AnthroCurrents – September 5, 2014

A biweekly look at recent stories on anthropology and practicing anthropologists in the popular media

Technology

• Wired provides a fascinating comparison between India and the U.S. that exposes the weird sexism of the American tech industry.
• PSFK talked to an Intel anthropologist and psychologist about how smaller, more affordable environmental sensors are being deployed to solve a range of human problems.

Re-Evaluation

• We talk about this regularly in the child welfare world—fathers often remain an untapped resource when designing interventions and supports for children. A new article whose first author is Yale anthropologist Catherine Panter-Brick confirms those feelings.
• Anthropologist Jason Hickel thinks it’s high time we recalculated the definition of global poverty.

Fences

• Neighborhood Watch hired an anthropologist to run an experiment they hoped would result in stronger neighborhoods—communities where people knew and interacted with their neighbors and felt a part of a larger group. This is what happened.
• The Boston Globe examined the work of two anthropologists interested in age segregation across cultures. The article includes a map showing age segregation in the U.S. by county.
• Esther Newton, anthropologist and photographer, published a memoir of her time at Cherry Grove in Fire Island in the 80s. Some of the pictures are included in this article by Lens.