2009 Podcasts

1

The Engaged University: What Does it Mean for Applied Anthropology?

CHAIRS: BENNETT, Linda (U Memphis) and WHITEFORD, Linda (U S Florida)

ABSTRACT: Panelists address the question, What would an “engaged university” look like, and how would one become one? Engagement – be it global or regional – bridges the void between the university and its surroundings. “Engagement implies strenuous, thoughtful, argumentative interaction with the non-university world in at least four spheres: setting universities’ aims, purposes, and priorities; relating teaching and learning to the wider world; back and forth dialogue between researchers and practitioners; and taking on wider responsibilities as neighbours and citizens.” How are the universities represented by the panelists becoming engaged and what is the place of anthropology in that vision?

List of Panelists: 

CHRISMAN, Noel (U Wash)
HYLAND, Stan (U Memphis)
GREENBAUM, Susan (U S Florida)
KOZAITIS, Kathryn (Georgia State U)
SHACKEL, Paul (U Maryland)
THU, Kendall (N Illinois U)
VASQUEZ, Miguel (N Arizona U)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

2

Professional and Academic Collaboration: Strengthing the Preperation of New Professional Anthropologists

CHAIR: TASHIMA, Nathaniel (LTG Assoc)

DISCUSSANT: CRAIN, Cathleen (LTG Assoc Inc)

ABSTRACT: Professional and Academic Collaboration: Strengthening the Preparation of New Professional Anthropologists. In this session professional anthropologists, academics, and young anthropologists will discuss ways in which to strengthen the development of new professional anthropologists. The role that mentoring can play and how to structure and coordinate support will be explored. Participants will discuss the desired and needed aspects in mentoring as well as the challenges in preparing students for internship experiences and new professionals entering the workplace. The session will focus on creating a conversation among presenters and audience to explore issues identified by the presenters.

List of Panelists:

BUTLER, Mary Odell (U Maryland)
DAVENPORT, Beverly (U N Texas)
DELINE, Marisa (U Maryland)
HORA, Matthew (U Wisc-Madison)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

3

Studies of HIV and STIs in the Western Hemisphere Part 1

CHAIR: KOESTER, Kimberly (Ctr for AIDS Prev Studies, UC-San Francisco)

ABSTRACT: Patient Narratives on What Constitutes Meaningful HIV Prevention Counseling. Talking about sexual practices, preferences and problems during a routine clinical encounter is not common. In fact, many patients and healthcare providers report feeling uncomfortable managing even a cursory discussion of sex. Moreover, for people living with HIV, frank discussions about sexual expression with a healthcare provider are complicated by legal issues, concerns about feeling judged, and the underlying belief that such discussions are incongruent within the medical setting. Through ethnographic interviews with HIV specialty care providers and their patients we explored the “black box” of meaningful prevention discussions. 

GOMEZ, Angela (St. George’s U)
AMAYA-BURNS, Alba (U Florida)
SIBLEY, Candace (U S Florida)

Studies of HIV and STIs in the Western Hemisphere Part 2

CHAIR: KOESTER, Kimberly (Ctr for AIDS Prev Studies, UC-San Francisco)

LUNDGREN, Rebecka (U Maryland)
DOLWICK GRIEB, Suzanne (U Florida)
YODER, P. Stanley (Macro Int’l) and LUGALLA, Joe (U New Hampshire)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

4

Different Fields, Common Challenge: Lessons for and from Military Anthropology

CHAIRS: FOSHER, Kerry (MCIA, Syracuse U) and SELMESKI, Brian (Air U)

ABSTRACT: Anthropologists’ work on, for and with the military has received much attention recently. The resulting debates have helped identify various important questions regarding opportunities, dangers and ethical challenges in such engagements. However, many of these apply not only to work with the military, but also to anthropologists engaged in development, health care, business and other professions. Applying, practicing and advocating place anthropologists in complex relationships with employers, clients and research subjects. This roundtable brings together experienced practicing anthropologists to reflect on how the current focus on anthropological engagement with the military can inform a robust disciplinary discussion of common issues. kbfosher@gmail.com

List of Panelists:

BABA, Marietta (Mich State U)
NOLAN, Riall W. (Purdue U)
RUBINSTEIN, Robert A. (Syracuse U)
TURNLEY, Jessica Glicken (Galisteo Consulting Group Inc)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

5

Public Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, and Ethnically Engaged Ethnographic Writing

CHAIR: STRAIGHT, Bilinda (W Mich U)

ABSTRACT: Anthropological historians may variously trace applied anthropology to a fraught status in nineteenth century colonialism, to a more explicit, “politically correct” status, or to points in between. Since the 1990s, the neologism of “public anthropology” coined by Renato Rosaldo and Rob Borofsky has occupied an ambiguous space obliquely or alongside applied anthropology. While applied anthropology has long focused on action that may or may not include forms of ethnographic writing, public anthropology explicitly demands anthropological action through writing. This session will consider the intersection between applied anthropology and public anthropology that intentionally engaged forms of ethnographic writing can create.

DISCUSSANT: KRATZ, Corinne (Emory U)

Session Participants:

JOHNSON, Amanda Walker (U Mass-Amherst) 
METZO, Katherine (UNC-Charlotte)
LANGFORD, Jean M. (U Minn)
GOUGH, Meagan (U Sask)
MCKENNA, Brian (U Mich-Dearborn)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

6

Creating Sustainability in Culture: Real-Time Applied Anthropology

CHAIR: BABER, Willie L. (U Florida)

DISCUSSANT: DOWNING, Theodore (U Arizona)

ABSTRACT: One measure of effectiveness in applied anthropology can be found in the “stories” of those who have used anthropological knowledge to assist people in “creating culture” through the discovery of new ways to better sustain ourselves. Unsustainable behaviors reduce the effectiveness of a culture as a continually adaptive process. Sustainability requires a vision and practice not to consume beyond the renewal capacity of the landscapes upon which they are dependent. If culture is dynamic and purposeful, then sustainability requires continuous “culture change” into the future. Another level of sustainable behaviors is illustrated by the perceived need to intervene, or not, in the “culture,” of subordinated peoples. wbaber@anthro.ufl.edu

Session Participants:

BABER, Willie L.
NIGH, Ronald (CIESAS)
IDRIS, Mussa (U Florida)
MOLES, Jerry

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

7

Without Footnotes: Writing Creative Ethnography

CHAIR: EMMETT, Ayala (U Rochester)

DISCUSSANT: SIMONELLI, Jeanne (Wake Forest U)

ABSTRACT: Anthropologists come home from the field with amazing stories brimming with passion, excitement, pathos, humor, and drama. Academic publication requirements, however, often flatten out the stories, strip the ethnography of the excitement, and fail to convey the rich texture of everyday life. The papers in this session invite you to share in an infusion of anthropology with life, half as exciting as fieldwork. Alongside academic ethnography and its requirements there are other ways to write about justice, ethics and the practice of anthropology in genres that are informed by our fieldwork and anchored in ethnographic concerns. The papers in this session, which include SHA Fiction Award winners, open up an exhilarating and stirring humanistic anthropology to a wider audience

Session Participants:

EMMETT, Ayala (Rochester)
ANGROSINO, Michael V. (U S Florida)
TRACHTENBERG, Barbara (Boston University)
CHIERICI, Rose-Marie (SUNY-Geneseo)
CHIN, Nancy (U Rochester)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

8

Collaboration, Community, and Ethics

CHAIR: FRENCH, Diana E. (UBC-Okanagan)

FRENCH, Diane E. (UBC-Okanagan) Staying Out of the Rain: An Umbrella for Community Based Research Ethics

MURCHISON, Julian (Millsaps Coll) ‘The Anthropologist’s NGO’?: Examining the Practice and Theory of Collaborative Work

BENNETT, Elaine (U Connecticut) Reciprocity in Research: Fulfilling Community Expectations by Returning Knowledge

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

9

Scholars, Security, and Citizenship Part 1 (SAR Plenary)

CHAIR: MCNAMARA, Laura (Sandia Nat’l Labs)

ABSTRACT: Military organizations have discovered that cultural knowledge is useful knowledge. The resulting interest in anthropology is worrisome to many anthropologists. In the United States, debates rage around initiatives such as HTS and Minerva, but anthropologists outside the US also grapple with the ethical, methodological, and political implications of emergent intersections among scholars and soldiers. This panel brings a range of international, intellectual and institutional perspectives, past and present, to bear on the engagement of anthropology with the military. In doing so, we explore what it means to fulfill one’s scholarly and civil commitments in a time of war.

Session Participants:

TOMFORDE, Maren (German Armed Forces & Command Coll-Hamburg) 
BEN-ARI, Eyal (Hebrew U)
FUJIMURA, Clementine (US Naval Academy)
PRICE, David (St. Martin’s U)
FRY, Douglas P. (Åbo Akad U, U Arizona)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

Scholars, Security, and Citizenship Part 2 (SAR Plenary)

CHAIR: MCNAMARA, Laura (Sandia Nat’l Labs)

ABSTRACT: Military organizations have discovered that cultural knowledge is useful knowledge. The resulting interest in anthropology is worrisome to many anthropologists. In the United States, debates rage around initiatives such as HTS and Minerva, but anthropologists outside the US also grapple with the ethical, methodological, and political implications of emergent intersections among scholars and soldiers.  This panel brings a range of international, intellectual and institutional perspectives, past and present, to bear on the engagement of anthropology with the military. In doing so, we explore what it means to fulfill one’s scholarly and civil commitments in a time of war.

Session Participants:

MCNAMARA, Laura (Sandia Labs)
FERGUSON, R. Brian (U Rutgers-Newark)
RUBINSTEIN, Robert A. (Syracuse U)
IRWIN, Anne (U Calgary)
HOFFMAN, Danny (UW-Seattle)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

10

The Politics of Place and the Ethics of Engagement Part 1

CHAIRS: LOW, Setha and KESSLER, Bree (CUNY Grad Ctr)

ABSTRACT: This session addresses three interlocking themes: 1) the role and significance of place in the construction and maintenance of community and social identity in the city; 2) how this community-based appropriation of urban space creates its own unique form of politics; and 3) the conflicts and contradictions that emerge when working as an activist or practicing anthropologist in these situations require a rethinking of the ethics of engagement. The presentations will be introduced with presentation on the anthropologist as social critics, while the discussion will emphasize how these different projects affect change and involve the “anthropologist” in the politics of place as well as the ethics of public engagement.

Session Participants:

KESSLER, Bree (CUNY Grad Ctr)
SCHENSUL, Jean (Inst for Community Rsch)
AUDANT, Babette (CUNY Grad Ctr)
MCKINNEY, Bill (CUNY Grad Ctr)

The Politics of Place and the Ethics of Engagement Part 2

CHAIRS: LOW, Setha and KESSLER, Bree (CUNY Grad Ctr)

DISCUSSANT: LOW, Setha (CUNY Grad Ctr)

LAWRENCE-ZUNIGA, Denise (Cal Poly-Pomona)
NEWMAN, Andrew (CUNY Grad Ctr)
CURRANS, Elizabeth (William & Mary Coll), SCHULLER, Mark (York Coll), and WILLOUGHBY HERARD, Tiffany (UC-Irvine)
UDVARHELYI, Eva Tessza (Grad Sch, CUNY)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.

11

Tradition, Community, Gender, and Family in Contemporary Mayan Communities of Lake Atitlán, Guatemala: Reports from the NC State Ethnographic Field School

CHAIRS: WALLACE, Tim (N Carolina State) and PEZZIA, Carla (UT-San Antonio) 

ABSTRACT: Guatemala has been undergoing rapid change since the end of the Civil War in 1997; however, the Tz’tujil, Kaqchikel and Quiché Communities of Lake Atitlán have been successful in maintaining their connection to their traditions and identities.  The papers in this session, derived from the NCSU EFS 2008 field session in Lake Atitlán, Guatemala, researched and reported on by the program’s student participants, focus on themes especially related to issues of gender politics, family, change and credit coops. They show the persistence and resilience of Mayan identity and culture in the face of globalization.

RAPOPORT, Erin (U British Columbia)
MILIDRAGOVIC, Darja (U British Columbia)
SCHMID, Mary Beth (UNC-Chapel Hill)
MAGEE, Erin (Loyola U)

Session took place in Santa Fe, NM at the 69th Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology in March 2009.