Social anthropology articles from across Nature Portfolio

Languages vary in how they carve time, space, kinsfolk, and many other domains into categories. Here, the authors show that languages tend toward symmetry in the number of categories used across domains.

Maria Raquel Lima is based in Brazil, where communities suffer owing to waste colonialism. She explains why polluters must pay and affected communities must lead the solutions.

Formal education systems rarely include the knowledge and skills of hunter-gatherer societies. This can lead to cultural erosion and knowledge decline. For education to be both high quality and sustainable, Indigenous knowledge should be recognized and valued.

In the heart of Guangzhou, I find Shipai Village — where algorithmic precision meets grassroots adaptability to form a hidden, essential system that sustains the city’s pulse — thriving in chaotic resilience.

The Trump Administration’s executive orders that target diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, humanitarian approaches to migration management, and climate justice policies threaten the core ethical principle of ‘do no harm’ and make it harder to account for and respond to the violence and mental health consequences of the USAID Stop Work Order.