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 to be gracious…
HRAF is pleased to announce the recipients of the HRAF Global Scholars Program for 2024. This program provides scholars around the world with one year of complimentary access to our research databases, eHRAF World Cultures…
What can artificial intelligence and machine learning contribute to anthropology, the most human of disciplines? Ethnography combines elements of science and humanities, with ethnographic writing mediating exposition and science. Data science techniques such as Natural…
As All Hallow’s Eve approaches, it’s once again the time of year for ghastly ghouls, wicked witches and terrifying things that go bump in the night. From haunted houses to headless horsemen, there are many…
There are few signifiers of culture more potent and recognizable than food. Nourishment and cultural identity share a deep-seated connection. Food, and especially our preferences for preparing, cooking and eating it, are about far more…
My Fulbright Experience to Ethiopia, 2022-23 by Teferi Abate Adem, HRAF Research Anthropologist Conducting follow-up extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the Wollo area of Ethiopia has been a deeply felt dream of mine over the last…
Why do people in some societies dress in uniform or standardized ways, whereas in other societies individuals display considerable variability in dress? Tentative answers to this question will appear as an article titled “Uniformity in…
A new topical summary on Residence and Kinship is now available in Explaining Human Culture, our open access database that summarizes the results of over 1,100 cross-cultural studies. This EHC summary is co-authored by HRAF President…
The Trobriands, a Melanesian people who live primarily on four islands in Milne Bay Province, northeastern Papua New Guinea, are one of the over 300 cultures covered in the eHRAF World Cultures ethnographic database. Fifty-seven documents…
It has been 25 years since the application known today as the eHRAF World Cultures database made its debut on the World Wide Web. The first online version of the eHRAF Collection of Ethnography was…