The Best Carnitas Ever

Posted on March 12, 2015March 9, 2015 by Marianne Paiva

The Best Carnitas Ever was originally published at www.norcalblogs.com.

We are in search of authentic? Mexican cuisine without the upset digestive track that we have been warned of multiple times before arriving in Cabo. The last few evenings, we grilled steak and giant red and yellow bell peppers on the oversized grill by the pool; the Costco down the road makes it relatively inexpensive to cook for ourselves. But we have heard of a local eatery that specializes in carnitas and have been assured by Miguel that the food is safe to eat, despite being outside of the tourist zone.…

R.I.P. Sociology?

Posted on March 11, 2015March 9, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

Re-posted from a blog by Julie here at e.com last fall, 2014. Thanks to Les Back at The Sociological Review for the inspiration.

It’s the holidays and I’m feeling nostalgic, thinking about this time 14 years ago when I was just finishing up my first semester at CSU, Chico. I was a 34-year old college junior and a first generation college student. Today I was looking for a beef stew recipe in the Joy of Cooking and I came across a relic of some old school notes for a final exam that first semester I was back in school.…

Love, Duty, and Marriage in a Classic Thai Novel

Posted on March 10, 2015March 9, 2015 by Tony Waters

Originally published here at ethnography.com in October 2011.

In summer 2011, I had the pleasure of co-teaching a Sociology/English class for American students in Thailand. One of the real pleasures was using novels to illustrate sociological principles. It was kind of like profession (sociology) meets hobby (reading novels). I hope that the students liked it—I certainly did, and this blog is about what was my favorite Thai novel of the summer, Behind the Painting. …

Something Good to Read from Savage Minds

Posted on March 9, 2015March 9, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

I am going to be out-of-town working for a few days so I’ve scheduled some posts for the week that we think you should read, in case you missed ’em when they were here before. I’ll be back online Friday.

The folk at Savage Minds (one of our favorites) are doing a spring Writer’s Workshop series over on their blog and we wanted to let you know about it here, because we love writers and we love reading here at ethnography.com.…

A Season of Homicides: What Happened to Marc Thompson?

Posted on March 8, 2015January 29, 2019 by Julie Garza-Withers

published December 15, 2014 in the Synthesis (no longer in print)

The Boondocks

Mountain House and Brush Creek are part of an unincorporated area 25 miles or so east of Oroville, California. They are tiny burgs off the old Oroville-Quincy Highway, on the way to Buck’s Lake Wilderness, Quincy, and countless outdoor opportunities in Plumas County. These areas, steeped in mining and logging history, are rural and quiet, known for marijuana grows and conservative politics.…

Kennewick Man Sighted Buying Groceries in Virginia

Posted on March 6, 2015March 6, 2015 by Cindy

by Cynthia van Gilder

Most everyone in the anthropological community is familiar with the controversial human skeletal find known as Kennewick Man. Discovered in 1996 by some hikers on the Columbia River, Washington, Kennewick Man was initially identified as a 19th century Euro-American settler, but closer inspection revealed a projectile point embedded in his pelvis that was common about 9,000 years ago, a date that radiocarbon dating later confirmed. In short, Kennewick Man sparked an epic controversy around two primary topics: 1) who should have legal stewardship of the remains; and 2) what was “Kenne’s” race.…

Where Have You Gone Robert Redford?

Posted on March 5, 2015March 4, 2015 by Tony Waters

I lived in Thailand as a young Peace Corps Volunteer in the early 1980s. To learn Thai, I would go into small local restaurants where I would sit at a table. As a lone single foreigner, my presence raised curiosity of the people working at the restaurants, or other patrons. Oftentimes is was a 30 or 40 year old woman who owned the stall, and made their living selling bowls of noodle soup. …

What Happened to Marc Thompson?

Posted on March 4, 2015September 3, 2015 by Julie Garza-Withers

Yesterday was the six-month anniversary of my friend Marc Thompson’s murder. Marc was a good friend of mine and a former Sociology student. A few years ago, we made a documentary together called If These Halls Could Talk. The movie also starred our mutual friend Joe Rogers. Like Marc, Joe is a Soc major and in addition to everything else he does writes for The Orion, the independent student newspaper at CSU, Chico; Marc would’ve graduated from there this last December with a Bachelor’s degree in Sociology.…

Leaky First Graders, Defiant Teenagers, Jocks, and Nerds

Posted on March 3, 2015March 3, 2015 by Tony Waters

A review of my 2012 book Schooling, Childhood, and Bureaucracy: Bureaucratizing the Child was just published in Contemporary Sociology. The book review was generally pretty nice—so I recommend people read it (sorry to non-university people, it’s mostly behind a paywall). The reviewer highlighted Chapter 4 which is about child development in the context of standardized school grades as being particularly noteworthy. Here is a brief extract from that chapter. You can read a pre-publication version of Chapter 1 here.…