PODCAST
Articles published on our platform are read out loud and turned into podcasts. We also record interviews with our collaborators and contributors. You can find all our audio content here.
AnthroArt
AnthroArt – Action for People and Planet is an initiative of three applied anthropology organisations – Antropedia, Namla and Ambigrama – that aims to create an international platform for connecting anthropology and art, with the purpose of deepening awareness about inequality and our relation with the environment and driving change across three geographies: Romania, The Netherlands and Portugal, as well as beyond.
AnthroArt – Action for People and Planet is a two-year project (2023-2024) co-funded by the European Commision, under the Creative Europe Programme (CREA).
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
Do no harm to investors? Rosia Montana arbitration and structural injustices – Irina Velicu and Ionuț Codreanu
Corporations have always had the power to demand their rights: their freedom often clashes with the freedom of others to protect their needs and their lives. The article analyzes the arbitration over Roșia Montană brought by Gabriel Resources against Romania in 2015. Beyond Romania’s unexpected victory, we want to highlight that this controversial legal mechanism is a form of perpetuation of structural injustices. Between January and July 2024, our research aimed to analyze how this topic is being discussed by key actors in Romania: we examined public statements by government officials and mainstream media, as well as carried out interviews with residents of Roșia Montana.
Article by Irina Velicu and Ionuț Codreanu, illustrated by Mina Mimosa
https://theanthro.art/do-no-harm-to-investors-rosia-montana-arbitration-and-structural-injustice/
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Corporations have always had the power to demand their rights: their freedom often clashes with the freedom of others to protect their needs and their lives. The article analyzes the arbitration over Roșia Montană brought by Gabriel Resources against Romania in 2015. Beyond Romania’s unexpected victory, we want to highlight that this controversial legal mechanism is a form of perpetuation of structural injustices. Between January and July 2024, our research aimed to analyze how this topic is being discussed by key actors in Romania: we examined public statements by government officials and mainstream media, as well as carried out interviews [...]
April 30, 2025
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This article explores how migration from urban to rural areas influences dietary habits and promotes the adoption of more sustainable food practices. The research is set against the backdrop of increasing counterurbanization, where individuals are leaving cities in pursuit of healthier, more balanced lifestyles in rural settings. The connection between food and nature is examined in this context, highlighting shifts towards local, seasonal produce, self-sufficiency, and sustainability. The aim of the study is to understand how the dietary habits of people who have relocated from urban to rural areas have evolved in terms of sustainability. Based on semi-structured interviews with [...]
April 30, 2025
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It is necessary to reflect on the role of the anthropologist in denouncing realities that are often subalternised, with the role of changing them through initiatives and solutions proposed by the anthropologist, allowing us to reflect on the porosity between the spheres of activism and anthropology. To realize the implications and interconnections between different contexts, it is necessary to take a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach. One of the fields most concerned with the interconnections between local, national, and international scales is environmental studies, and it is on this theme that the article focus, mobilising former research to reach this goal. [...]
April 23, 2025
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This study investigates the challenges and strategies for incorporating sustainability into the social control of municipal School Feeding Councils (CAEs) in Minas Gerais within the National School Feeding Program (PNAE). The research aims to understand the performance of CAEs in promoting sustainability and evaluates the impact of an educational intervention on counselors’ intentions to act. The methodology involves action research with qualitative and quantitative analyses, including workshops and discussion groups. Key findings highlight the importance of family farming, school gardens, and reducing food waste as strategies for sustainability. The study also identifies obstacles such as lack of support and negative [...]
April 23, 2025
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The Creating Life Champions project is a collaboration between the ERASMUS+ program and the UEFA Foundation for Children, to strengthen positive social values and principles by using sports fields as a vehicle. This project gathered 16 partners from 8 European countries. The following text presents the results of the ethnographic research done in Portugal regarding this project, aimed to conduct an in-depth analysis of how trainers perceive the educational and pedagogical role of sport and what may be the path for a sustainable strengthening of this role. From April to May 2023, a total of 20 in-depth interviews with youth [...]
April 23, 2025
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This article explores the pivotal role of videos and thematic routes in promoting sustainable tourism through the lens of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Anchored in anthropological and ethnographic methodologies, it highlights how these tools preserve and celebrate traditions, crafts, music, and oral histories. Using the Mouraria neighborhood in Lisbon as a case study, the project documents local narratives and practices to create immersive and authentic tourist experiences. This model demonstrates how tourism can safeguard cultural identity, enhance socio-economic development, and promote sustainability without compromising authenticity. Article by Augusto Ferreira, illustrated by Patricia Palma https://theanthro.art/aroundtheneighborhood-a-storytelling-of-mourarias-memories-traditions-and-history/ [...]
April 23, 2025
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Speculative Design is a methodological approach that can be a huge tool for anthropologists. By working in collaboration with designers and using speculative design techniques, anthropologists and designers together could engage with communities and specific social groups for understanding social problems and imagining alternative futures. With this text is on the one side to present Speculative Design, while at the same time speculating how it could work for anthropologists as a tool for social innovation. Article by Andrea Gaspar, illustrated by Michaela Jones https://theanthro.art/what-if-anthropology-speculative-design-social-innovation-2/ [...]
April 23, 2025
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On shared automobility practices: From horse carriages to digitally prearranged rides – Iulian Gabor
Ridesharing practices such as hitchhiking and carpooling form specific ways of mobility, rich in composition and narratives. Both social practices are present at the margins of all urban areas in Romania having their own specific modus operandi. Although they are not associated with the concept of sustainability by their public, they are embedded in a sustainable kind of mobility, as alternatives to personal road vehicles. The sustainable dimension of ridesharing is also supported by the debate around the occupancy of the car seats. Comparative and historical material demonstrates that states may encourage, discourage, criminalise, or neglect hitchhiking through different policies [...]
April 22, 2025
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For several years now the financial industry has been enrolled, more or less voluntarily, in the global quest for sustainability. Sustainable finance is currently a complex, variegated field of practices and discourses which claims to invest in projects that have, in the best case scenario, a positive impact on society and the planet, or, worst case scenario at least avoid having a negative one, while also making returns. This article focuses on investors practicing a sustainable investment strategy called impact investing, reflecting on a question we were asked at one of the field’s main annual conferences in late 2023: “how [...]
April 22, 2025
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This article focuses on fieldwork conducted in Odivelas, Portugal, where the Municipal Council of Odivelas (MCO) implemented a program to introduce halal meals in the municipality’s public school system. The initiative aimed to accommodate the dietary needs of Muslim students while promoting sociocultural and religious inclusion, as well as school integration. In its first edition, the program covered 50 schools and approximately 116 Muslim students, with participation increasing by 33% the following year. This initiative has helped lay essential foundations for reversing the trend of early school dropouts among Muslim students and fostering a dual sense of identity, allowing them [...]
April 22, 2025
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This article examines the connection between the Hunedoara Steel Plant, the Corvinul football team, and the collective identities of the residents of Hunedoara. Following the decline of the local industry, the team and the stadium have become symbols of a glorious past and community unity. Nostalgia for the golden era of the Steel Plant is reflected in the fervent support for the team and the project to construct their new stadium. This project represents not only an investment in sports infrastructure but also a grassroots effort to rebuild the city’s identity and provide its residents with a sense of pride [...]
April 22, 2025
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When looking for information on the famous 3 Rs of sustainability, I came across a video on YouTube by a French woman living in California called Bea Johnson, that proposed a waste hierarchy of 5 Rs (refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot). The practices shared were not new to the environmental movement, nor to the lives of people who were born before the consumer society. But, for the first time, someone turned it into a set of practices applicable to everyday life, turning it into a global movement with all the characteristics of the social media era. In the format [...]
April 18, 2025
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Food systems can be a valuable tool to think about biodiversity as inherently interconnected with our human worlds, in practices that look towards the sustainability of ecosystems, rather than based in the logic of extracting resources without caring for the degradation of landscapes. Through an ethnographic looking glass, we can understand the ways in which certain food production systems can in fact help us think and act on the current socio- ecological crisis. This article draws from fieldwork among agro-pastoralists in the northeastern region of Portugal, done during September 2023, and January 2024. Based on a mix methods approach, the [...]
April 18, 2025
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The use of holographic technology in art and its relationship with social inclusion and the democratization of access to art have been increasingly prominent topics in the contemporary art scene. Through an innovative and accessible approach, holographic art has the potential to transform the way artworks are presented and appreciated by diverse audiences, including communities in remote areas. This article examines how holographic technology can address issues of art accessibility, promote social and cultural inclusion, and truly democratize the artistic experience, referencing sociological theory, such as that of Zygmunt Bauman. Article by Silvia Raposo, illustrated by Joana Cruz https://theanthro.art/holo-wow-how-holographic-art-is-shaping-the-future-of-inclusive-art/ [...]
April 18, 2025
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It is necessary to reflect on the role of the anthropologist in denouncing realities that are often subalternised, with the role of changing them through initiatives and solutions proposed by the anthropologist, allowing us to reflect on the porosity between the spheres of activism and anthropology. To realize the implications and interconnections between different contexts, it is necessary to take a multi-scalar and multi-sited approach. One of the fields most concerned with the interconnections between local, national, and international scales is environmental studies, and it is on this theme that the article focus, mobilising former research to reach this goal. [...]
April 18, 2025
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Funerary practices have been around since the dawn of humanity serving two main purposes: the need for body disposal and to help the grieving community process the loss. We will focus on mainland Portugal during the Medieval Period up to present day to provide a brief overview of how people have dealt with death, from evolving perceptions from the Past to Present, to the emergence of a “new type of dead” – human remains of archaeological provenance and the obstacles towards sustainability. Article by Ana Lema Seabra, illustrated by Juliana Penkova https://theanthro.art/life-after-death-the-role-of-human-remains-in-a-somewhat-sustainable-afterlife/ [...]
April 18, 2025
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This position paper claims that local governments, within a regional inter-related scope, should envision a new territorial social policy for the effectiveness of sustainability and wellbeing of communities. The proposal of this work stems from a long period of research on sustainability matter; the framing of ecumene studies; and from applied science as consultants with local governments. Our recommendation is that this territorial social policy should be presented as a Regional Conviviality Formula, which is the synergetic result of Compact Cities + Intermodal Cities + New Public Places. We highlight that this formula has potential to create a new socio-spatial [...]
April 18, 2025
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Inclusion is a topic that is increasingly being debated and transformed. Performing arts are not out of this equation and tend more and more to look at the issue and create new opportunities for those who are often left behind by physical, intellectual or social issues. In this article I propose a critical analysis of a programme of inclusion of people with disabilities in a professional contemporary circus production with the aim of understanding its impact on the participants and the surrounding community, as well as the difficulties in implementing it. Article by Rui Leitão, illustrated by Patrícia Palma https://theanthro.art/social-inclusion-of-people-with-disabilities-in-professional-circus-rui-leitao/ [...]
April 18, 2025
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Taking inspiration from the approach of heterosexuality as a political regime, as proposed by lesbian feminism and queer theories, this study starts from the premise that mononormativity (Porto, 2018) permeates the legal apparatus of the state and, simultaneously, transcends it, imbuing social relations and cultural practices in ways not always evident. Building on this intuition, I begin this reflection with an analysis of the gaps in the legal sphere of monogamy in Brazil. Next, I present an analysis of the interactions between the state and monogamy in the context of educational and public health policies. From this discussion, I address [...]
April 18, 2025
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Words, in addition to their declarative or descriptive formats, also have a performative character – they do not exclusively serve the purpose of reporting what is done, but also serve to do so. What is the importance of language in the daily life on the outskirts of Lisbon? I intended to understand how language, on the one hand, is articulated with the contexts of exclusion and inequality that structure the urban condition and, on the other, functions as a mechanism for the construction of a collective identity, social inclusion, and resistance. Using semi-structured interviews with young people from precarious and [...]
April 18, 2025
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This article aims to address the intimate relationship between bureaucratic violence in Portugal against irregular Brazilian immigrants and social inequality. The situation of irregularity limits immigrants’ access to the spheres that make up public life in society and simultaneously restricts their opportunities and working conditions in the host country. To carry out a solid ethnographic article, the life stories method was used in conjunction with formal and informal interviews. Thus, through interviews focused on the migrant experience of these women and theoretical analysis, it was possible to understand how the precarity of the irregular period constitutes a catalyst for social [...]
April 18, 2025
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Evidence gathered since the late 2000s has suggested that a part of the working class goes through episodes of poverty without becoming chronically poor. Drawing on a project conceived to capture successful movements that escape severe or extreme destitution and deprivation and based on an ethnography with 28 families in two public housing estates in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, this article will start by exposing how poverty emerged in their lives, under what conditions it was possible to overcome it, and how they identify the positions they have conquered within structures of inequalities and social hierarchies. Article by José [...]
April 18, 2025
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On Digital Clutter: Understanding Our Relationship with the New Cloud of Unknowing – Liana Gheorghiu
In today’s digital age, cloud storage has become increasingly prevalent, fundamentally altering how we manage and interact with data ownership. While corporate entities have traditionally relied on cloud storage for large-scale data management, personal data storage has recently migrated to the cloud, emerging as a primary means of storing various virtual assets. This shift towards personal cloud storage reflects a broader cultural trend towards digitalization and convenience. However, it also underscores the challenges of digital clutter and data accumulation on a personal level. Through interviews and observation, this research delves into the reasons behind our tendencies to continuously accumulate digital [...]
April 11, 2025
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There is almost a poetic appeal to crafts that render them timeless. Crafts such as textiles maintain continuity, in contrast to trends, like fashion. Textile practice provides thus established codes for interpreting local culture. In doing so, they inhabit their environment in a caring and conscious way. That’s why it should come as no surprise that craftspeople think differently about sustainability than designers or managers. Their practices are deeply embedded in the territory and strongly connected to aspects of place, materiality and social context. At the same time, a large part of this knowledge about sustainability is tacit – this [...]
April 11, 2025
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The role of water in rural Moldova transcends its physical properties as a vital substance to become a poignant reflection of the broader socio-economic, political, and environmental dynamics at play in post-Soviet rural life. Against a backdrop of historical disinvestment, both during the Soviet times and in their aftermath, the article explores the ways in which residents of a village in the north of Moldova navigate water insecurity. Through a delicate balance of waiting for official intervention from the local administration and resorting to self-reliant strategies, they meet their everyday water needs with resourcefulness and endurance. When the village hall [...]
April 11, 2025
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