The SfAA Podcast Archive

An Interview with Dr. Joeva Rock

Entrepreneurship as Pathways to Financial Independence

CHAIR: ILAHIANE, Hsain (U Arizona)
JUNG, Yuson (Wayne State U), BATTS, Dawn (Milestone Capital Growth Inst), THOMAS, Frankee, REIMUELLER, Kayleigh, UNDERWOOD, Ricky, EDMOND, Nakim, and WALTER, Morgan (Wayne State U), GONZALEZ, Yoel (Independent) Beyond Hustling and the Individual Entrepreneur: Building a Black Tech Ecosystem in Detroit
MINGEE, Jess (UIUC) Compatibility of the Entrepreneurial Mindset With Development Projects in Non-Industrialized Communities: A Case of Zambia
ILAHIANE, Hsain (U Arizona) and MILLER, Shane (MS State U) Agent-Based Reality (ABR) in Real Life (IRL): Modelling Financial Uncertainties in the Slums of Greater Casablanca, Morocco
BRAZELTON, Elizabeth “Lisa” (UA) Hemp for Hope: Agency Among Alabama Minority Hemp Farmers
 
JUNG, Yuson (Wayne State U), BATTS, Dawn (Milestone Capital Growth Inst), THOMAS, Frankee, REIMUELLER, Kayleigh, UNDERWOOD, Ricky, EDMOND, Nakim, and WALTER, Morgan (Wayne State U), GONZALEZ, Yoel (Independent) Beyond Hustling and the Individual Entrepreneur: Building a Black Tech Ecosystem in Detroit. While various efforts and initiatives attempt to close the racial wealth gap through economic growth in the US, little is known about underrepresented founders’ distinct experiences in tech ecosystems. The unique aspect of scalability in tech ventures presents both opportunities and challenges, especially for building an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on a qualitative study with the stakeholders of Detroit’s emerging Black tech ecosystem, this paper discusses their values and practices rooted in Detroit’s deep history and culture of entrepreneurship to demonstrate the importance of reframing entrepreneurship and wealth generation beyond the individual.
 
MINGEE, Jess (UIUC) Compatibility of the Entrepreneurial Mindset With Development Projects in Non-Industrialized Communities: A Case of Zambia. Within international development work, Western organizations have the difficult task of meeting their own objectives and process requirements while designing a solution that supports community needs. This presentation discusses an autoethnographic investigation of a for-profit startup organization implementing a project in rural Zambia, focusing on how decision-making is driven by the organization’s needs. Despite a profit model centered around community impact, the organization has displayed limited bandwidth to thoughtfully assess local conditions. Instead, they utilize cookie-cutter techniques, prioritizing prompt results to please the funding entities which support the organization – even if those results do not reflect local perception of impact
 
ILAHIANE, Hsain (U Arizona) and MILLER, Shane (MS State U) Agent-Based Reality (ABR) in Real Life (IRL): Modelling Financial Uncertainties in the Slums of Greater Casablanca, Morocco. In this paper, we challenge conventional assumptions about how low-income Moroccan households earn, spend, borrow and save money and we provide novel ways of “seeing” financial instability flows in real life. Based on ethnographic interviews, financial diaries, and the use of principle component analysis and Sankey diagrams, we graphically categorize and visualize flows of money between households of different socio-economic levels in a world marked by casual labor. We also underscore the utility of financial diaries in revealing the continuous upswings and downswings of household budgets as well as the coping strategies mobilized by various households against precariousness.
 
BRAZELTON, Elizabeth “Lisa” (UA) Hemp for Hope: Agency Among Alabama Minority Hemp Farmers. Hemp farming is risky business. The 2023 USDA Hemp Report showed a 71% decrease in hemp farming from 2022, and Alabama’s permitted hemp farmers decreased by 90% from 2019-2024. Newly legalized in 2014/2018, hemp was touted as a replacement crop for tobacco. Historically, Southern Black farmers were the predominate U.S. tobacco cultivators, but they are a minority among hemp farmers. I conducted field ethnography with five Black Alabama hemp farmers to examine racial biases and identify farmers’ challenges to success. I found that these farmers are redefining their roles reflected in how they enact agency in a cannabis equity discourse.
Speakers
Hsain Ilahiane, University of Arizona
Yuson Jung, Wayne State University, Associate Professor
Dawn Batts, Milestone Growth Capital Institute
Frankee Thomas, TechTown Detroit, Customer Discovery Specialist
Kayleigh Reimueller, Wayne State University, Grader - CRJ 1010 and 2550
Ricky Underwood
Nakim Edmond, Milestone Growth Capital Institute, Research Intern
Morgan Walter, Wayne State University , Business Anthropology
Jess Mingee, University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Doctoral Candidate
Elizabeth Brazelton, University of Alabama

AN Interview with Dr. David Natcher

David Natcher
David Natcher is speaking at
(TH-84) In the Shadow of Development: The Persistence of First Nations’ Subsistence Economies in the Peace Country, Canada
March 27, 2025
1:30 pm – 3:15 pm
Skyline II

Embodying and Producing Stigma: Violence, Morality, and the Consequences for Healthcare

CHAIR: PODRABSKY, Dylan (U Oregon)
ISLAM, Afsana (TX State U) Vitiligo and the Gender-Based Socio-Cultural Stigma: Contemporary Health Seeking Behaviour and Treatment Practices in Bangladesh
NEHUSHTAN, Hilla (U Pitt) Body Size Perceptions Among American Jewish Women
PODRABSKY, Dylan, HERBERT, Claire, SNODGRASS, Josh, and WEAVER, Lesley Jo (U Oregon) Symbolic Violence, Embodied Consequences: Stigma, Houselessness, and Health
GANLEY, Karla (UF Coll of Med) “Unreliable Historians”: How Physicians Use Patient Clinical Notes as Discursive Tools for Moral Education and Denial of Care
 
ISLAM, Afsana (TX State U) Vitiligo and the Gender-Based Socio-Cultural Stigma: Contemporary Health Seeking Behaviour and Treatment Practices in Bangladesh. Vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder that results in skin depigmentation, affecting 1-2% of the global population. In Bangladesh, vitiligo patients frequently endure stigma, stress, depression, shame, isolation, and low self-esteem, with notable gender disparities. This research employs a mixed-method design from a medical anthropological perspective to explore the lived experiences of vitiligo patients and the associated stigma in Bangladesh. It investigates pluralistic treatment practices and health-seeking behaviors while elucidating the patient-doctor relationship and therapy management dynamics. Study findings indicate that vitiligo patients face significant stigma in contexts such as marriage, employment, and public life, exacerbated by misconceptions about the disease’s contagiousness.
 
NEHUSHTAN, Hilla (U Pitt) Body Size Perceptions Among American Jewish Women. Historical studies reveal socio-medical views that associated Jews with immorality, fatness, and lust, connecting them to stereotypes of blackness and immigrants and positioning them as outsiders to the white bodily ideals in the U.S. The current study explores perceptions of bodywork among Jewish women in North America today. Based on 20 semi-structured interviews, this study ties the scholarly worlds of medical anthropology, religious studies, fat studies, and gendered bodywork and asks how religious Jewish women in the US perceive body size and negotiate the intersection of gendered expectations, religious prescriptions, food restrictions, and community ideals? Preliminary results focus on the pressure for thinness before wedlock, challenges with parenthood amid obesity scares and diet culture defiance, and complex relations with parents and family members about body and self-image.
 
PODRABSKY, Dylan, HERBERT, Claire, SNODGRASS, Josh, and WEAVER, Jo (U Oregon) Symbolic Violence, Embodied Consequences: Stigma, Houselessness, and Health. Stigma constantly exposes people experiencing houselessness (PEH) to symbolic violence – individual or collective actions which reinforce and reproduce internalized understandings of social values and hierarchies. This presentation draws on interviews conducted with government officials and PEH in a US city with a high rate of unsheltered houselessness. Thematic analysis revealed that symbolic violence enacted through stigmatization becomes embodied in PEH, leading to disproportionate health risks and further marginalization. This presentation seeks to illuminate how stigma functions as a form of symbolic violence, how this becomes embodied by the stigmatized, and how this social devaluation is translated into unequal material conditions.
 
GANLEY, Karla (UF Coll of Med) “Unreliable Historians”: How Physicians Use Patient Clinical Notes as Discursive Tools for Moral Education and Denial of Care. Clinical notes written by physicians are often regarded as objective records of patient health status. But what happens when the patient gives the physician an account of illness that doesn’t adhere to expected chronotopes of linear time and divisible space? By analyzing the case of a homeless patient who sought treatment for substance misuse, I show how this can led to testimonial injustice and denial of care. I will also show how clinical notes are discursive tools that reinforce culturally defined notions of what types of illness stories “count,” which patients are “morally responsible,” and who is “worthy” of care.
Speakers
Dylan Podrabsky, University of Oregon
Jo Weaver, University of Oregon, Associate Professor
Afsana Islam, Texas State University
Hilla Nehushtan, Religions Studies Department, University of Pittsburgh
Karla Ganley, University of Florida, Doctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology

An Interview with Dr. Charles Menzies

Charles MenziesProfessor, The University of British Columbia
Charles Menzies is speaking at
(TH-114) Confronting Capitalism, Imperialism, and Settler Colonialism: First Nations Authority and Jurisdiction on the Northwest Coast of Canada
March 27, 2025
3:45 pm – 5:30 pm
Skyline II

Applying Anthropology to Forest Management in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

CHAIRS: CHARNLEY, Susan and CERVENY, Lee (USFS PNRS)
MCLAIN, Rebecca (Independent) Possibilities and Uncertainties in the Emerging Bigleaf Maple Sugaring Industry
CHARNLEY, Susan (USFS PNRS) Community Forestry in the Pacific Northwest: Addressing the “Leftovers” Problem
SIZEK, Julia, COUGHLAN, Michael, and HUBER-STEARNS, Heidi (U Oregon) Planning Under Fire: How Changing Fire Regimes Reshape Forest and Community Planning Across the Pacific Northwest
CERVENY, Lee (USFS PNRS), ARMATAS, Christopher (USFS RMRS), THOMAS, Alyssa (USFS PNRS), RANDRUP, Kristina (UW), and KAMINSKI, Abigail (USFS PNRS) Socio-Spatial Approaches to Engage the Public Around Post-Wildfire Planning in National Forests of the Pacific Northwest
ANDERSON, Robert (USFS NRS) Contested Environmentalisms: Reconciling Care, Killing, and Science in Ecological Management
 
The Pacific Northwest is renowned for its temperate rainforests that harbor rich biodiversity, provide numerous ecosystem services, and form an integral part of the regional identity, while being culturally diverse and growing in population. Managing forests to meet multiple social and ecological goals and interests is challenging. In recent years, the region has met with significant forces of ecological and social change, with implications for community well-being, livelihoods, resource access, local identity, and the region’s forests, including wildlife. This session illustrates how social scientists are applying their research to address a cross-section of forest management issues in the region.
MCLAIN, Rebecca (Independent) Possibilities and Uncertainties in the Emerging Bigleaf Maple Sugaring Industry. Maple sugaring is spreading from northeastern North America to the Pacific Northwest (PNW). The emerging PNW maple sugaring industry centers around bigleaf maple which occurs abundantly on small privately owned forests. This paper draws on semi-structured interviews with bigleaf maple sap producers to understand their motivations for engaging in maple sugaring, the types of resources they mobilize, and the logistical and marketing challenges they face. Our study suggests that a thriving bigleaf maple sugar industry could support ecological sustainability while enabling small-scale forest owners to reduce the livelihood risks associated with ecological and economic uncertainties brought about by climate change.
 
CHARNLEY, Susan (USFS PNRS) Community Forestry in the Pacific Northwest: Addressing the “Leftovers” Problem. The forest products industry, and controversy over industrial forest management, have a long history in the Pacific Northwest. Seeking control over how local forests are managed, communities have been purchasing former timber company land to establish community forests, managing them in an environmentally sound way for local community benefit. A key challenge is obtaining funding for land acquisition and operations. Community groups typically can only afford marginal or cutover forestland that others don’t want: “leftovers,” which don’t generate sufficient revenue to be financially sustainable. I explore this challenge and potential policy solutions to support community forestry in the Pacific Northwest.
 
SIZEK, Julia, COUGHLAN, Michael, and HUBER-STEARNS, Heidi (U Oregon) Planning Under Fire: How Changing Fire Regimes Reshape Forest and Community Planning Across the Pacific Northwest. Changing wildfire regimes are disrupting communities and surrounding forests across the Pacific Northwest, upending livelihoods, economies, and forest management plans. As summer events are cancelled, recreation-based businesses shut down, and timber sales burn before they can be harvested, both communities and land managers are faced hard decisions of how and what to prioritize in these landscapes. Drawing on case study research from the 30-year social and economic monitoring for the Northwest Forest Plan, this presentation will examine how federal agency employees and community members attempt to mitigate the disruptive impacts of wildfires through new planning processes.
 
CERVENY, Lee (USFS PNRS), ARMATAS, Christopher (USFS RMRS), THOMAS, Alyssa (USFS PNRS), RANDRUP, Kristina (UW), and KAMINSKI, Abigail (USFS PNRS) Socio-Spatial Approaches to Engage the Public Around Post-Wildfire Planning in National Forests of the Pacific Northwest. Over the past decade, wildfire events have increased in frequency and intensity in Pacific Northwest forests. National forest managers rely on a variety of inputs to guide plans for postfire restoration and recovery in these burned landscapes. We developed a public engagement approach using a socio-spatial tool (human ecology mapping) to identify priority sites and elicit ecosystem benefits as well as preferences for forest treatments and investments. Our presentation focuses on applications in two national forests -- the Mendocino (California) and the Willamette (Oregon). We describe the approach, share project highlights, and discuss applicability to other forest settings.
ANDERSON, Robert (USFS NRS) Contested Environmentalisms: Reconciling Care, Killing, and Science in Ecological Management. Environmental managers often grapple with the need to kill one form of nonhuman life to care for other desirable life. I examine these biopolitical tensions via multiple examples from forest restoration and wildlife management in forested ecosystems in the Pacific Northwest and across the United States. Debates over the science behind lethal ecological decisions are intertwined with questions about governmental authority and competing ideas about which non-human lives are desirable. Examining how “the science” emerges as the focal point of debates over killing of nonhuman life offers insight into how scientific knowledge is deployed and contested in American environmental politics.
Speakers
Susan Charnley, U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Research Social Scientist
Lee Cerveny, Pacific Northwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Research Social Scientist
Rebecca McLain, National Policy Consensus Center, Portland State University, Research Program Director
Julia Sizek, University of Oregon, Research Associate
Robert Anderson

An Interview with Dr. Andrew Gardner

Andrew GardnerProfessor of Anthropology, University of Puget Sound
Andrew Gardner is speaking at
(TH-09) Lost Ethnographers in the Anthropological Tradition
March 27, 2025
9:00 am – 10:45 am
Captain Gray II (Duniway Hotel)
(TH-129) P.K. New Award Presentation
March 27, 2025
5:45 pm – 7:30 pm
Pavillion West
(F-12) Professional Strangers in Rural America: A Redux
March 28, 2025
9:00 am – 10:45 am
Grand Ballroom II
(F-69) Applied Anthropological Research Design in the Middle East and North Africa
March 28, 2025
1:30 pm – 3:15 pm
Captain Gray II (Duniway Hotel)

P.K. New Award Presentation

MODERATORS: WIES, Jennifer (EKU)
HÀ, Tiên-Dung (Stanford U) Power of Identification: Transnational Science and Sacred Obligations in Identifying Vietnamese War Dead
GILLARD, Sharon (UNCC) Mental Health Stigma Disparities: Cultural Identities and Cultural Values Among Black Women
THOMPSON-CAMPITOR, Carly (NAU) “You’re One of Us”: A Reflexive Account of Conducting Insider Research With Lyme Disease Advocates
DISCUSSANT: GARDNER, Andrew (U Puget Sound)
Speakers
Jennifer Wies, Eastern Kentucky University, Associate Provost and Professor of Anthropology
Tien-Dung Ha
Sharon Gillard
Carly Thompson-Campitor, Northern Arizona University
Andrew Gardner, University of Puget Sound, Professor of Anthropology

Invisible Battles: Disability, Power, and Powerlessness

Invisible Battles: Disability, Power, and Powerlessness (Disability TIG)
Speakers:
CHAIR: KLEIN, Wendy (CSULB)LILLY, Samantha (U Michigan) A Case Study on the Efficacy of Argentina’s National Mental Healthcare Law ‘Ley Nº 26.657’MCILRATH, Grace (Luther Coll) Invisible Battles of “Ordinary” Mothers: Stories of Disability Advocacy in IowaROBERTS, Michelle (UKY) Everyday Ablenationalism: “Drawing a Check” in Appalachian KentuckyDREXLER, Livy (MI State U) Not Like Any Other School: How the Environment at a Tribal School Challenges Conceptions of DisabilityKLEIN, Wendy (CSULB) Autism and Bilingual Socialization: Perspectives and Practices in Bilingual Families
Abstract
MCILRATH, Grace (Luther Coll) Invisible Battles of “Ordinary” Mothers: Stories of Disability Advocacy in Iowa. This paper discusses the results from conversations with 17 mothers of children with special health-care needs in Iowa. Interviews covered a range of themes, including pregnancy, discovering the disability, doctors, schools, the child, speaking about the disability, parenting, and leadership. Many mothers expressed their longing for a “normal” life doing things “normal families” often take for granted. A fascinating facet of our explorations were the lessons learned about the invisibility of social movements and activism for disability rights in the United States. The erasure of the dominant role of women leaders fighting for maternal and child healthcare rights was astounding. mcilgr01@luther.edu (W107)
 
Our Mission
The SfAA Podcast Project is a student-led initiative to provide audio records of sessions from the Annual Meetings to the public, free of charge. We strive to include a broad range of interests from diverse perspectives with the intent of extending conversations throughout the years. Our ultimate goal is to make these dialogues accessible to a global audience.

Towards a Cultural Ballistics of Guns

PRIBILSKY, Jason (Whitman Coll) Towards a Cultural Ballistics of Guns. This panel brings together new research into gun culture and the aftereffects of gun violence in the contemporary US. In the spaces between the protracted gun debate between unfettered access to firearms and calls for gun control, we highlight ways ethnographic attention can serve to reveal emerging structures of feelings around guns whereby citizens may be simultaneously “shocked and outraged” but also largely accepting of the conditions of gun violence. We also address new forms of visibility in the wake of gun violence that reveal hidden and as yet unexplored manifestations of the proliferation of firearm dangers. pribiljc@whitman.edu (W-78)