Episodes

Language warning. We use the word sh*t a lot in this episode, since it is, in fact all about poop. To wrap up this crappy, some may even say shitty year, host Adam Gamwell and intern Elizabeth Smyth discuss the origin of the word shit, how the way we defecate is culturally constructed, what our poop reveals about us, and so much more in this New Year’s Eve mini-episode of This Anthro Life. Farewell 2020, it’s been real. In this episode we dig into: What poop tells us about culture and our biolog...

In this episode we meet Dr. Stan Thangaraj, an anthropology professor at the City College of New York whose research includes immigration in the U.S, being interviewed by Vyjayanthi Vadrevu, a business anthropologist and ethnographer. Together, the two discuss basketball, community, identity, race relations and so much more. Stay tuned with us as you learn about why race relations are so important and the answers to the following questions: What does sports and their global popularity reveal abo...

Do you have a sense of how much time you spend each day on social media and smartphone? Whether you can live with them or you can't live with them, we know for most of us, these are ingrained parts of our everyday lives. In this episode, we will uncover the life in the age of social media and smartphones, featuring Dr. Daniel Miller and Georgiana Murariu from the University College of London. Stay tuned as you learn about the ‘ Why We Post ’ project, ‘Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing...

This Anthro Life is based on lifting up the voices and value of anthropologists and human scientists in all fields through sharing their stories, thought leadership, struggles, and winding paths. Today we've got something special, where we turn the mic around on our host, Adam Gamwell and hear some of his story on how he is building a career as an anthropologist. TAL's Adam Gamwell recently guested on fellow business anthropologist Keith Kellersohn's new YouTube series Anthro Perspectives, where...

When most people think of forensics or forensic anthropology the first thing that comes to mind are TV shows like CSI or Bones, or maybe in Six Feet Under. This may sound overly obvious, but people die every day. And this means that every day someone has to deliver dealth notifications to next of kin, especially when people live apart. Often times coroners are the ones who deliver these notifications. Coroners are elected or appointed public officials whose primary duty is to determine and certi...

Artificial Intelligence. Natural Language Processing. Machine Learning. Big Data. If you've studied Anthropology at all, you'll likely notice these terms don't often get use, unless you happen to be studying one of these areas, like doing an ethnography on artificial intelligence. Yet if these tools are used everyday across millions of applications and software lines of code to make our world run, how might they help us understand ourselves better? Big data often gets used to understand patterns...

It's no surprise that many of us find ourselves increasingly on mobile devices or the internet. We shop online with ease, connect with friends and family on social media, check the news, and play games. And especially during the era of COVID millions, more people are figuring out if they can work remotely. In this episode, Adam sits down with Dr. Julie Ancis , one of the world's leading cyberpsychologists to talk about how digital technology in life online is impacting the ways we think and int...

Ever wonder why certain new ideas stick while others don’t? We often hear a lot about innovation when it comes to new ideas, but really that’s only part of the equation. Psychology, marketing, neuroscience - and yes - anthropology can help us make sense of why some new ideas stick while others fall flat. On this episode Adam Gamwell talks with neuroscientist Dr. Matt Johnson and Professor of marketing Prince Ghuman about the fascinating role neuroscience plays in our evolving consumer lives. Mat...

What is it about coffee and tea - two simple drinks - that both transcends culture and is intimately bound up by it? In this episode, Adam talks with Independent documentary filmmaker and coffee anthropologist Brooke Bierhaus about her film "The Connected Cup" which explores the heart of coffee and tea as global human connectors across cultures and backgrounds. For the film Brooke traveled to over 9 countries to film and capture intimate moments, stories, and portraits of human life around the c...

Today we talk with Voltage Control president Douglas Ferguson and we're taking you beyond the prototype. If you ever run a design sprint, or even if you simply sat down at your desk to think through a really cool idea for a product or a new podcast or how do we improve something in your neighborhood. You started the design process. The question is, how do you go from a good idea to putting something out into the world? Douglas helps us find out. "You gotta slow down to go fast" - Douglas Ferguso...

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a next-generation observatory currently under development that has created a watershed moment for the scientific community and Hawaiian society. This is because of its planned location on Mauna Kea… the most sacred mountain in the Hawaiian religion. But the case of TMT and Mauna Kea is not an outlier because mountain summits often have profound meanings to both indigenous cultural practitioners and technology developers. For example, Kanamota is another sacred...

Produced in collaboration with Experience by Design . We are witnessing a moment in our lifetimes that we will hopefully never see again. The world is gripped in a pandemic of a scale unseen for a century. Beyond the human toll, we are seeing how healthcare systems people once had trust in crumble before their eyes. In this episode, Adam and Gary talk with Shelley White and Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal of the Simmons University Masters of Public Health program on what we learn from this moment,...

Gigaom CEO, publisher and author of "The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity" stops by virtually to chat with Adam and guest host Astrid Countee to help us make sense of just what Artificial Intelligence is, what are its promises and limits, and what this means for the possibilities of conscious computing and smart robots. Byron breaks down the philosophies behind our ways of thinking about AI in way that gives us new social tools to approach the deep techno...

The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is a next-generation observatory currently under development that has created a watershed moment for the scientific community and Hawaiian society. This is because of its planned location on Mauna Kea… the most sacred mountain in the Hawaiian religion. Dr. Mindshare been studying this issue from their perspective as a cultural anthropologist for over a decade. This prelude offers a brief history of the controversy. TMT reveals the value of systems thinking — or t...

Bill Fleming stops by to chat with Adam about branding, marketing and design. Bill is a Boston-based Independent Brand & Marketing Strategist, and Business Consultant for Designers. On this episode we talk about what brands are, how the cultural work of branding has changed in recent decades with the advent of new and easier to use technologies, and how we can think about brands as conversations - not just between businesses and customers but also between businesses. Transcript of this episode B...

A happy New Years! Enjoy this mini-episode with Adam and Dr. Ryan Collins exploring happiness and the good life according the Aztecs. New Years is a great time to reflect on where we've been, where we're going, and what's it all for. We find some answers and surprising wisdom with the Aztecs. Purcell - The Aztecs on Happiness Carrasco - Daily Life of the Aztecs --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/support