Author Archives: Francine Barone

About Francine Barone

Director of Academic Development and Operations, Human Relations Area Files at Yale University

Craving comfort: bonding with food across cultures

By Francine Barone Food is a universal human experience. People everywhere must eat to survive, yet what foods are eaten and how they are enjoyed can vary widely across cultures and time. “Comfort foods” made…

Understanding Love: Attending the 2024 Love Studies Conference, Canary Islands, Spain

HRAF Research Anthropologist, Ian Skoggard, reflects on his experience attending the 2024 Love Studies Conference in Gran Canaria last month. What’s not to love about a love studies conference? This January, the International Institute of…

Nascent Worlds: a journey of cultural discovery

Nascent Worlds, a teaching exercise by digital anthropologist Dr. Francine Barone, is a build-your-own-culture learning activity. Designed with introductory socio-cultural anthropology classes in mind, it incorporates all four fields of anthropology (physical anthropology, linguistic anthropology,…

Thanks, but no thanks: Expressions of gratitude in eHRAF World Cultures

By Francine Barone During the end-of-year “holiday season” throughout much of the Western world, we are often reminded to be grateful for the things that we have, and even to go out of our way…

An Anthropology of Dads: Exploring fatherhood in eHRAF

Francine Barone Are fathers and “fatherhood” underrepresented as a subject of inquiry in anthropology? According to evolutionary anthropologist Anna Machin, up until 10 years ago, fatherhood was neglected by researchers “due to the misguided assumption…

Unconditional Love: Is devotion to pets a cultural universal?

By Francine Barone If the number of cute animal memes on the internet is a fair benchmark, then the human love of pets is a powerful and global phenomenon. For many pet owners, their furry…