Ep. 028: Bones of Contention: Anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss on Sex, Bones, and Ethical Hypocrisy

The Dissidents

In this week's podcast Elizabeth Weiss, Professor of Anthropology and fellow at the Center for Academic Pluralism, joins us to talk about bones! We discuss research ethics, respect for artifacts, the preservation of research materials, and academic freedom in anthropology and beyond. Current and future access to documents, laboratory spaces, databases, and physical objects are at risk. Also at risk is exposure to diverse and challenging ideas in anthropology research and education. We talk about contemporary social and political challenges surrounding the categorization of bones and the related ideological hypocrisies the field is actively avoiding. Elizabeth gives us a brief overview of her most recent cancellation experience: a panel discussion originally accepted for the American Anthropological Association conference was deemed potentially harmful and removed from the schedule. She invites us to hear the canceled panel discussion on November 8, offered through Heterodox Academy.

Podcast Notes:

Sign up for "[UNCANCELED] Let's Talk About Sex Baby: Why Biological Sex Remains A Necessary Analytic Category in Anthropology" by clicking here: https://t.co/hrsArQWnun Wednesday, November 8th at 4 - 6 pm ET

Books by Elizabeth Weiss: Reading the Bones: Activity, Biology, and Culture (2017) and Repatriation and Erasing the Past (2020).

Materials about the AAA cancellation: https://elizabethweiss74.wordpress.com/discussing-sex-is-no-longer-allowed-at-anthropology-conferences/

Elizabeth Weiss article in Quillette: The Problem of Sex Discrimination in Indigenous Archaeology (quillette.com)

Elizabeth Weiss piece in Spiked: There’s no such thing as a nonbinary skeleton - spiked (spiked-online.com)

Article by Kathleen Lowrey about the canceled AAA panel: https://compactmag.com/article/how-anthropology-canceled-sex