Workshops

The SfAA provides workshop opportunities at the annual meetings. At the workshops, participants can meet with other attendees and develop their professional skills. Be sure to check some out!

All tickets are on a first come first serve basis. Registration is available here.

We reserve the right to cancel in the event that there are not enough participants to hold the workshop. If this happens, your ticket will be refunded.

Cancellation does require 48 hours advance notice before the start time.

Wednesday, March 24

#1 - INTEGRATING LOCAL FIELDWORK INTO TEACHING ANTHROPOLOGY

Wednesday, March 20 - 8:00 - 9:30 am

Price: $20
Limited to 50 participants

KOPTIUCH, Kristin (AZ State U) and SULLIVAN, Kate (CSULA) Integrating Local Fieldwork into Teaching Anthropology. Ethnographic fieldwork is the cornerstone of sociocultural anthropology. Empirical qualitative research provides readings and concepts for teaching anthropology. Yet the excitement and learning opportunities provided by engaging undergraduate students in meaningful fieldwork often do not make it into our courses. This workshop offers strategies for integrating fieldwork in local communities into courses seeking to address local/global concerns with environment, migration, urbanism, media. Facilitators explain how they have devised and implemented courses focused around fieldwork, and also provide scaled-back but compelling fieldwork exercises appropriate for any course. Participants are invited to share strategies for bringing memorable fieldwork engagement into teaching.

#2 - EMBRACING CHANGE AND ADAPTATION IN PROGRAM EVALUATION (WITHOUT SELLING OUT YOUR ANTHROPOLOGY)

Wednesday, March 20 - 10:00 am - 1:00 pm

Price: $40
Limited to 30 participants

BUDDEN, Ashwin (D’EVA Consulting) Embracing Change and Adaptation in Program Evaluation (Without Selling Out Your Anthropology). Decision-makers in social impact and global health programs are seeking new ways to evaluate and improve complex interventions in dynamic environments. Developmental Evaluation (DE) is increasingly being adopted to catalyze real-time adaptation of interventions in conditions of change and uncertainly and to support the timely use of evaluation results. Using a series of short interactive modules, this workshop will introduce participants to the principles and practices of DE, including how it differs from conventional monitoring and evaluation, when and when not to use it, and how to leverage your anthropological skill-set in applying DE.

#3 - MARKET SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT: USING APPLIED RESEARCH TO ACHIEVE SYSTEMIC CHANGE, SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALE IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Wednesday, March 20 - 1:30-5:20 pm

Price: $25
Limited to 25 participants

SHAH, Rachel (Springfield Ctr & Durham U) Market Systems Development: Using Applied Research to Achieve Systemic Change, Sustainability and Scale in International Development. Market Systems Development (MSD) is a research-oriented approach to international development which is designed to generate inclusive, sustainable and systemic change. This workshop is aimed at students and early-career anthropologists who are interested in applying their research to development practice. It will cover 1) what MSD is, and how it challenges mainstream development 2) introductory technical training in the MSD method and frameworks and 3) the need for anthropological research and methodological skills within MSD. Dr. Rachel Shah is a Development Anthropologist working as a Consultant for The Springfield Centre – a global leader in MSD theory, practice and training.

Thursday, March 21

#4 - RAPID QUALITATIVE INQUIRY (RQI): SKILLS FOR QUICKLY UNDERSTANDING CHANGE IN TURBULENT TIMES

Thursday, March 21 - 8:00-11:00 am

Price: $35
Limited to 30 participants

BEEBE, James (Portland State U) Rapid Qualitative Inquiry (RQI): Skills for Quickly Understanding Change in Turbulent Times. Team-based research significantly reduces time required for field work. Based on Rapid Assessment. Focus on identifying realistic expectations and learning practical skills. Attention to ethics, rigor, and use of technology. Workshop will include practice team interviewing and analysis. Participants are encouraged to contact beebe@gonzaga.edu, visit the Rapid Qualitative Inquiry web site at http://rapidqualitativeinquiry.com, and view the Power Point presentation at http://rqishort17-1. Presenter has published extensively on topic.

#5 - BECOMING A PRACTICING ANTHROPOLOGIST: A WORKSHOP FOR ANTHROPOLOGISTS SEEKING NON-ACADEMIC CAREERS

Thursday, March 21 - 1:30-4:20 pm

Price: $25
Limited to 30 participants

NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U) Becoming a Practicing Anthropologist: A Workshop for Anthropologists Seeking Non-Academic Careers. 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.

#6 - EXPERT WITNESS TRAINING FOR ANTHROPOLOGISTS

Thursday, March 21 - 4:30-7:20 pm

Price: $25
Limited to 25 participants

HASSOUN, Rosina (SVSU), NGIN, Chorswang (CSU), and YEH, Joann (Attorney) Expert Witness Training for Anthropologists. This workshop focuses on how to provide expert witness testimony and provides an overview of immigration issues facing Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants and asylum seekers. Joann Yeh, an immigration attorney in Los Angeles, will give an overview of the legal standards for evidence, how the immigration court system differs from “traditional” court systems, and what an expert witness can expect from the opposing counsel and the immigration judge in an asylum case. ChorSwang (Swan) Ngin, Professor at California State University, and Rosina Hassoun, Associate Professor at Saginaw Valley State University, will discuss issues impacting Asian and Arab immigrants.

Friday, March 22

#7 - NETWORKING AND MENTORING: PERSPECTIVES FROM ANTHROPOLOGICAL SCIENCES

Friday, March 22 - 12:00-3:00 pm    

Price: $20
Limited to 20 participants

CHRISOMALIS, Stephen (Wayne State U) Networking and Mentoring: Perspectives from Anthropological Sciences. This three-hour workshop helps students (undergraduate and graduate) and early-career scholars (postdocs, non-tenure-stream, practicing/professional) build skills to help expand their intellectual networks and find mentorship beyond that provided by their degree program – to make sense out of a sometimes-daunting disciplinary and professional environment. Recognizing that scientifically-oriented anthropologists can be poorly understood, the workshop helps participants talk to all anthropologists about their work. We will develop practical, actionable strategies for finding like-minded scholars and practitioners within participants’ topics of study, cultivate 'network thinking' aimed at academic, non-academic, or hybrid careers, and generate short-form professional narratives for various professional goals.

#8 - GETTING PRACTITIONERS’ STORIES TO A WIDER AUDIENCE: DEVELOPING A LITERATURE OF PRACTICE

Friday, March 22 - 8:00-11:00 am  

Price: $25
Limited to 30 participants

NOLAN, Riall (Purdue U), BRIODY, Elizabeth (Cultural Keys LLC), and ALLEN, Mitchell(Scholarly Roadside Service) Getting Practitioners’ Stories to a Wider Audience: Developing a Literature of Practice. This practical and interactive workshop is designed for students, practitioners, and anyone teaching the next generation of practitioners. Our goals are to 1) help workshop participants develop and disseminate their practice experiences using a variety of media; and 2) bring practitioner accounts to the attention of the discipline, profession, and wider public. To get started, we identify some writing tips, showing a few examples. We also discuss some of the obstacles to dissemination and ways to overcome them. Come prepared with a writing project of your own (in draft or in conceptual form) to use during exercises.

#10 - BUILDING INTERNATIONAL RESEARCH LINKAGES IN APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY

Friday, March 22 - 12:00-1:20 pm

Price: $10 
Limited to 35 participants

EVERSOLE, Robyn (Swinburne U) Building International Research Linkages in Applied Anthropology. ‘Networked knowledge’ created through place-to-place and community-to-community knowledge-sharing can illuminate practical challenges and opportunities in local organizations and communities. For this reason, international research collaboration can be particularly powerful for applied anthropologists and the organizations and communities they work with. This workshop creates a space to explore how take your local collaborations onto a global stage, and create partnerships and networks for mutual learning across boundaries.

#11 - CRAFTING PROFESSIONAL NARRATIVES FOR CAREER TRANSITIONS

Friday, March 22 - 1:30-4:20 pm

Price: $25
Limited to 25 participants

BERNIUS, Matthew (Measures For Justice) Crafting Professional Narratives for Career Transitions. As ethnographers and qualitative researchers, we are used to telling other people’s stories. In order to have rewarding careers doing what we love, it’s equally important to learn to effectively tell our own story as well. This hands-on workshop will explore different approaches to clearly and compellingly positioning research skills and past project experience to advance your career. The session is specifically tailored for people looking to make career transitions (e.g., from academia into industry, into or out of freelance, or from one job to another).

#12 - CULTURAL CONSENSUS ANALYSIS

Friday, March 22 - 1:30-6:30 pm

Price: $45
Limited to 24 participants

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

Saturday, March 23

#13 - PRODUCING COOL ANTHROPOLOGY: ENGAGING THE PUBLIC IN TURBULENT TIMES

Saturday, March 23 - 8:00 am - 12:00 pm

Price: $35
Limited to 50 participants

COSTA, Victoria (Cool Anthropology) and BAINES, Kristina (CUNY, Guttman & Cool Anthropology) Producing Cool Anthropology: Engaging the Public in Turbulent Times.Anthropologists conduct research with the potential to inspire empathy and compassion, increasing understandings of the world and each other. However, much of this work fails to connect understandings to resultant actions because it never moves beyond an audience of a few academic readers. During this workshop, the co-directors of Cool Anthropology will guide participants through a discovery process to assess which modality will create the most impact for their work, connecting them to the “public” they seek to engage. We will draw from successful examples of navigating contested public spaces, interactive installations, graphic ethnographies, virtual reality, multimedia and social networking.

#14 - GEEKOUT VOL. 4: USER EXPERIENCE (UX) RESEARCH METHODS JAMBOREE

Saturday, March 23 - 9:00 - 11:50 am

Price: $50
Limited to 50 participants

HEBERT, Marc (San Francisco Human Serv Agency) Geekout Vol. 4: User Experience (UX) Research Methods Jamboree. Participants in this hands-on workshop should walk away with 1) a strategy to research people’s experiences with a product or service online and offline, 2) a process to analyze the data, 3) tools to visualize and communicate the findings to teammates or clients, and 4) templates and other resources to keep practicing UX research. The facilitator has been doing user research and service design for eight years. He currently leads a team of UX researchers and service and visual designers. Marc has facilitated numerous workshops on this topic for practitioners in industry and government, including at three previous SfAAs

#15 - DESIGNING INTEGRATIVE EXPERIENCES: ETHNOGRAPHY, EMPATHY, AND PARTICIPATORY INCLUSION

Saturday, March 23 - 12:00-3:00 pm

Price: $50
Limited to 50 participants

DAVID, Gary (Bentley U) and GAMWELL, Adam (This Anthro Life) Designing Integrative Experiences: Ethnography, Empathy, and Participatory Inclusion. Anydesign 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 workshoppping a socially-embedded design process, focusing on: scoping a design problem, perspective switching, contextual protoyping, in-situ testing, and collaborative refinement of designs. Participants are asked to bring a design project or problem they'd like to focus on.