The Paradox of Global Inequalities: Why Equal Ideals Produce Unequal Worlds

Across the world, few people openly defend inequality. Yet inequalities of wealth, race, citizenship, and opportunity remain strikingly persistent. Why?  Professor Graziella Moraes Silva explores how anthropology and sociology help us understand not only who benefits from inequality, but also how unequal worlds are produced, justified, and contested.  

Are Humans Biologically Programmed to Wage War? ANSO Perspectives on War and Humanitarianism

Drawing on a people-centered approach, the discussion examines how communities experience, navigate, and respond to conflict, displacement, aid, and militarisation. The webinar will highlights how anthropology contributes to the broader study of war and humanitarianism by focusing on lived experiences, everyday realities, and the human impact of global crises.

From Boom to Doom? The Hidden Infrastructure of Artificial Intelligence

AI is everywhere—and so are the infrastructures that make it possible. Behind the promises of “smarter machines” and a frictionless “cloud” are data centres, energy systems, water, land, and hardware. From AI data centres to Bitcoin mines, the digital economy is creating new sites of resource extraction and conflict.

Drawing on ethnographic research in the United States, join Professor Filipe Calvao in examining the material realities behind our digital future. Who benefits from the expansion of AI infrastructure, and who bears its costs? What can data centres and bitcoin mines reveal about how digital technologies are reshaping communities, landscapes, and resources?