What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pe...
The United Fruit Company was a U.S. multinational corporation and at one time, the largest landholder in Central America. To maintain authority in this part of the world, the company stamped out labor reform, collaborated with U.S.-backed coups, and, oddly enough, invested in archaeology. Why?In this episode, anthropologist Charlotte Williams explores the company’s role in preserving the past. She discusses United Fruit's botched conservation project at the Maya site of Zaculeu and the ongoing impacts of that program. Charlotte Williams is a Mellon Democracy and Landscapes Initiative fellow at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University (2024–2025), and a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research explores how archaeology as a discipline has been used in U.S. imperial projects, with a focus on how the United Fruit Company used archaeology to grow territorial power in Central America. Charlotte has worked on community museum projects, coordinated decolonizing museum programs, and co-curated an independent art exhibition.Check out these related resources:
“The Fruits of Extraction”
“Zaculeu, Guatemala: reflexiones y propuestas para un retorno local”
Zaculeu, fortaleza mam Facebook page
“Conquest and Revival at Chiantla Viejo: The Transition of a Highland Maya Community to Spanish Colonial Rule”
*SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor. SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
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34:25
Where Cultures Collide: Season 8 Trailer
Culture is a force that makes us who we are. It drives social interactions and relationships, shapes beliefs and politics, ignites imaginations, and molds identities. Cultural conflicts are at the heart of many crises facing the world—increasing inequality, persistent bigotry, ecological collapse.In this season of the podcast, we’re investigating these intersections of culture: how past flashpoints echo into today, how present flashpoints are forging our futures. Through the lens of anthropology, we will examine what happens when human cultures meet, merge, and clash—and what these encounters reveal about humanity’s shared fate.Join Season 8 host Eshe Lewis and the latest cohort of SAPIENS public scholars fellows as we journey across continents to uncover where cultures collide.*SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is produced by Written In Air. The executive producers are Dennis Funk and Chip Colwell. This season’s host is Eshe Lewis, who is also the director of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program. Production and mix support are provided by Rebecca Nolan. Christine Weeber is the copy editor. SAPIENS is an editorially independent magazine of the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the University of Chicago Press. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human is part of the American Anthropological Association Podcast Library. This episode is part of the SAPIENS Public Scholars Training Fellowship program, which provides in-depth training for anthropologists in the craft of science communication and public scholarship, funded with the support of a three-year grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
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1:23
Introducing: Homegoings
Host Myra Flynn unpacks one soul food recipe: collard greens, with local and world-renowned chefs, and even her own mother. Together they explore how the history of a once undesirable food mimics the resilience, innovation, and perseverance of a once considered undesirable people.*Homegoings is a: Podcast, TV show, and event-series where no topic is off the table, and there’s no such thing as going too deep. Host and musician Myra Flynn brings you candid conversations about race with artists, experts and regular folks all over the country about their literal skin in the game—of everyday life.
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35:41
The Ancient Child Who's Changing Archaeology
Can museums and archaeology harm the dead?An Indigenous archaeologist from Brazil challenges traditional approaches to studying human bones. Her work reveals how standard practices—such as assigning catalog numbers to ancient bodies—are violent and biased. As she encounters the remains of a 700-year-old child in a university museum, their stories intertwine, highlighting issues of ethics, coloniality, and ethnic erasure. This encounter prompts a discussion on how archaeology and museums can address historical wounds and counter the silencing of Indigenous histories.Mariana Petry Cabral is a Brazilian archaeologist whose research interests focus on Indigenous archaeologies, collaborative practices, and how people produce and use historical knowledge to understand who they are. She received her Ph.D. from Universidade Federal do Pará (Brazil) and is a permanent professor of the department of anthropology and archaeology at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (Brazil). She was a visiting scholar at Brown University in 2023 and is working on a project about the relevance of archaeological narratives about the past to imagine more inclusive and diverse futures.Check out these related resources:
"Finding Footprints Laid at the Dawn of Time”
"Indigenous Cultures Have Archaeology Too”
Museum of Natural History and Botanical Garden, UFMG
"From Structures to Bodies and Beings: The Perishable Vestiges of Lapa do Caboclo, Diamantina, Minas Gerais”
Follow the Indigenous archaeologist Bibi Nhatarâmiak on Instagram
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37:08
Comics As a Medium for Women’s Rights
As a form of popular culture, comics have provided humor, action, and entertainment to readers of all ages and across generations. But comics also intertwine art and humor to creatively make political statements, challenge media censorship, and address controversial issues of the times.This podcast episode focuses on how comics can be tools for social action and transformation by highlighting the life history of the first woman Pakistani comic artist Nigar Nazar and her character Gogi, whom she created in the 1970s. Gogi comics shed light on important themes of education, health, rights, and other critical women’s issues in Pakistan and the broader Muslim world and how they are transforming over time.Join cultural anthropologist Sana Malik and host Eshe Lewis as they talk about Gogi, the transgressive potential of comics and art, and how comics are relevant in Pakistan today amid new social movements and the social media boom.Sana Malik is a cultural anthropologist who studies women’s political agency in urban Pakistan. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Emory University. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Social Science Research Council. Sana’s dissertation draws on the anthropology of rights and social movements, social generations studies, and feminist ethnography to explore how activists and ordinary women engage in movements for social justice and rights in urban Pakistan.Check out these related resources:
Gogi Studios
“Aurat March: Pakistani Women Face Violent Threats Ahead of Rally”
“Gogi, the Heroine Created by Pakistan's First Female Cartoonist”
“Confronting Xenophobia Through Food—and Comics”
“When Anthropology Meets the Graphic Novel in Thailand”
What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join SAPIENS on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.
New Zealand