The SfAA Podcast Archive

”The Network Doesn’t Stop at the Door”: Intentional Practices and the Everyday Reproduction of Community Organizing Part 1

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.
Panel Participants:
NUSSBAUM-BARBERENA, Laura (UIC) “Our Arms Are Lengthening”: Disrupting Everyday Reproductions of Gender-Based Violence
COOK, Jennifer A. (UConn) ”Alguien quien te invite”: An Ethnography of Transnational Migrant Farmworker Employment Networks
SHANI, Serah (Yale U) The New York City Ghanaian Network Village
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology (Part 5/5 - Open Discussion)

CHAIRS: KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum), HOFFMAN, Susanna M. (Hoffman Consulting), and BRENTON, Barrett P. (St. John’s U)
ABSTRACT: Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology. An emerging consensus is that small, indigenous farmers have enormous potential to improve local food systems to alleviate hunger/poverty, more than “big-industrial-agriculture.” However, realizing this consensus requires a degree of experience and sophistication in working with small peasant farmers that current global institutional agencies need. This indigenous focus fits the strengths of the anthropological model, which can provide paradigmatic and experiential bridges to facilitate knowledge exchange between traditional food producers and processors and outside agencies dedicated to help with technologically and economically sophisticated resources. This panel clarifies the causes and consequences of hunger/ malnutrition in light of new roles anthropologists can serve in creating sustainable solutions. skatz2001@aol.com
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology (Part 4/5 - Mencher & Stanford)

CHAIRS: KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum), HOFFMAN, Susanna M. (Hoffman Consulting), and BRENTON, Barrett P. (St. John’s U)
DISCUSSANTS: MENCHER, Joan P. (CUNY) and STANFORD, Lois M. (NMSU)
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology (Part 3/5 - Brenton)

CHAIRS: KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum), HOFFMAN, Susanna M. (Hoffman Consulting), and BRENTON, Barrett P. (St. John’s U)
BRENTON, Barrett and GADHOKE, Preety (St. John’s U) The Biocultural Paradox of Childhood Hunger and Obesity: Implications for Food Security and Public Health Policy and Applied Community-Based Interventions
ABSTRACT: The Biocultural Paradox of Childhood Hunger and Obesity: Implications for Food Security and Public Health Policy and Applied Community-Based Interventions. Long thought to be on opposite ends of the food security spectrum, hunger and obesity are being realized as inextricably linked. The biocultural complexity of food insecure and obesogenic environments has led to a paradoxical impact that can be manifest in the same communities, households, and individuals. This paper will review the connections between such factors as maternal and household nutrition, childhood growth and development, micronutrient deficiencies, health disparities, nutritional epigenetics, and the larger political-economy of global food systems. Specific field-based examples from indigenous populations will highlight challenges the paradox poses for public health nutrition policy and applied community-based interventions. brentonb@stjohns.edu
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology (Part 2/5 - Rodriguez-Gomez)

CHAIRS: KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum), HOFFMAN, Susanna M. (Hoffman Consulting), and BRENTON, Barrett P. (St. John’s U)
RODRIGUEZ-GOMEZ, M. Guadalupe (CIESAS) Supporting Small Scale Farmers on Behalf of the World Food and Agricultural Systems Future: The Case of Mexico and FAO
ABSTRACT: Supporting Small Scale Farmers on Behalf of the World Food and Agricultural Systems Future: The Case of Mexico and FAO. An unexpected price increase for corn and tortillas led to significant socio-cultural and political processes. It has opened up a space for the overt resistance of thousands of rural and urban Mexicans against state policies, focusing on the call to protect native corn, small-scale farming, domestic agriculture, local food, and food sovereignty in Mexico. They also brought back the issue of Mexico’s food security in relation to both neoliberal policies and, the full opening of the Mexican market to corn, bean, and sugar imports from NAFTA partner. This paper addresses efforts by diverse groups of actors in Mexico and FAO attempts to re-direct public policies supporting domestic agriculture and particularly small-scale farming around the world. con973@prodigy.net.mx
Reading for RODRIGUEZ-GOMEZ, M. Guadalupe is STANFORD, Lois M. (NMSU).
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Anthropologists Developing Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: The Challenges of Rapidly Expanding Roles for Anthropology (Part 1/5 - Katz)

CHAIRS: KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum), HOFFMAN, Susanna M. (Hoffman Consulting), and BRENTON, Barrett P. (St. John’s U)
KATZ, Solomon H. (U Penn, World Food Forum) Mapping Our Future Options - Creating Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: A 50 Year Anthropological Perspective on Avoiding Food Disasters
ABSTRACT: Mapping Our Future Options - Creating Sustainable Solutions to the World Food Crisis: A 50 Year Anthropological Perspective on Avoiding Food Disasters. Sustainable solutions to the world food crisis remain elusive and potentially disastrous for hundreds of millions. Recently, concerns about continued production capabilities of industrial agriculture have shifted attention toward improving indigenous food systems capacities in regions with great poverty. Available technical knowledge to assist productivity is substantial, but available experience to transfer this knowledge effectively is limited. Anthropology can play a key role, but the needs are massive and future demand for anthropological experts far exceeds the supply. This paper traces this need, develops a 40-50 year model and provides an initial roadmap to help solve the world food crisis. skatz2001@aol.com
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Advancing Applied Research: Calls for Interdisciplinary Sophistication and Mixed Methodologies (Part 4/4 - Q&A)

CHAIR: PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy)
CUSTRED, Glynn (CSUEB) Anthropology as an Integrated Science
VAN DOLAH, Elizabeth (UMD) Enhancing Anthropology’s Relevance: New Opportunities to Engage in Multi-Disciplinary Research
PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy) Social Ecology as Social Action Theory: A Model of Empowerment
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Advancing Applied Research: Calls for Interdisciplinary Sophistication and Mixed Methodologies (Part 3/4 - Preister)

CHAIR: PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy)
PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy) Social Ecology as Social Action Theory: A Model of Empowerment
ABSTRACT: Social Ecology as Social Action Theory: A Model of Empowerment. Insisting on a descriptive approach through entering the routines of daily life, social ecology distinguishes between informal and formal cultural systems in community and organizational settings. The informal networks through which people communicate and support each other, the gathering places for socializing cultural information, the network “archetypes” such as caretakers and communicators, the human geography by which people distinguish one population from another, and the actionable issues that motivate people form the basis of discovery. Action is an outcome of reflection that enhances empowerment through strategies to align informal and formal cultural systems. kevinpreister@gmail.com
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Advancing Applied Research: Calls for Interdisciplinary Sophistication and Mixed Methodologies (Part 2/4 - Van Dolah)

CHAIR: PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy)
VAN DOLAH, Elizabeth (UMD) Enhancing Anthropology’s Relevance: New Opportunities to Engage in Multi-Disciplinary Research
ABSTRACT: Enhancing Anthropology’s Relevance: New Opportunities to Engage in Multi-Disciplinary Research. Anthropology’s holistic approach is particularly well-suited for engaging in multi-disciplinary research, and opportunities to do so are increasing as other disciplines seek to better understand the human dimensions of their emergent problems. The ecosystem science community has identified such opportunities in defining new ecosystem science research that aligns thematically with anthropological interests in drivers of change, social structures, process and function, and enhancing relevance to broader research communities and the public. As anthropology moves towards defining its own research “destinations,” this presentation will provide examples from ecosystem science of how anthropology can benefit from engaging in these broader conversations. vandolah@umd.edu
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.

Advancing Applied Research: Calls for Interdisciplinary Sophistication and Mixed Methodologies (Part 1/4 - Custred)

CHAIR: PREISTER, Kevin (Ctr for Soc Ecology & Public Policy)
CUSTRED, Glynn (CSUEB) Anthropology as an Integrated Science
ABSTRACT: Anthropology as an Integrated Science. Some believe that science should no longer be the principal mission of anthropology. This raises the question; what is science, and how does it apply to a discipline that ranges from the natural sciences (physical anthropology), through the social sciences to the humanities? We answer these questions by employing the German term Wissenschaft, in both its ordinary language and technical sense. When understood from this perspective, we see that anthropology constitutes an integrated science across all fields of its application. glynncustred@sbcglobal.net
Session took place in Albuquerque, NM at the 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2014.