Humans

This article is an introduction to the issues faced by the unhoused and those with substance use issues in San Antonio, TX, and an analysis of the mis-fits and misrecognitions that lead to failures. It focuses on three areas: aspects of civil rights and full citizenship tied to real estate, neurodiversity as a lens for understanding the needs of many unhoused persons, and the running partner relationship as potential object of analysis and intervention.

This article examines the cognitive theory expressed in early Buddhist Pāli sources by situating their analyses of perception, language, and meditative experience within a psychosemiotic framework. It argues that Buddhist thinkers conceived cognition as a stratified process emerging from the dynamic interaction between sensory and effectual domains, culminating in the semiotic determinations of nāmarūpa and the proliferative activity of conceptual constructs. Drawing on parallels with Peircean pansemioticism, the study highlights how both traditions interpret phenomena as sign-constituted events and how contemplative practice can intervene in the habitual chains of semiosis that ordinarily shape human experience. By bridging Buddhist phenomenology with contemporary cognitive science and semiotics, this work proposes that the Buddhist model—precise in its technical vocabulary and rich in its analyses of attention, perception, and conceptualization—offers valuable tools for understanding and modulating cognitive processes in both theoretical and practical domains.

Traditionally, the field of forensic anthropology has built its foundation on being an objective observer of human behavior to answer questions of medicolegal significance. With the publication of the NAS report in 2009, the field continues to fulfill scientific criteria by analyzing data and providing statistical validation for methods of identification, yet may often fall short in offering interpretations of the patterns that exist and the underlying factors influencing these observations. Conversely, biocultural anthropology excels at theorizing and interpreting social patterns by recognizing that biology and culture interact to impact an individual’s lived experience, but its foundation often lacks a robust statistical lens. However, if we combine the analytics of forensic anthropology with the interpretive power of biocultural anthropology—specifically, social theories of behavior—we have the opportunity to explore the intersection between personhood, the body, and society. One such example can be seen through examining the prolonged (and often generational) effects of structural, physical, and cultural violence, social injustices, inequities, and inequalities that may affect an individual’s propensity to be both a perpetrator AND a victim of circumstance. This paper examines previous work discussing the theoretical foundations of forensic anthropology and existing social theory research to bridge the gap between the “who,” the “why,” and the “when” as they exist in the forensic record. Ultimately, the goal is to provide meaningful steps for understanding, interpreting, and potentially influencing change in the field of forensic anthropology.