Letter from the Editors

Dear Reader,

This year’s Editorial Team is proud to present the 11th installment of CONTEXTS, Stanford’s Undergraduate Research Journal of Anthropology.

Every year, CONTEXTS showcases exceptional student research in anthropology and the social sciences and asks provocative questions within the discipline and beyond. This year is no exception, and our authors explore topics ranging from the creative power of graffiti to the violent colonization of the Philippines, giving us a glimpse at the diversity of social, economic, and political changes happening around the world today.

Each of the articles included in this issue converge around this idea of dis/ruption.

In the tradition of editions past, we aim to facilitate a dialogue on the ways that the theme emerges in the current socio-political moment. Each author engages with issues of representation and expression to not only disrupt normative ideas and prevailing power structures, but to argue that this disruption itself is necessary, and that disruption is embodied in various ways across time and space.

We are incredibly grateful for the amount of time and dedication that our authors spent on their pieces—for the hours of archival and field research that went into the drafting of each piece, the many rounds of revising and editing that each author undertook, and the unique forms of engagement with the theme. We would also like to thank our faculty and graduate editors, Angela Garcia and Alicia Cherian, and our student services specialist Amelie Byun, for their support and guidance. Finally, we would like to thank our readers for supporting this publication, crucial to fostering and developing the intellectual pursuits of our undergraduate researchers.

We hope you enjoy it!

Warmly, The Editorial Team

Jade Arellano ‘19 | Tony Hacket ‘20 | Joshua Cobler ‘20 | Sabrina Jiang ‘20