Episodes

Are balance and movement something that can be culturally shaped? Why aren’t female rats being used in drug studies? In this episode of This Anthropological Life we team up with Vivekanand Pandey Vimal to talk about his resea...

Have you ever felt disconnected from your relationships and your life because of your reliance on your phone and social media? Do you ever feel nostalgia for the art of handwriting letters? Hannah Brencher understands what yo...

Join us for another listen of TAL Conversations favorites on Multi-species and Non-Human Centered Anthropology. Originally aired December 2013, with a follow-up conversation coming soon! Do you have a pet? Do you talk to your...

Do you find yourself increasingly frustrated at the lack of real conversations between candidates and politicians? Are you confused about why someone who doesn’t walk to the beat of your life claims to represent the whole of ...

Join Aneil, Adam and Ryan for the second FreeThink episode, where they talk unscripted about upcoming projects and potential interdisciplinary collaborations beyond the mic. FreeThink is a new series of episodes that works li...

Glad you’re here! Check out some of our favorite episodes in any order and get to know the anthropological life. And, if you’re long-time listeners we hope you’ll enjoy revisiting these gems with us. If you like us, be sure t...

Adam, Aneil, and Ryan are all back in the TaL studio for the first time in 18 months! And it feels good. Today we talk shop about where we’ve been and where we’re going with TaL. Check out the conversation on evolving the sho...

We’re stoked to bring you TAL’s first ever three-city episode! Join Adam (in Peru!) and Ryan (in Boston!) and special guest Vyjayanthi Vadrevu (somewhere between NYC and Austin!) for an in-depth look into the world of Anthrop...

Join TaL’s Aneil Tripathy and Caitlin Zaloom, NYU Associate Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, as they discuss Zaloom’s research on futures markets and most recently student debt. Hear about what initially drew Zaloom...

Special guest podcast from our friends at the Food Futures Podcast Corinna Howland interviews Adam Gamwell about experimental games, or field experiments, which NGOs and economists use to measure when, why, and how people mak...

Join TAL’s Ryan Collins and Aneil Tripathy as they interview Emily Jane Murry about her work as a publicly engaged archaeologist in Northern Florida with the Florida Public Archaeology Network. Most of us don’t even consider ...

How does a camera and a deep sense of curiosity lead to a lifetime of archaeological research on ancient peoples, their symbols, art, and writing? Ryan and Aneil are joined by Brandeis University Professor Javier Urcid who sh...

We’re back in Peru! Join Adam and special guest Alexander Wankel of Pachakuti Foods for a conversation about the future of food production, agrobiodiversity, sustainability, and keeping traditional culture alive. All from the...

When designing a research project, a researcher’s initial plans are often interrupted by what data we actually can access. Whether negotiating political structures, cultural taboos, necessary permissions, or the logistics of ...

Mate (pronounced mah-tay), or more commonly known as yerba mate for English speakers, is an herbal tea drink native to parts of South America – Southern Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay – where local people drank it for thousands of years. The...

Join TAL as they explore the meaning and movements behind the buzz words that shape anthropology when it reaches beyond the classroom. Applied, Public, Design, and Open Anthropology. What are they, how do they work, and what ...

Join TAL’s Aneil Tripathy and Ryan Collins as they interview Ana Mariella Bacigalupo of SUNY Buffalo. Ana’s discussion of her research on Mapuche shamans takes us on an exciting journey, full of emotion, struggle, hope, and p...

Whether exploring a ruined tomb by torchlight, submerging to great depths in search of lost ships, or sending lone robot emissaries to search the stars, human experience is shaped by discovery. More than being a thrill, disco...

Start your week off by tuning in to the TAL crew, the entire TAL crew, back from fieldwork (albeit briefly) as we talk about our experiences in ethnography, archaeology, and excessive note taking! In this exciting episode Amy...

Holly Walter’s joins TAL in the studio to share her experiences and insights into Shaligram stones! Her fieldwork took her from Kathmandu to Mustang on a pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of trekkers, tourists, and pilg...

Welcome back listeners new and old to the new and exciting season of This Anthropological Life! This season we at TAL have a lot of new content and exciting interviews ahead. To bring everyone up to speed, tune in to our firs...

Sometimes ethnographic investigations are pretty straight forward. Sometimes, its like getting submerged in a ball pit with the task of sorting all of the colors, figuring out which ones are older than the others, and grappli...

Ever wanted to know what its like to be an archaeologist? Can you really dig a whole and interpret the past with the materials you find? Is anything about Indiana Jones accurate? Tune and listen to host Ryan Collins talk abou...

Join us for our 50th episode! Return guest host Ben Gebo joins Adam, Aneil, and Ryan as we uncover the human quest to endure, and to push ourselves to the limit. From marathons to surviving evolution, we tackle time and space...