This talk offers an ethnographic account of the structures of captivity that keep migrants and deportees in conditions of enforced immobility and precarity at the Mexico-U.S. border. Whereas much scholarship has framed the border primarily as a site of transit or deadly deterrence, Martinez argues that it has been transformed into a carceral frontier that […]

This talk examines how urban planning, animal governance, and racial politics converge in the production of interspecies belonging in Singapore. Through this, it considers what drawing, as an analytic, might offer anthropology for understanding how more-than-human worlds become governed. Focusing on the "Singapore Special" — a term for local mongrel dogs — it traces how […]

All AI (algorithmic intelligence) companies claim they are pursuing the next logical step in digital—perhaps even human—evolution. But, the development of AI is clearly shaped by a wide range of untethered belief systems from obscure German philosophy to The Lord of the Rings. There is nothing logical about it. It is unreasonable to make AI […]

On April 6, 2026, the Graduate Training in Southeast Asia (GETSEA) consortium and UCSC’s Center for Southeast Asian Coastal Interactions will host two short films highlighting the challenges to art and expression in Malaysia’s complex political, legal, and societal landscape. Sotong follows four fierce local drag queens who were part of the 2022 Halloween party raided […]

This talk proposes a new reading of Early Modern European sources for African history in light of Islamic African written records and oral traditions. It examines how Islam interacted with local religions and cultural practices in order to become meaningful and suitable for West African communities. Focusing on the need for protection against crocodile attacks […]