How do you ‘fix’ a broken jaw?
Seminar
The mandible is the most fractured bone of the face and has estimated annual treatment and rehabilitation costs of >$5 million in the USA. Mandible fracture treatment may involve surgically fitting small titanium miniplates across the fracture to stabilise the bony segments while they heal to…
Expanding the Social World Downwards: Aquifers and Post-Extractivist Futures in Costa Rica
Seminar
The history of Latin America has been marked by extractivist waves, from colonial times to the recent neo-extractivist turn of leftist governments in the region. Costa Rica, however, fits awkwardly in this broad regional history. Not only has the country banned large scale extraction of minerals…
Identity, Poverty and the Great Irish Famine: Insights from Bioarchaeology
Seminar
Food and diet were identity class markers in nineteenth-century Ireland, which became evident as nearly one million people, primarily the poor and destitute, died as a consequence of the notorious Great Famine of 1845–52. Nearly 1,000 individuals who perished during the Famine were discovered at…
The Enduring Logic of Mercy and its Discontents
Seminar
Drawing from research on the Iranian criminal justice system as well as international laws of war and peace, this talk explores the tensions between humanitarianism and human rights, examining how discourses of care mask, seep into, and overtake endeavors that seek justice through human rights. In…
Hardness and Housing at a Warlpiri Community
Seminar
When Nakamarra, a Warlpiri resident of Nyirrpi (NT) observed, “They getting really hard with the houses” – what did she mean? In this paper I unpack what it means when Warlpiri people describe someone as being or feeling ‘hard’ and ask how this differs to the ways ‘hardness’ resonates at the…
Weedy Finance: Weather Insurance and Parametric Life on Unstable Grounds
Seminar
For commercial sesame farming in northern Paraguay, where insurance companies sell weather derivatives to poor farmers, key financial practices depend less on healthy sesame and more on the weeds that thrive among the profitable plants. Parametric insurance is triggered by certain weather…
Exploring the Impacts of Hunting and Logging on Endangered Gibbons and other Primates in Veun Sai- Siem Pang National Park, Cambodia
Seminar
Looking for a distraction from the perils of lockdown? Look no further, the next instalment of the BIAN Seminar Series 2021 is here! For our next seminar we are thrilled to welcome Sarah McGrath from our very own ANU Biological Anthropology research group. Sarah will be giving a talk…