The SfAA Podcast Archive

The Anthropology of Polarization in US Higher Education: Lessons for a Rapidly Changing Landscape

REYES-FOSTER, Beatriz (UCF) and BRONDO, Keri (U Memphis) The Anthropology of Polarization in US Higher Education: Lessons for a Rapidly Changing Landscape. Political polarization in the United States has stirred conflict in and against universities. These new culture wars unfold around inflection points such as critical race theory, restriction of access to reproductive and gender-affirming care, accusations of cancel culture or “woke” politics, and more. Faculty and students must contend with hostility towards concepts and ideas once thought settled such as “intersectionality,” “privilege,” and “structural racism.” Legislation aimed to surveil and intimidate faculty has resulted in a chilling effect, as faculty leave their positions or cancel courses. Panelists working on research on polarization in higher education share strategies for navigating research and teaching in these critical moments. beatriz.reyesfoster@ucf.edu (F-02)

Enchanted Futures: Transforming Museum Practice through Relational Curation

MCCHESNEY, Lea (Maxwell Museum, UNM) Enchanted Futures: Transforming Museum Practice through Relational Curation. Groundbreaking exhibitions are transforming museums around indigenous arts. School of Advanced Research collaborated with the Vilcek Foundation to mount Grounded in Clay through its 60+ member Pottery Collective of artists, scholars, and knowledge bearers, debuting at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture before its national tour. The Maxwell Museum’s Families in Pueblo Pottery is being developed through the co-curation of 20+ Pueblo artists, scholars, and community members with museum staff. We explore the relational curation central to these projects: new relationships and relationalities; transforming colonial museums into indigenized spaces; the kinds of support available; and prospects for museum futures.lsmcches@unm.edu (T-92)

Decolonizing Disaster

O’CONNELL, Caela (UNCCH) Unmoored: The Unmaking of Our Environmental Futures After Disaster. What happens to ongoing environmental conservation initiatives when disasters strike and how does this disrupt socio-environmental futures? If a modeler’s goal is to be able to say what will happen efficiently and accurately, mine is the inverse. I aim to take what is known and has happened already— the legacy of underlying inequalities and extraction and un-model it. In doing so, I am imagining the infrastructure, community, and culture of a future time that could be radically different by leveraging the power of the anthropological lens to demonstrate fictive un-made futures as a way to ensure they never come to be. caela@email.unc.edu (TH-77)

SfAA Awards Ceremony 2024

Fostering Social and Environmental Justice Part II

VAN VLACK, Kathleen (NAU), LIM, Heather (Living Heritage Rsch Council), and STOFFLE, Richard (U Arizona) Fostering Social and Environmental Justice, Parts I-II. Franz Boaz: Shaping Anthropology and Fostering Social Justice is a new book by Zumwalt that documents the foundation of professional anthropology in the United States. Boaz was committed to social justice and actively pursued applied research to improve the condition of unjustly treated Cultural Groups. He began a tradition of anthropologists who work for and with people to improve their social and environmental conditions. Papers in this session document the continuation of this professional tradition. Kathleen.Van-Vlack@nau.edu, hyealim.lim@gmail.com, Brent.Stoffle@noaa.gov (W-91, W-121)

Fostering Social and Environmental Justice Part I

VAN VLACK, Kathleen (NAU), LIM, Heather (Living Heritage Rsch Council), and STOFFLE, Richard (U Arizona) Fostering Social and Environmental Justice, Parts I-II. Franz Boaz: Shaping Anthropology and Fostering Social Justice is a new book by Zumwalt that documents the foundation of professional anthropology in the United States. Boaz was committed to social justice and actively pursued applied research to improve the condition of unjustly treated Cultural Groups. He began a tradition of anthropologists who work for and with people to improve their social and environmental conditions. Papers in this session document the continuation of this professional tradition. Kathleen.Van-Vlack@nau.edu, hyealim.lim@gmail.com, Brent.Stoffle@noaa.gov (W-91, W-121)

2023 SfAA Awards Ceremony

2023 SfAA Awards Ceremony
 
The Awards Ceremony is the high point of the
annual meeting. President Wies will preside. The
Program will recognize and feature the winners of
the Margaret Mead Award, Sol Tax Award, and the
Bronislaw Malinowski Award.
The Bronislaw Malinowski Award will be presented to Dr.
Lenore Manderson, University of Witwatersrand.
The Sol Tax Distinguished Service Award will be presented to
Dr. Orit Tamir, New Mexico Highlands University.
The Margaret Mead Award will be presented to Dr. Michael
Crawley of Durham University.
 
Session took place in Cincinnati, OH at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 
2023.

Border Dystopias: Indians, Anarchists, and Revolution in the Californias Michael Kearney Memorial Lecture

Border Dystopias: Indians, Anarchists, and Revolution in the Californias Michael Kearney Memorial Lecture
 
MODERATOR: NAGENGAST, Carole (UNM)
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: ALVAREZ, Roberto (UCSD)
COMMENTATORS: ZAVELLA, Patricia (UCSC),
HEYMAN, Josiah (UTEP)
 
ALVAREZ, Roberto (UCSD) Border Dystopias: Indians, Anarchists, and Revolution
in the Californias. This presentation addresses untold stories of “histories without
people,” not “people without history.” Based on interviews conducted in the
1970’s with Rosa Arballo Salgado, a native PaiPai woman from Baja California, I
trace and re-examine the early 1900’s in the Californias. This was the incipient
period of the Mexican Revolution. Armed Interventions and raids into Baja
California by the liberal party of Ricardo Flores Magon, led to clashes with
Federal Forces through the northern territory. This included socialist workers of
the world, American “Wobblies” and adventure seekers who were directed by
Magon from Los Angeles. The invasion of Baja California and “capture” of both
Mexicali and Tijuana, led the liberal forces towards the then capital Ensenada.
Written histories and ethnographic work describe the clashes and violence in
now forgotten mining towns and the Sierra Juarez. This was the range of native
Yuman speaking groups caught in the insurrection. Rosa’s story provides a native
perspective and illustrates the long-term, generational effects of revolution and
insurrection that continue to this day. Her story underlines the central role of
women in the struggle. Specific anthropological themes I address include
resilience and perseverance, native voice and insider research. Utopian visions
of the border contrast with the dystopian outcomes and add a new narrative to
Mexico-U.S. Border studies.
 
Session took place in Cincinnati, OH at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2023.

Collaborative Community Engagement: The Work of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement Robert A. and Beverly H. Hackenberg Prize and Lecture

Collaborative Community Engagement: The Work
of the Miami University Center for Community
Engagement
Robert A. and Beverly H. Hackenberg Prize and
Lecture
 
CHAIRS: BLAKE, John (Miami U-OH Ctr for
Community Engagement) and SCHWARTZ, Tammy
(Miami U-OH)
PANELISTS: DARDEN, Dorothy and NEUMEIER,
Bonnie (Community Artists)
 
BLAKE, John (Miami U-OH Ctr for Community Engagement) and SCHWARTZ,
Tammy (Miami U-OH) Collaborative Community Engagement: The Work
of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement. The sustained
partnerships of the Miami University Center for Community Engagement
were born through acts of solidarity between faculty and community leaders
in the Over-the-Rhine People’s Movement— a multi-faceted, grassroots
struggle to protect human rights in a Cincinnati neighborhood marginalized
by systemic discrimination and disinvestment. Miami faculty and community
leaders connected across their positions in academia and in community-
based organizations, engaging in mutual learning and collaboration for
nearly 40 years. With this relationship-building came a vision for what we
call Collaborative Community Engagement, with new models of education for
university students working alongside community members for movement-
building and social change.
 
Session took place in Cincinnati, OH at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2023.

Engaging Communities to Improve Sexual and Reproductive Health (MASSH)

Engaging Communities to Improve Sexual and
Reproductive Health (MASSH)
 
CHAIR: HOLBROOK, Emily (USF)
ALTMAN, Heidi M. (GA Southern U) Sex and
Childbirth Education and Maternal Health 
HOLBROOK, Emily (USF) Delivering Sexual and
Reproductive Healthcare to Resettled Refugee
Women through Collaborative Research
PESANTES, Amalia (Dickinson Coll) and GIANELLA,
Camila (Pontificia U Catolica del Peru) Providing
Sexual and Reproductive Health Services During the
COVID-19 Pandemic in Lima, Peru
 
HOLBROOK, Emily (USF) Delivering Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare to
Resettled Refugee Women through Collaborative Research. This research
explores the intersections of biopolitics, citizenship, and feminist perspectives on
women’s health that result in poor health outcomes for resettled refugee women
in the United States. Ethnographic research among female-headed households
in the refugees from the Congo Wars community will be used to develop, pilot,
and evaluate a health-at-home program for sexual and reproductive healthcare
through collaboration with a local medical outreach program. This research will
highlight the ways that anthropological theories help to better understand factors
in health disparities in vulnerable communities and how an applied approach
can work with community partners to mitigate barriers to care for those most in
need.
 
Session took place in Cincinnati, OH at the 83rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2023.