Pertti J. Pelto International Award

Award Selection Criteria

Nominations

Previous Recipients

2023

Prof. AKM Mazharul Islam. - Bangladesh

Currently, a Professor of Anthropology at Shahjlalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh and the Executive Director of Institute of Applied Anthropology, Dhaka, Bangladesh (In a volunteered capacity), Professor AKM Mazharul Islam is educated in Cumilla Cadet College, University of Dhaka, Minnesota State University, and Johns Hopkins University. He has been a Chair of Anthropology at SUST for 12 years in different period of times. He has been also teaching in Dhaka University, BRAC University, North South University, Independent University, Bangladesh, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP), Mahidol University (Thailand) and Minnesota State University (USA). His teaching includes applied anthropology, medical anthropology, public health, and research methodology. He has been working in a multidisciplinary team with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in formulating a formative research protocol, which is being implemented in 18 countries in Asia, Europe, and Africa. He worked as a Principal and Co-Principal Investigator in a good number of national and international projects funded and administered by Government of Bangladesh, European Union, USAID, WHO, Unicef, Save the Children, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, University of Glasgow, SUST, UNDP, BRAC, and ICDDR, B. He published a good number of research articles in national and international journals and published a couple of books and book chapters. He participated, presented, discussed, and chaired in many international conferences and workshops arranged by American Anthropological Association, Society for Applied Anthropology, Society of Medical Anthropology, University of Sussex, Maastricht University, Amsterdam University, University of Heidelberg, Mahidol University, University of Delhi, University of Hyderabad etc. In Bangladesh, he offers regular lectures, seminars, and workshops to Inter Service Selection Borad (ISSB), Bangladesh Civil Service Training Academy, Bangladesh Planning Academy, Bangladesh Rural Development Academy, Bangladesh Local Government Training Academy, and Bangladesh Law Academy and a disciplinary expert of the selection board for the teachers’ recruitment board of different universities in Bangladesh. He is a member of American Anthropological Association, Society for Applied Anthropology, Society of Medical Anthropology, USA and Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. He received Pelto International Award 2023 by the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), USA for his outstanding contribution in the field of applied anthropology.

2022

Isaac K. Nyamongo - Kenya

Isaac K. Nyamongo is a Professor of Anthropology. He currently serves as the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Cooperative Development, Research and Innovation) at the Cooperative University of Kenya. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida, USA and has close to 30 years in teaching, research and consultancy. He has supervised and mentored more than 40 students both at Doctoral and Masters levels. Prof. Nyamongo has held research and training grants from many organizations including the European Union, World Health Organization, International Development Research Center, Wenner Gren Foundation, and Toyota Foundation among others. His research and training experience spans several countries within the Africa region including Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea and has mainly focus on social issues in malaria. Prof. Nyamongo has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals. In addition, he has published books and book chapters. Further, he has held visiting Professor positions in the US as a Fulbright Scholar (2009-2010) and in South Africa where he was a Carnegie Mellon Fellow (2012).

2020

Diego Díaz Córdova - Argentina

Diego Díaz Córdova holds a PhD in Anthropology Sciences, Universidad de Buenos Aires and is Professor at Universidad de Lanús, Universidad de Buenos Aires y Universidad Museo Social Argentino. He is a researcher and software developer with interests in nutritional anthropology, anthropology of arts and methodology (social network analysis, simulation models, data science, ethnography and statistics).

2018

Cynthia Pizarro - Argentina

Cynthia Pizarro has a Bachelor Degree in Social Anthropology – University of Buenos Aires; a Master Degree in Social Sciences – National University of Catamarca; and a Doctorate Degree in Anthropology  - University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She works as a professor at the School of Agriculture of the University of Buenos Aires and as a senior researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). She is the director of the Master’s Program in Rural Development of the University of Buenos Aires. 

Her major interests are:

General: Social Anthropology, Sociology

Area: Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Latin American Nationals Abroad

Topical: Rural Studies, International Immigration, Identity Processes, Anthropology of Work, Political Ecology, Ethnographic Methods, Applied Anthropology 

She has published several chapters of books, many refereed papers in international scientific journals, and the following books: 

• Bolivian Labor Immigrants` Experiences in Argentina, 2016, Maryland, Lexington Books. 

• Bolivianos y bolivianas en la vida cotidiana cordobesa: Trabajo, derechos e identidad en contextos migratorios (Bolivian Men and Women in Every Day Life in Córdoba: Work, Rights and Identity in Migratory Contexts), 2015, Córdoba, Argentina, Universidad Católica de Córdoba. 

• “Ser Boliviano” en la Región Metropolitana de la Ciudad de Cordoba. Localización Socio-espacial, Mercado de Trabajo y Relaciones Interculturales. (“Being a Bolivian” in the Metropolitan Region of Cordoba City. Socio-Spatial Location, Labor Market and Intercultural Relations), 2011, Cordoba, Argentina, Universidad Católica de Córdoba,

• Migraciones Internacionales Contemporáneas: Estudios para el Debate (Current International Migrations: Studies for Debate), 2011, Buenos Aires, Argentina, CiCCUS.  

• Ahora ya somos Civilizados. La Invisibilidad de la Identidad Indígena en un Área Rural del Valle de Catamarca.  (“We are Now Civilized”. Invisibility of Indigenous Identity in a Rural Area of Catamarca Valley), 2006, Córdoba, Argentina, Universidad Católica de Córdoba. 

• La Política Cultural de las Movilizaciones Campesinas. Las Narrativas sobre un Conflicto por la Tierra en una Localidad Rural de Catamarca. (Cultural Politics of Peasant Struggles. Narratives about a Land Conflict in a Rural Area of Catamarca), 2001, Catamarca, Argentina, Universidad Nacional de Catamarca.

She founded the Network of Argentine Researchers on Contemporary International Migrations in 2009, which she has coordinated until 2015 and has participated as a member since then. She has organized several Meetings, Workshops, Round Tables and Sessions which gathered colleagues from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Ecuador, Mexico, USA, England, Spain, Italy, Germany, China and the Russian Federation.

She has done long lasting ethnographic fieldwork in rural areas of Argentina, where she got involved with local people and joined their struggles. She has done collective activities together with her informants such as participatory mapping, oral history workshops, photo exhibitions and documentary films.

She has trained under-graduate and graduate students in ethnographic technics and has led her research teams to apply scholarly expertise in order to encourage stake holders and local populations to understand, reflect on and problematize concrete social problems, as well as to imagine novel ways of addressing them in order to make a more inclusive and equal society. 

2016

Patricia Jean Hammer - Peru

An applied medical anthropologist, Patricia J. Hammer, is dedicated to Community Participatory Action Research (CPAR) methodology as a composite of formative research instruments that strengthen community organization for engagements in movements to push policy and sustain viable articulations between Andean rural populations and government institutions. An international health consultant specialized in women, adolescent and community well being she develops, tests and implements strategies for government ministries of health, international NGOs such as CARE, Save the Children, Pathfinder, Doctors without Borders, as well as with locally based municipalities and organizations primarily in Peru and Bolivia.

Since the inauguration of the Masters Degree Program in Social Policy in 2004 at the state university of Huaraz, Peru, UNASAM (Universidad Nacional Santiago Antúnez de Mayolo) Dr. Hammer teaches and develops required curriculum and also serves as thesis advisor for her students, all of whom are Peruvian professionals responsible for the implementation of national social programs to build community capacity and alleviate poverty.

Patricia Hammer is founder of the civic association, Center for Social Well Being (CSW) in Carhuaz, Ancash, Peru that provides an interdisciplinary field training program for international graduate and undergraduate university students and professionals. The center is a fully sustainable organic ranch, run with solar and wind energy and a working model for local indigenous communities in pursuit of viable alternatives for autonomous development that include agrobiodiversity, particularly the protection of native seeds, as well as climate change mitigation and adaptation. Her recent publication in ReVista Harvard Review of Latin America addresses her work. She is a social science writer for the regional Peruvian newspaper the Huaraz Telegraph in Ancash, Peru.