Where Have All the Comparisons Gone?, a recently published series from the Society for Cultural Anthropology, revisits a longstanding topic in the social sciences: the debate over the value of comparative cultural studies. In this…
The New Year is underway, which means it’s time for our annual news and notes review. This post will summarize our highlights from the previous year as well as what you can expect to see…
The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is pleased to announce a new initiative to expand our engagement with community colleges. The HRAF Community College Initiative recognizes the important role of community colleges…
As people throughout much of the Western world mark the end of another year by finalizing their New Year’s resolutions, it is a good time to reflect anthropologically on how others around the globe observe the…
HRAF turns 70 years old this month! The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) celebrated its official 70th birthday on May 7, 2019, but its origins go back much longer than that. In the 1930s, an…
Teferi Abate Adem From July 23-27, 2018, a group of scholars specializing in studying people who live, or historically lived, by foraging wild food held their 12th Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (CHAGS) in Penang,…
The New Year is underway, which means it’s time for our annual news and notes review. This post will summarize our highlights from the previous year as well as what you can expect to see…
HRAF President, Carol Ember, has contributed this post reporting on her ongoing research into natural hazards and cultural “tightness”. Some societies appear to have strong and clearly defined expectations for how to behave in many…
In our live webinars, you can learn more about the eHRAF databases, including how cultures and traditions are organized by regions, sub-regions, samples, and subsistence types. First developed in the 1930s by George Peter Murdock,…
The Human Relations Area Files (HRAF) at Yale University is pleased to announce a one-year internship in Melvin Ember’s name. Melvin Ember was President of HRAF from 1987 until his death in 2009. The intent…