SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

Members of an encampment at a public university in New York City are on trial for felony charges. In 2024, students across the world launched encampments to challenge university financial ties to Israel in response to the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The City University of New York (CUNY), the largest urban public university system in the United States, celebrates and valorizes its long...

The gold industry, alongside nation-states, has marginalized the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector for decades, but now things seem to be changing. The industry has realized that engaging with the ASM sector could be more beneficial for their reputation than excluding it. While once ASM was viewed as a risk, now it is seen as an opportunity. Anthropologist Giselle Figueroa de la Ossa s...

Milpa is an ancestral way of farming in Mexico and other regions of Mesoamerica that involves growing an assortment of different crops in a single area without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. This provides people in the region with a wide variety of foods and a balance of nutrients. In recent years, with the introduction of farming based on synthetic herbicides, milpa has changed, and land i...

In the last two decades, an unprecedented wave of Chinese investment and migration to Africa has transformed many economies on the continent. But this has also provoked a storm of controversy, as some criticize the situation as exploitative neocolonialism. Others defend this migration as development assistance and an act of solidarity between regions jointly victimized by European colonialism.  In...

While researching the history of parole in South Africa, a lawyer and anthropologist discovers the origins of the N2 road, which she drives everyday. Now interested in this highway’s history, she explores how this and other roads were used to expand territory and exploit people during South Africa’s colonial periods under Dutch and British rule, and how they kept people separate during the country...

In existence for more than 70 years, the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is the site of the longest ceasefire in the world. What can this region teach us about the long, intended—and unintended—consequences of this form of a truce? In this episode, sociocultural anthropologist T. Yejoo Kim uncovers how residents have been surviving through decades of sonic violence and propaganda, and explores  re...

In this episode, social anthropologist Luis Alfredo Briceño González talks about his experiences as a foreign researcher in Chile. During his fieldwork, he met Marta, a Venezuelan woman residing in an informal settlement on the outskirts of Santiago. Marta and her family held a mock election to protest not being able to vote in their home country during the presidential elections in 2024. Through...

When it comes to the division of labor in hunter-gather societies, the stereotype is generally that men hunt and women gather. But when a recent study claimed that women in hunter-gather societies hunt just as much as their male counterparts, the finding made news around the world. But why does gender equality in the past matter so much today? This episode focuses on the complexities of work, gend...

Since its emergence in 1960s Harlem, the LGBTQ+ “ ballroom scene ” has expanded into a transnational subculture. For outsiders, understanding how a ball functions can take time.  Join linguistic anthropologist Dozandri Mendoza as they “walk” us through a night at a kiki ball in Puerto Rico. They introduce us to DJs, commentators, performers, and the Boricua Ballroom children who are refashioning t...

The United Fruit Company was a U.S. multinational corporation and at one time, the largest landholder in Central America. To maintain authority in this part of the world, the company stamped out labor reform, collaborated with U.S.-backed coups, and, oddly enough, invested in archaeology. Why? In this episode, anthropologist Charlotte Williams explores the company’s role in preserving the past. Sh...

Culture is a force that makes us who we are. It drives social interactions and relationships, shapes beliefs and politics, ignites imaginations, and molds identities. Cultural conflicts are at the heart of many crises facing the world—increasing inequality, persistent bigotry, ecological collapse. In this season of the podcast, we’re investigating these intersections of culture: how past flashpoin...

Host Myra Flynn unpacks one soul food recipe: collard greens, with local and world-renowned chefs, and even her own mother. Together they explore how the history of a once undesirable food mimics the resilience, innovation, and perseverance of a once considered undesirable people. * Homegoings is a: Podcast, TV show, and event-series where no topic is off the table, and there’s no such thing as go...

Can museums and archaeology harm the dead? An Indigenous archaeologist from Brazil challenges traditional approaches to studying human bones. Her work reveals how standard practices—such as assigning catalog numbers to ancient bodies—are violent and biased. As she encounters the remains of a 700-year-old child in a university museum, their stories intertwine, highlighting issues of ethics, colonia...

As a form of popular culture, comics have provided humor, action, and entertainment to readers of all ages and across generations. But comics also intertwine art and humor to creatively make political statements, challenge media censorship, and address controversial issues of the times. This podcast episode focuses on how comics can be tools for social action and transformation by highlighting the...

Where is your smartphone right now? If you’re like most smartphone users in the United States, it’s probably within a few feet of your reach, if not sitting in your hand. In the last 15 years, smartphones have quickly, seamlessly, and profoundly been embedded in the daily lives of most Americans. There are now few, if any, domains of modern life that are unaffected by smartphone use. This episode...

María Pía Tavella is an Argentine biological anthropologist and science writer. In conversation with host Eshe Lewis, María shares a snapshot of the multiple hurdles the scientific community is facing in Argentina and reflects on the role of science communication. How is scientific research related to our daily lives? In what ways are science contributions so valuable to our societies that we shou...

Discussions about the impacts of dams around the world are often focused on the displacement of communities due to the creation of reservoirs and the submergence of towns and cities. What happens when a dam affects more people downstream than it displaces upstream? How does a dam impact humans living downstream? In this episode, Parag Jyoti Saikia shares how the Subansiri Lower Hydroelectric Proje...

Funeral traditions around the world involve a range of rituals. From singing to burying to … eating. Why is food such a common practice in putting our loved ones to rest? In this episode, Leyla Jafarova, a doctoral student at Boston University, examines the role of funeral foods in different cultural contexts—from the solemn Islamic funeral rites of the former Soviet Union to the symbolic importan...

What role does gossip play in human societies? In this episode, Bridget Alex and Emily Sekine, editors at SAPIENS magazine, chat with host Eshe Lewis to explore gossip as a fundamental human activity. They discuss gossip’s evolutionary roots, suggesting it may have developed as a form of "vocal grooming" to maintain social bonds in groups. It also helps enforce social norms, they argue, offering a...

Today most people around the world are using digital gadgets. These enable us to communicate instantaneously, pursue our daily work, and entertain ourselves through streaming videos and songs.  But what happens when our past digital activities become evidence in criminal investigations? How are the data that mediate our lives turned into legal arguments? An anthropologist searches for answers. Onu...

Many of our primate relatives use tools. How do they use them? And why? And what do these skills mean for understanding tools across the animal kingdom, including for us humans? In this episode, host Eshe Lewis delves into a conversation with Kirsty Graham, an animal behavior researcher. Kirsty explains how primates such as chimpanzees use tools to forage. Such innovative methods to access food re...

Why do people migrate from one country to another, leaving behind friends, family, and familiarity in search of another life elsewhere? And how might their experiences look different if they are deaf? Ala’ Al-Husni is a deaf Jordanian who moved to Japan five years ago, where he still lives with his deaf Japanese wife and their family just outside of Tokyo. Reported by Timothy Y. Loh, a hearing ant...

At the Abri du Maras site in southern France, archaeologists recovered twisted plant fibers dating back 50,000 years, suggesting Neanderthals had knowledge of plant materials and the seasonal cycles necessary for making durable string. This finding challenges a view of Neanderthals as simplistic and inferior to modern humans, highlighting their sophisticated use of technology and deep environmenta...

These days, a mention of cyborgs often conjures images from a science fiction future: robot arms and legs, infrared eyes, and other modified humans. However, we don’t need to look into the future to find cyborgs. In many ways, people today are already cyborgs. We are deeply intertwined with technology—from the clothes we wear to the structures we live in. But when did our relationship with technol...

Anuli Akanegbu is the host of BLK IRL, an audio docuseries. She is also a Ph. D. candidate in cultural anthropology at New York University, conducting research on Black creatives who are contract workers in Atlanta, Georgia. In conversation with SAPIENS’ podcast host, Dr. Eshe Lewis, Anuli delves into the historical and current successes and struggles of Black influencers, content creators, and ar...