A decade ago, I spent more months than originally desired living in the bush of Sudan’s remote and war-torn Blue Nile state with SPLA-N rebels from the Uduk tribe, whose 20,000 odd members had found themselves stranded, by an accident …
Non-places are robbing us of life
At Leeds-Bradford airport, as the closure of my departure gate fast approached, I stood at a security conveyor waiting for the results of a swab of my daughter’s rucksack. My eyes pleaded with the put-upon official to speed things up. …
Let women be promiscuous
Once upon a time, Darwinian theory was regarded as anathema to feminism. It presents gender stereotypes as inherent and predetermined, rather than as a production of socialisation and implies that women should fulfil “traditional roles”. No wonder it found a …
Why you should be a thick traveller
Anthropology is in some ways an odd and creepy thing to do. Anthropologists spend a lot of time watching people, often people who are very different from themselves, in the hope of understanding them. If done wrong, as it has …
In defence of critical theory
If you’ve been watching the latest pitched battles in America’s culture wars, you’ve doubtless heard of the much-ballyhooed and much-denounced field of critical race theory. One thing you may not have gleaned from all the media furore, though, is that …
Coronation is a ritual humiliation
As the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla approaches, a subset of progressive opinion can’t help but vent disdain for the ancient ritual. Just Stop Oil is refusing to rule out disruptive action (we’re facing “civilisational collapse”, after all). …