Workshops Available at the Annual Meeting

Workshop Registration Now Open!

The Program Committee has developed informative workshops on up-to-date topics. A description of the workshops along with an online registration form is on the website at:

https://www.appliedanthro.org/annual-meeting/workshops

Enrollment in these workshops is on a first-come, first-served basis. Several of the workshops have limited enrollment. We encourage you to make your reservation at your earliest convenience.

Workshop #1

Bringing Practice into Your Program: A Framework for Curriculum Development: A Career Readiness Commission Workshop

Wednesday, March 29
9:00 am - 12:00 pm 

$50

BRIODY, Elizabeth (Cultural Keys LLC) and NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U)

This workshop introduces instructors to a comprehensive framework for academic training for anthropological practice. The framework derives from research by Anthropology’s Career Readiness Commission, as well as earlier work. Participants will receive copies of the Commission’s framework in advance in order to identify and compare features of their programs with the framework. After reviewing the framework, they will be encouraged to discuss those elements that they have successfully introduced into their own curricula. The final portion of the workshop examines participant plans for incorporating new elements into their programs. The workshop is three hours long.

Workshop #2

Revving up Your R and R — with the Editor in Chief of American Anthropologist

Wednesday, March 29
12:00 - 4:00 pm

$40

CHIN, Elizabeth (American Anthropologist)

Do you have an article with R and R decision stuck in a pile or a folder? In this interactive, practical workshop you will work with yourself and other participants to face Reviewer 2, channel your energy, and create a plan for getting that article done and resubmitted. For ethical reasons, no submissions for AA, please.

Workshop #3

Key Skills for Getting Hired?: Here’s What the Career Readiness Commission Suggests

Wednesday, March 29
3:45 - 5:30 pm

$20

BRIODY, Elizabeth (Cultural Keys LLC), STERN, Gwen (Independent), and NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U)

Anthropology students routinely express concerns about finding work beyond the academy that uses and appreciates their anthropology background. This workshop takes away some angst by identifying the skills that all workplaces need as well as skills anthropologists possess. In part 1, we review the general skill sets of anthropologists successfully working in industry, non-profits, and government. A reflection period follows in which participants identify their own skills. In part 2, participants engage in role plays involving a job seeker and a hiring manager. These interactions push participants to practice compelling and persuasive arguments for why they should be hired.

Workshop #4

Teaching Students to Practice

Thursday, March 30
9:00 - 11:00 am

$40

BLUDAU, Heidi (Vanderbilt U)

This workshop is for instructors who have little to no experience teaching applied or practicing anthropology. We will work on how to conceive of and design classes or class components that teach anthropology students the skills and knowledge that they need to prepare for future employment. Participants should leave with a foundation based on the wide range of concepts, literature, technical skills and research tools used by anthropologists in varied contexts and tangible ideas for ways students can gain this knowledge and experience, including how they can parlay their anthropological skill sets into employment.

Workshop #5

Experience Design for Real People: Ethnography, Ecosystems and Inclusion

Thursday, March 30
9:00 - 10:45 am

$20

DAVID, Gary (Bentley U) and GAMWELL, Adam (Anthrocurious)

Any design process is about understanding the voices of those for whom you are designing in terms empathy, pain points, friction, effort, opportunity, and experiences. At the same time, experiences exist in sociotechnical ecosystems. This means there can be competing voices, emotions, motives, and goals. This workshop will explore how to approach, design for, and create integrative experiences. We will do this through workshopping how – and why - to integrate key elements of the human experience often captured through ethnography, i.e., memory, beliefs, and expectations, into business-ready design and systems thinking frameworks.

Workshop #6

Participatory Design Is Cool Anthropology

Thursday, March 30
1:30 - 4:00 pm

$25

BAINES, Kristina and COSTA, Victoria (Cool Anthropology)

Collaborators outside of the academy not only make our research more accessible, they make it better research. In this workshop, Cool Anthropology’s co-founders share insights from their projects and their collaborators to help you develop your own participatory research plan. Where do you start? How do you find collaborators? How do you design collaboratively? How do you put the research into action? How do you analyze your results? How do you disseminate those results? We will work through these questions collaboratively, aiming for each participant to leave with a participatory design strategy that best suits their research.

Workshop #7

Missing Links: The Need for Developing Applied Anthropology Curricula for Undergraduate Programs

Thursday, March 30
1:30 - 4:00 pm

$25

AUSTIN, Rebecca (Fort Lewis Coll)

Most faculty in public institutions with emphases on four-year degree programs value the notion of applied anthropology (often conflated with idea of community-engagement) yet, very few practitioner-type resources are available to aid academically trained Ph.D. level instructors for developing applied anthropology courses. This workshop covers topics such as: creating an applied anthropology syllabus using a contracting/ consulting framework, jobs in applied anthropology for bachelor's level graduates, as well as assignments for applied anthropology classes, textbook review, and developing applied environmental anthropology courses. Bring sample syllabus, program requirements, and your teaching or consulting stories to the workshop.

Workshop #8

Looking In: Tending to the Anthropologist in the Academy

Friday, March 31
9:00 - 10:45 am

$40

SERRATO, Margie (Human Empowered) and SAMARAWICKREMA, Nethra (Work with Nethra)

Alongside the milestones of success that mark the academic trajectory is a slow accumulation of hidden stressors. As success comes intimately intertwined with burnout and overwhelm, the making of our work can be concomitant with the unmaking of the self–and of our field. How do you recognize, acknowledge, and resolve these stressors? How do you reclaim what truly matters? And, importantly, how do you support students when they struggle with these questions? In this workshop, two anthropologists-turned-coaches will guide faculty in returning to what matters to the anthropological self–one’s purpose, praxis, and desires for work and life outside the academy.

Workshop #9

Becoming a Practicing Anthropologist: A Workshop for Anthropologists Seeking Non-Academic Careers – A Career Readiness Commission Workshop

Friday, March 31
10:00 am - 1:00 pm

NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U)

$30

This workshop shows anthropologists (undergraduate, Master’s and PhD students as well as recent PhDs) how to prepare themselves for practice, even within a traditional anthropology program. Six areas will be covered: 1) Practice careers; 2) Practice competencies; 3) Making graduate school count; 4) Career planning; 5) Job-hunting; and 6) Job success. The workshop is three hours long.

Workshop #10

Cultural Consensus Analysis (SAS workshop)

Friday, March 31
12:00 - 5:00 pm

$50

GATEWOOD, John B. (Lehigh U) and LOWE, John W. (Cultural Analysis)

This five-hour workshop is an introduction to cultural consensus analysis and how to use it to study the social organization of knowledge. Topics include: the original problem that consensus analysis addresses; the “formal” versus “informal” methods and the kinds of data collections appropriate for each; the need to counter-balance items when using the informal method; using consensus analysis to study sub-cultural variation; how different distributional patterns of knowledge affect the key indicators of consensus; and number of questions needed for reliable assessments of respondent-by-respondent similarity. Discussion of recent developments with CCA and issues in participants’ own research, as time allows.

Workshop #11

Looking beyond the Academy: Situating the Anthropologist in a Wider Frame

Friday, March 31
1:00 - 2:30 pm

$50

SAMARAWICKREMA, Nethra (Work With Nethra) and SERRATO, Margie (Human Empowered)

Could the dreams that drew you into anthropology also lead you out of the academy? What could a life constituted by the spirit of anthropology look like outside the frame of the institutional structures of the academy? This workshop, run by two anthropologists-turned-coaches, will guide you in broadening your career choices by helping you return to what matters to you–as a person, as an anthropologist, and as you envision lives that center the anthropology you want to practice.