The SfAA Podcast Archive

Promoting Transdisciplinarity: Linking Anthropology and Engineering on Community

Promoting Transdisciplinarity: Linking Anthropology and Engineering on Community 
 
CHAIR: NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U) 
Session Participants: NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U); Working across Disciplines as an Integral Part of Anthropological Practice; 
DARE, Anne (Purdue U); Facilitating Collaboration between Anthropology and Engineering Students; 
GATTUSO, Anna (U Memphis); Complementary Styles: Engineering and Anthropology at the University of Memphis;
BRIODY, Elizabeth (Cultural Keys LLC)
 
ABSTRACT:
NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U) Promoting Transdisciplinarity: Linking Anthropology and Engineering on Community.  Most practitioners work across disciplines, but few students are trained to do this. This panel examines how two universities are bringing anthropology and engineering students together on community development projects, and what they learn by working together. Nolan will discuss transdisciplinary work in the context of anthropological practice. Dare and Gattuso will present specific examples from Purdue and Memphis. Briody, as a discussant, will highlight comparisons and contrasts between the two university programs, and will relate lessons learned to contemporary issues of practitioner training. There will be ample time for audience discussion and debate.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Interventions: Evaluating NGOs and NPOs

Interventions: Evaluating NGOs and NPOs 
 
CHAIR: BLATTEL, Carrie (IUPUI)
Participants: M GRAY, Colleen (NIU) The Relationship between Sarawak Women for Women Society and the State BLATTEL, Carrie (IUPUI) Evaluating the Effective Distribution of Services to Latinos: Non-profit Fair at the Liga Latina FITZPATRICK, John (UNL) Lincoln Literacy: A Case Study in Community-Based Non-Profit English Literacy Programs SARDIER, Marie (Action Contre La Faim) From Rural to Urban: New Challenges for Humanitarian Actors M SIEBER, Timothy (UMass) Putting Anthropological Skills to Use in Engagement with Grassroots Community Organizations
Abstract: 
 The past decade has witnessed an increased volume of humanitarian program implementation in urban environments. The question is no longer whether we should intervene in urban contexts, but how we can do it better. Because of population density and chronic poverty, a heightened vulnerability to disasters exists in urban settings, especially regarding health and livelihoods. This is highlighted in this presentation, which analyses the challenges that one humanitarian NGO, ACF, has faced in urban areas. It points to the relevance of cash-based interventions in urban contexts, where flexibility and market linkages are key to improving food security and nutritional status.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

International Perspectives on Business and Market Research

International Perspectives on Business and Market Research 
 
CHAIR: STEWART, Alex (Marquette U) 
Participants: ITO, Yasunobu (JAIST) “Ethnography” in the Japanese Corporate Activities: A Metaanthropological Observation on the Relationship between Anthropology and the Outside STEWART, Alex (Marquette U) Why Do Anthropologists Have So Little Impact on Management Research? GIBSON, Carrie (U Memphis, USC) Out To Lunch: Why Businesses Need Anthropologists M GORBEA, Laura (Altamente) Running to a Standstill: Developing a High Technology Sector in Puerto Rico ZLOLNISKI, Christian (UTA) Beach Pebble Stone Workers in Mexico’s Baja California: The Formation of a Transnational Market M ROBERTS, Bruce (MSUM) Plastic Waste Management in Africa
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Destination Unknown: How We Found Professions That Want Anthropologists Without Those Professions Actually Knowing It

Destination Unknown: How We Found Professions That Want Anthropologists Without Those Professions Actually Knowing It
CHAIR: BEVER, Sandra Weinstein (Walden U) 
 
Participants: BENNER, Timothy (Samsung) All I Really Need to Know about Anthropology I Learned Outside of Grad School, Or How I Learned What Employers Really Want HUDSON, Penny (U Montana) Ethnographic Entanglements: Opportunities Found in an Era of Economic Change and Uncertainty M MASON, David (World Bank, UCLA) “Make [Only] Little Plans”: Anthropology and Incrementalism in Urban Planning M WILLIAMS, Nathan L. (UNHCR) Heard but Not Seen: Anthropology and Anthropologists in Humanitarian Assistance BEVER, Sandra Weinstein (Walden U) Administrative Destination: Bringing Anthropology into Academic Assessment
Abstract: Graduates with an anthropology degree are often faced with the question of how such a degree will help them reach their desired destination. The purpose of this session is to explore the ways to seek or create employment opportunities as anthropologists. We are a panel of working anthropologists whose trajectories, or “destinations,” have landed each of us outside of a traditional academic location. Despite our varied professional settings, we all utilize our anthropological background and training on a daily basis. Further, we argue that our anthropological “stamp” often sets us apart in our chosen professions. 
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Business Anthropology Roundtable: New Voices, New Destinations, New Futures

Business Anthropology Roundtable: New Voices, New Destinations, New Futures
Chair: Santee, Amy (Empirical Rsch & Design)
Roundtable Participants:
AIKEN, Jo (UNT), DORNADIC, Alicia (Independent), KERSEY, Jen Cardew (SapientNitro), SCHILL, Elizabeth (Partnership for Public Service), and RIOS, Danyel (UNT)
 
Abstract:
Business Anthropology Roundtable: New Voices, New Destinations, New Futures. More and more anthropologists are finding employment in the business world. But what is it actually like to work there? This session will feature an open discussion between attendees and five anthropologists who are in the early stages of their professional careers. They have worked as freelancers, researchers, consultants, and interns for Fortune 50 companies, consulting firms, design agencies, and other businesses. Audience questions are welcome, and topics may include the academy-to-business transition, practitioner issues, job roles, the anthropologist identity, and what life is like as a young professional-anthropologist in business. 
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Coming of Age in the Corporate Context: Exploring the Non-Linear Transition from Student to Practitioner and Back Again

Coming of Age in the Corporate Context: Exploring the Non-Linear Transition from Student to Practitioner and Back Again 
 
CHAIR: RAMER, S. Angela (UNT) 
 
PAHL, Shane (UNT) So You’re Interested in Business Anthropology, Now What? 
 
SANTEE, Amy (Empirical Rsch & Design) What Are You Doing Here?: Making the Academy-toBusiness Transition as a Practicing Anthropologist 
 
TAYLOR, E. Gigi (TX State U) On Becoming an Anthropologist: The Transition from a Practicing Qualitative Researcher (“the Other”) to an Academically Trained Anthropologist (“Us”) 
 
RAMER, S. Angela (UNT) Design Research for Designer Clients: A Study of an Architecture Firm’s Own Workspace
 
Coming of Age in the Corporate Context: Exploring the Non-Linear Transition from Student to Practitioner and Back Again. The process of taking anthropology from the safety of the classroom into the chaos of the corporate office can be awkward, intimidating, and yet highly rewarding. It involves observing new rituals, learning new languages, and embracing cultural norms in “exotic” industry environments. This session presents a cumulative breadth of experiences from undergraduate studies through graduate theses and first jobs, to a return to academia after a career in industry.  These lessons learned provide valuable insights for those considering a career path in business and design anthropology.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Big Data Analytics in the Age of Ethnography: A Roundtable

Big Data Analytics in the Age of Ethnography: A Roundtable 
 
CHAIRS: BLOMBERG, Jeanette (IBM) and JORDAN, Brigitte (Lifescapes) 
Big Data Analytics in the Age of Ethnography: A Roundtable. While many worry about the fate of Ethnography in the Age of Analytics, we argue that anthropology offers methodological resources and conceptual perspectives that can help us understand and navigate societal changes and potential threats posed by Big Data analytics. This Roundtable brings together researchers who have been exploring the serious, fateful, and sometimes amusing claims made by and about Big Data, data mining, and algorithmic analytics. In particular the Roundtable will address issues such as the nature and limits of big data, the politics of the algorithm, and the epistemological positioning of data analytics in relation to ethnography.  Sponsored by the TIG on Business Anthropology.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Part Two: Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health

Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health, Part II (SMA) 
 
CHAIRS: HEURTIN-ROBERTS, Suzanne (NCI, UMD) and HAMILTON, Alison B. (VA, UCLA) HARROD, Molly (VA) Who’s at Risk?: Understanding Healthcare Workers‚ Beliefs about the Necessity of Medical Practice Change
 
FIX, Gemmae M., SOLOMON, Jeffrey L., MUELLER, Nora, VANDEUSEN LUKAS, Carol, and BOKHOUR, Barbara G. (VA) Hospital Staff Perceptions of the “Journey” to Patient-centered Care 
 
CHENEY, Ann M., FORTNEY, John, PYNE, Jeffrey, and CURRAN, Geoffrey (CAVHS, UAMS) The Value of Connectedness in Student Veteran’s Models of Screening and Linkage-to-Care Interventions 
 
CADZOW, Renee B. (DYC) Urban LowIncome Adolescent Perceptions of Breastfeeding: Implications for Public Health Promotion
 
ZUCHOWSKI, Jessica (VA) Implementation, Interview, and Investment: Evaluating the VA’s Patient-Centered Medical Home Transformation
 
DISCUSSANT: GLASGOW, Russell (UC-Denver) 
Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health, Parts I-II. A broad gap exists between health research findings and their real world implementation, which the interdisciplinary and still emerging field of implementation science (I.S.) seeks to bridge.  Applied anthropology has a strong role to play in the development of implementation science as both strive to solve human problems in dynamic, complex, real-world settings, in real time.  This panel presents several anthropologists’ work in implementation science as examples of what applied anthropology can offer.  We will discuss how anthropology can and does clearly strengthen the implementation of health innovations.  We will also consider some of the challenges met by implementation science as it matures.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Part One: Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health

Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health, Part I (SMA)
 
CHAIRS: HEURTIN-ROBERTS, Suzanne (NCI, UMD) and HAMILTON, Alison B. (VA, UCLA) 
 
HEURTIN-ROBERTS, Suzanne (NCI, UMD) and FINLEY, Erin P. (VA) Anthropology and Implementation Science: Possibilities and Challenges 
 
HAMILTON, Alison, ZUCHOWSKI, Jessica, STOCKDALE, Susan, HUYNH, Alexis, and RUBENSTEIN, Lisa (VA, UCLA) Making Sense of VA’s Medical Home Model: Key Stakeholder Perceptions during Early Implementation 
 
MCCULLOUGH, Megan, SOLOMON, Jeffery, PETRAKIS, Beth Ann, and ROSE, Adam (VA) Middle Managers, Micro-Practices and Change: Examining the Dynamics between Implementation and Leadership in an Anticoagulation Care Improvement Initiative 
 
DISCUSSANT: GLASGOW, Russell (UC-Denver)
Applying Anthropology in Implementation Science to Improve Healthcare and Health, Parts I-II. A broad gap exists between health research findings and their real world implementation, which the interdisciplinary and still emerging field of implementation science (I.S.) seeks to bridge.  Applied anthropology has a strong role to play in the development of implementation science as both strive to solve human problems in dynamic, complex, real-world settings, in real time.  This panel presents several anthropologists’ work in implementation science as examples of what applied anthropology can offer.  We will discuss how anthropology can and does clearly strengthen the implementation of health innovations.  We will also consider some of the challenges met by implementation science as it matures.
 
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

”The Network Doesn’t Stop at the Door”: Intentional Practices and the Everyday Reproduction of Community Organizing Part2

CHAIR: NUSSBAUM-BARBERENA, Laura (UIC)
ABSTRACT: Where organized groups and communities encounter slippages between their daily forms of interaction and their broader oppositional politics, they often attempt to implement widespread deliberate everyday actions that intentionally engage the politics of representation, incorporation, intersectionality, gender work and direct democracy, among others. Such practices (re-)structure motives, spaces,  and methods of communication and interaction in the course of constructing nuanced forms of sociality within and beyond particular “communities.” This panel presents ethnographically grounded and theoretically connected accounts of deliberate transformations of everyday practices among organized groups.
SCANLAN LYONS, Colleen Mary (UC) Using “Tools of Citizenship” to Build a New Bahia
RIOS, Aisha Angelyn (Temple U) Shelter Staff  “Appreciation Days”: Intentional Conversations about Intersectionality and LGBTQI Intimate Partner Violence
DISCUSSANT: DOANE, Molly (UIC)
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.