Board Meeting 2018: New Directions
Among the many highlights of the meeting, Matt Roth in IT offered a demonstration of new HRAF functions for saving searches and notes that the IT team (including Doug Black, Leon Doyon, and Fran Barone)…
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Language, Evolution, and Labial-Dental Consonants: HRAF Talk by Damián E. Blasi
HRAF is excited to announce that Dr. Damián Blasi of the University of Zurich joined HRAF as a Research Associate in Summer 2018. His research agenda is focused on the relationships between language and environment/ecology…
Our Global Scholarship Application is Live!
As an organization dedicated to disseminating cultural information and research on human diversity, the Human Relations Area Files greatly values diversity in our membership base. We are therefore proud to present a new scholarship program,…
A Heartfelt Welcome to Our Newest Members!
This year, HRAF welcomes new member institutions from across the world—with universities in Turkey, France, and Canada.
Dwellings: Function, Symbolism, and Landscape
People live and dwell within in a variety of constructed and unconstructed places that shape their existence. Dwellings vary enormously in their size, shape, and construction, and anthropological studies demonstrate that dwellings (and landscapes) dramatically…
Songs Across Cultures
Do songs share certain forms across the world? If you hear a song sung in an unfamiliar language, in a rhythm you’ve never heard before, can you still understand what it means? In a cross-cultural…
Are Teens Troublemakers Across the World?
“Youth must go, ah yes. But youth is only being in a way like it might be an animal…But it itties in a straight line and bangs straight into things bang bang and it cannot…
Tracking the Heavens: The Practical Utility of Astronomy in Cross-Cultural Contexts
Jeffrey Vadala The practice of looking to and tracking the heavens, stars, sun, and moon has roots and parallels in many cultures around the world. In epochs both ancient and contemporary, humans have looked to…
HRAF Research on Climate-Related Disasters and Culture
In early October, Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) launched its Advanced Research Center with a 4-year interdisciplinary grant from the National Science Foundation to study the impact of climate-related disasters on culture. Researchers from HRAF and…