SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

Latest Episodes:

Introducing: Blind Plea May 17, 2023

Show notes

Deven Grey, a young, isolated mother in Alabama, reached a point of no return on December 12, 2017. She shot and killed her boyfriend, John Vance. Rather than face a jury, Deven accepted a “blind plea” deal. This is Deven’s story, reclaimed. From Lemonada Media, this is Blind Plea.

You can listen to Blind Plea at https://link.chtbl.com/BlindPleaPodcast

Show notes:

This series is created with Evoke Media, a woman-founded company devoted to harnessing the power of storytelling to drive social change.
This series is presented by the Marguerite Casey Foundation. MCF supports leaders who work to shift the balance of power in their communities toward working people and families, and who have the vision and capacity for building a truly representative economy. Learn more at caseygrants.org or visit on social media @caseygrants.

Finding Mrs. Jackson May 09, 2023

Show notes

When archaeologists excavate, they have some idea of what they will find in the ground. But in 2016, a team of archaeologists from the University of Massachusetts, Boston, was genuinely surprised when they uncovered a Victorian-era cache. In the process, they forged an uncommonly deep connection with an individual from the past.

Narrated by Anya Gruber, this story shows how archaeology can humanize the past and how loss can bring us closer.

SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by House of Pod. Cat Jaffee was the editor for this piece, with help from producer Ann Marie Awad. Seth Samuel was the audio editor and sound designer. The executive producers were Cat Jaffee and Chip Colwell.

Anya Gruber is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin, specializing in paleoethnobotany. She previously worked in New Mexico and currently works in coastal Massachusetts. Anya writes about a range of topics, including ancient diets, medicinal plants, mourning practices, and infectious diseases. Follow her on Instagram @anyagruber.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources:

· Cole’s Hill Memorial Cache: An Introduction at The Fiske Center Blog

· From Dustpan to Daguerreotype

Episode sponsor:

· This episode is included in season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast, which is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Aneho’s Disappearing Coast May 02, 2023

Show notes

Aneho is a little historic West African town that is disappearing due to coastal erosion. But locals defy the sea and continue to live on the water’s edge. In this episode, we hear how their decision to stay in the face of an ever-approaching shoreline affects life along the coast and beyond.

As reported by Koffi Nomedji, a doctoral candidate in cultural anthropology from Lomé, Togo, we learn how as humans we variously face climate change–induced disaster.

Koffi Nomedji is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at Duke University. He is currently working on questions related to climate change, policymaking, and development in Africa. His dissertation explores communities’ adaptation to coastal erosion in Togo, which is what he will be podcasting and writing about during his time in the SAPIENS fellowship program. Koffi has a rich professional background in international development. Prior to his doctoral journey, he served for eight years as a community organizer committed to local development and climate response in Togo.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

The Conversion of Julio Tiwiram Apr 25, 2023

Show notes

Julio Tiwiram is a famous shaman in southeast Amazonian Ecuador. He is also a leading political figure among the Shuar people of Bomboiza. Growing up at the crossroads of social change and colonial conflict, his path to shamanism was anything but straightforward.

As reported by Sebastián Vacas-Oleas, a social anthropologist working with the Shuar people of Bomboiza, we learn how a mysterious shamanic gathering helped Shuar people mobilize their traditional knowledge to fight for their land against settler occupation.

Sebastián Vacas-Oleas is a postdoctoral affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. He is also a lecturer and a visiting researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences in Ecuador. He is currently working as an editor on a Shuar-authored book of collected life histories, which includes the story of Julio Tiwiram and the events heard in this episode. Sebastián also helps coordinate a project with the Bomboiza Shuar Research Group, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation, to study Shuar ancestral locations, migratory movements, women’s gardening practices, and change in Indigenous relations with their land.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out this related resource:

· You can visit Julio Tiwiram in Kupiamais, his home community, in the Bomboiza land reserve, where he sees patients in his home. You can read more about Bomboiza, its shamans, our forthcoming book, and other shared ongoing projects on www.bomboiza.org.

Episode sponsor:

People of the Peppers Apr 18, 2023

Show notes

The world over people live with plants. Whether it’s in apartment bedrooms or backyards, it’s hard to find a human who doesn’t have some relationship with a plant. Enter paleoethnobotany, a field of archeology that examines plant remains to understand the historic alliance between humans and their vegetation. In this episode, host Eshe Lewis interviews archaeologist Katie Chiou to explore the spiciest human-plant affair: chili peppers.

Katherine L. Chiou is an anthropological archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist whose research interests include foodways in the past and present, Andean archaeology, household archaeology, plant domestication, food sovereignty, agrobiodiversity, sustainability, GIS and data visualization, and responsible conduct of research. Katherine received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is currently an assistant professor in anthropology at the University of Alabama, where she oversees the Ancient People and Plants Laboratory. She is currently working on a project, funded by the National Science Foundation, to study and promote ethical cultures in the field of archaeology. Her writing and podcasting as a SAPIENS fellow will revolve around the subject of food, particularly the enigmatic relationship between people and chiles, past and present.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

The Power of Criminal Prosecutors Apr 11, 2023

Show notes

Anyone who is in prison has been charged for a crime by a prosecutor. The charges are important because they determine someone’s punishment. How do prosecutors make their charging decisions? And what are the long-term impacts of those decisions?

Reported by Esteban Salmón, an anthropologist born and raised in Mexico City, we learn just how powerful a charging decision can be in the Mexican criminal justice system.

Esteban Salmón is an anthropologist who studies the ethics of criminal prosecution in Mexico City. He is currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Stanford University. His first book explores how immigration enforcement at the U.S.-Mexico border affects the relations between a community of undocumented migrants in New York and their hometown in central Mexico. Before attending graduate school, Esteban worked as a community organizer and policy advocate for access to justice initiatives in Mexico City. His research has been funded by the Fulbright Program, the National Science Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Follow him on Twitter @EsteSalmon.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Episode sponsor:

I Do This for You, Mom Apr 04, 2023

Show notes

Jeri Hutton Green is a mother, daughter, and advocate for survivors of domestic violence and homicide in Baltimore, Maryland. Her journey as an advocate began when her mother went missing in April 2020. A text message launched a 2-year battle for justice for her mother and other missing Black women.

Reported by Brendane A. Tynes, a doctoral candidate in anthropology and an interpersonal violence survivor advocate, this episode explores what it means to survive domestic violence and police violence as a Black woman.

Brendane A. Tynes is a Black queer feminist scholar and storyteller from Columbia, South Carolina. As a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Columbia University, she studies the affective responses of Black women and girls to multiple forms of violence within grassroots Black political movements. Her scholarship has received generous support from the CAETR, Ford Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. She works with the Say Her Name Coalition and In Our Names Network to address sexual violence against Black women, femmes, girls, and gender-expansive people. Brendane also co-hosts the Zora’s Daughters Podcast, a Black feminist anthropological intervention on popular culture and issues that concern Black women and queer and trans people. Follow her on Twitter @brendanetynes.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources:

· “How Do We Listen to the Living?” in Anthropology News

· “72-Year-Old Woman’s Ex-Boyfriend Begins Murder Trial for Her 2020 Death”

· U.S. Department of Justice Investigation of the Baltimore City Police Department Report (2016)

· Black Women and Police Violence: A Primer from the University of Illinois

Episode sponsor:

A Story of Icelandic Skulls Mar 28, 2023

Show notes

“Prime harvest”—that’s how one early 20th-century explorer described his collection of Icelandic human skulls. But why did he “harvest” those skulls in the first place? And what should happen to them now more than a century after they were collected? This case of the Icelandic skulls reveals an interconnected story of eugenics, international law, and the limits of current repatriation efforts.

As reported by Adam Netzer Zimmer, an Iceland-based anthropologist, we hear how a community once targeted by anthropologists is now expanding our ideas of how to ethically handle human remains.

Adam Netzer Zimmer is a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Massachusetts (UMass), Amherst, specializing in biocultural anthropology. His research focuses on the rise of race-based anatomical science in 19th- and early 20th-century Iceland and the U.S. He is also interested in queer and feminist perspectives in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, particularly in the history of science. Adam’s work has been supported by a Fulbright/National Science Foundation Arctic Research Grant, an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and a Leifur Eiríksson Foundation Fellowship. Previously, he was the laboratory manager for the UMass Taphonomic Research Facility and is currently a co–primary director of the Rivulus Dominarum Transylvanian Bioarchaeology project in Baia Mare, Romania.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent podcast funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation. SAPIENS is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library.

Check out these related resources:

· “Harvard’s Eugenics Era” in Harvard Magazine

· Museums: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)

· Discovery: The Autobiography of Vilhjálmur Stefánsson

· Traveling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjálmur Stefánsson by Gísli Pálsson

Episode sponsor:

SAPIENS Podcast Season 5 Trailer Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

Being human is complicated. We require food and shelter. We have histories to contend with. We create rituals to control fate. We steal. We fight. We kill. We love. We shape the environment to suit our needs—sometimes with terrifying results.

This season of the SAPIENS podcast embraces the diversity of human experience, digging deep into our human past and how we live today. The throughline of this season is the way in which humans use cultural beliefs and practices not only to explain the past but also to imagine the present and future. These stories aspire to understand how cultures can guide knowledge of human truths and help all of us to become seekers of wisdom.

Join season 5’s host, Eshe Lewis, on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

Season 5 of the SAPIENS podcast was part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

Introducing: Whetstone Radio Collective May 10, 2022

Show notes

Today, we're sharing a teaser from our friends at Whetstone Magazine. They've started something called the Whetstone Radio Collective (WRC). The WRC is a collection of podcasts telling narrative stories through the lens of food anthropology.

To learn more, visit: https://www.whetstonemagazine.com/radio

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