口流动增加, 全国范围内无名尸体案件增加, 对骨骼个体识别的需求日益迫切。为了满足案件侦察的需要, 国内学者开始引进国外的有关研究结果, 并开始使用国人的材料对中国人骨骼个体识别的方法进行了广泛深入的研究。本文对中国学者近30年来在中国人骨骼年龄、性别及身高等方面的研究进行了回顾, 对相关研究与国外情况进行了比较,对有关问题的未来研究方向进行了讨论。     

Anthropologies of art

This paper discusses how different conceptions of the idea of ‘anthropology’ entail different views of the ‘anthropology of art’. The prevailing notion of anthropology as the Western study of small-scale non-Western societies leads to a conception of the anthropology of art as dealing with the visual arts of these societies or cultures. Anthropology is sometimes also interpreted as referring to a particular approach that is applicable in examining sociocultural phenomena in whatever culture, including its art forms. Both conceptions of anthropology may be considered subsidiary to a more encompassing view of anthropology as the multidisciplinary study of humankind. Following this view, the anthropology of art becomes the comprehensive examination of art in human existence. As such it would coincide with World Art Studies, conceived as the global and multidisciplinary study of the visual arts.     

Rethinking genes

The gene is the central construct of twentieth-century biology and evolution. It is a construct because, like “culture” in anthropology, “gene” is widely used and is central to the discipline's discourse, but eludes rigorous definition. Although the gene is acknowledged as a material entity, its membership criteria are unclear and its boundaries are fuzzy—indeed, more than one can occupy the same space at the same time. The purpose of this essay is to bring to light recent refinements in our conception of the gene and their implications for its use in biological anthropology.     

Human Biology and Ecology: Variation in Nature and the Nature of Variation

Human biology seeks to understand human variation and the biological, environmental, social, and historical influences on that variation. Views of the nature of both variation and environment have changed during the past 100 years. Typological approaches to nature and human diversity shifted to an evolutionary perspective during the first half of the 20th century. In the second half, widespread human biological variation was documented and interpreted in terms of adaptation to the environment. Environmental physiology and reproductive ecology continue to document environmental influences on human biological functioning, but with (1) an expanded concept of environment that acknowledges more fully the interactions among its physical, biotic, and social aspects and (2) an expanded theoretical basis, drawing on evolutionary ecology and life history theory, acknowledging tradeoffs and changing constraints and opportunities over the lifetime. Human biology gains from greater interaction with other fields, such as political ecology, but also contributes to them. [Keywords: biological anthropology, human ecology, adaptation, environmental physiology, reproductive ecology]     

Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology

Anténor Firmin published De I'Égalité des Races Humaines in 1885 in Paris as a response both to Arthur de Gobineau's racist tome L'lnégalité des Races (1853-55) and to the racialist anthropology of the nineteenth century. This pioneering work of anthropology has been translated for the first time into English by Assclin Charles as The Equality of the Human Races (Firmin [1885]2000). In 662 pages of the original text, Firmin systematically critiqued the anthropometry and craniometry that dominated the anthropology of his day, while he envisioned a broad, synthetic discipline that would follow once this narrow approach to the study of man was abandoned. He challenged virtually every extant racial myth and laid a basis for the understanding of human variation as adaptation to climate and environment. Contrary to the polygenist doctrines of the infertility of interracial matings, Firmin extolled the value of racial mixture, especially in the vigorous New World hybrid populations. He developed a critical view of racial classifications and of race that foreshadowed much later social constructions of race. In the book he also articulated early Pan-Africanist ideas as well as an analytical framework for what would become postcolonial studies.
The Equality of the Human Races is a text that lies historically at the foundations of the birth of the discipline of anthropology, yet it is unknown to the field. It is a pioneering work in critical anthropology that awaits recognition 115 years after it was first published. [Anténor Firmin, history of racism, antiracism, historical texts, Haitian anthropologist, critical anthropology, nineteenth-century pioneer]     

Reclaiming Applied Anthropology: Its Past, Present, and Future

Growing concerns about anthropology's impact in both academia and the broader social arena have led to calls for more "public" and more relevant anthropology. In this article, we expand on these exhortations, by calling for systematic joining of critical social theory with application and pragmatic engagement with contemporary problems. We argue for the repositioning of applied anthropology as a vital component of the broader discipline and suggest that it should serve as a framework for constructing a more engaged anthropology. In revisiting disciplinary history and critiques of applied anthropology, we demonstrate the central role that application has played throughout anthropology's evolution, address common misconceptions that serve as barriers to disciplinary integration, examine the role of advocacy in relation to greater engagement as well as the relationship of theory to practice, and conclude with an assessment of the diverse work that is subsumed under the inclusive rubric of "anthropology in use."     

Introduction to "In Focus: Global Change and Adaptation in Local Places"

ABSTRACT   In recognition of unavoidable changes that human actions are producing in our environment, the term adaptation has become ubiquitous in the environmental and climate-change literature. Human adaptation is a field with a significant history in anthropology, yet anthropological contributions to the burgeoning field of climate change remain limited. This "In Focus" section presents studies of local adaptations to climate variation and change. Each is concerned with current environmental challenges and future environmental change, and each study is placed within a wider context that includes processes of globalization and integration into market economies, formal and informal institutions, and disasters. These studies highlight the challenges involved in understanding complex adaptations under conditions of stress. They also illustrate how anthropologists engage the larger climate-change and human-adaptation discussions and enhance our ability to respond to the challenges of a changing environment.     

A sensory approach for multispecies anthropology

This special issue suggests that the need to examine the entangled lives of species, selves and other beings through a multisensory perspective is crucial and timely. Developing on a sensory analysis, one that emerges through what Anna Tsing refers to as the ‘arts of noticing’ (2015), this introductory paper explores how both nonhuman and human lives are intertwined, and how their close examination can guide anthropologists in their ability to capture the subtleties of more‐than‐human engagement, connection and relatedness. Through articles within this issue from Australian anthropology and beyond, we ask how becoming‐with more‐than‐humans helps us to construct a post‐humanist analysis in the combination of sensory anthropology and multispecies anthropology. Through a combination of these two fields, the paper suggests, anthropology can take up the opportunity to think about animals as subjects, through our ability to communicate beyond language and to engage in a more meaningful way through interspecies knowledge‐making.     

分子人类学与现代人的起源*

1953年Watson & Crick 对于DNA双螺旋结构模型的提出及对其遗传机理的解释,标志着现代分子生物学的诞生。其后短短50年的时间里,分子生物学在各个学科之间广泛渗透,相互促进,不断深入和发展。在以研究人类的起源和进化为首要任务的人类学领域,由于现代分子生物学理论和方法的应用,诞生了分子人类学这一全新的结合型分支学科,为人类学的发展提供了科学可信的研究方法和具发展前景的研究方向。系统地介绍了分子人类学的发展历史、研究方法及原理;另外,结合分子人类学在古人类学研究中的应用,讨论了关于现代人起源的“非洲起源说”和“多地区连续演化说”。Abstract: Since Watson & Crick put forward the double-helix model of DNA structure and hereditary mechanism in 1953, it is generally accepted that this event marks the birth of modern molecular biology. This new field of biology has experienced a flourishing development in the past 50 years. On one hand, the development of molecular biology has been deeply influencing many relative fields; on the other hand, its own proceeding pace has been accelerated by the reaction from the other fields. Anthropology is one of the fields most deeply impacted by the theory and method of molecular biology. Most importantly, molecular anthropology was born as a result of combination of molecular biology, anthropology as well as paleoanthropology. This new branch provides reliable method and vital direction for paleoanthropology. This paper systematically reviews the history, principle and method of molecular anthropology. Two hypotheses on the origin of modern human, which include “out-of-African theory” and “theory of multiregional evolution” are also discussed for the purpose of showing how molecular anthropology is applied in paleoanthropology.     

Introduction to "Anthropology and Human Rights in a New Key"

In this "In Focus" introduction, I begin by offering an overview of anthropology's engagements with human rights following the American Anthropological Association's (AAA) 1947 "Statement on Human Rights." After offering a rereading of the Statement, I describe the two major anthropological orientations to human rights that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s, following several decades of relative disengagement. Finally, I locate the articles in relation to this history and indicate how, when taken as a whole, they express a new key or register within which human rights can be studied, critiqued, and advanced through anthropological forms of knowledge. This "In Focus" is in part an argument for an essentially ecumenical anthropology of human rights, one that can tolerate, and indeed encourage, approaches that are both fundamentally critical of contemporary human rights regimes and politically or ethically committed to these same regimes.     

Conceptualizing world art studies: An introduction

This special issue aims to contribute to the conceptualization of World Art Studies. The first two articles offer evaluative views from art history, the third and fourth perspectives from anthropology, the fifth and sixth arguments for including neo-evolutionary and neurological studies in understanding world art as a universal human behavior.     

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project: Integrating anthropology and biomedicine

The Tsimane Health and Life History Project, an integrated bio‐behavioral study of the human life course, is designed to test competing hypotheses of human life‐history evolution. One aim is to understand the bidirectional connections between life history and social behavior in a high‐fertility, kin‐based context lacking amenities of modern urban life (e.g. sanitation, banks, electricity). Another aim is to understand how a high pathogen burden influences health and well‐being during development and adulthood. A third aim addresses how modernization shapes human life histories and sociality. Here we outline the project's goals, history, and main findings since its inception in 2002. We reflect on the implications of current findings and highlight the need for more coordinated ethnographic and biomedical study of contemporary nonindustrial populations to address broad questions that can situate evolutionary anthropology in a key position within the social and life sciences.     

Joyeuses Tropiques: Five Encounters with Alterities in Brazil

The paper describes the predicament of Brazilian anthropology through a personal experience of teaching and living in Brasilia. Just like Brasilia, Brazil is many ways considered as “a work in progress” – and Brazilian anthropology as a lively and thriving area, although frequently overlooked by non-Brazilian scholars. The situation in which Brazilian anthropologists find themselves is put in the context of their own history, as well as the particular social conditions of the country – with special reference to Brazil as invention, taking as an example celebration of “500 years of Brazil.”