National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
AnthroCurrents — October 18, 2016
Anthropologist Bloggers Wanted
Fellow anthropologist bloggers (and aspiring bloggers), note two opportunities to expand your reach:
Anthropology News is looking for columnists to address “hot topics” in the news. Send a 300-word pitch by October 21st.
The Guardian is expanding the scope of their science blog network to include archaeology and anthropology. Proposals, or nominations of colleagues, from any sub-discipline are welcome.
Haiti is not Deforested
Apparently, as regular as the Atlantic hurricane season, including recent Hurricane Matthew, is the media’s description of a “deforested” Haiti. Anthropologists Gerald F. Murray (U. of Florida, Emeritus), Andrew Tarter (U. of Florida), and Gina Athena Ulysses (Wesleyan U.) are among those trying to correct this mistake as well as to contribute to continued development and yet another recovery in Haiti. Professor Murray is quoted in the New York Times and all three are quoted in Vice.com.
Books, Books, Books
A journalist/activist shares a favorable review of Peter Turchin’s (U. of Connecticut) new book, Ages of Discord: A Structural-Demographic Analysis of American History.
Robert Kelly (U. of Wyoming) describes the thesis of his new book, The Fifth Beginning, at a presentation at Colorado State U.
The local paper in Port Townsend, Washington, announces a reading by Margaret Wilson (U. of Washington) from her new book, Seawomen of Iceland: Survival on the Edge, inspired by a historical marker honoring Thuridur Einarsdottir (1777-1863), one of Iceland’s greatest fishing captains.
The Association for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies confers two awards and an honorable mention on Douglas Rogers (Yale U.) for his book, The Depths of Russia: Oil, Power, and Culture after Socialism. Rogers looks at oil in the Perm region of the Urals, away from geopolitics and the Kremlin, to understand what it means in the social and economic life of a regional commercial hub.
Read a review of Tanya (“T.M.”) Luhrmann’s (Stanford U.) 2012 book, When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God, by and for evangelicals.
Tools & Techniques to Apply Anthropology
A press release from Civicom Marketing Research Services announces a new mobile “ethnography app” called ThoughtLight(TM). They describe the app as a tool for shopper insights, audio diaries, patient journeys, on-site data collection. It offers researchers a way to interact with study participants through the participants’ smart phones. AnthroCurrents welcomes reviews or links to reviews to share with readers.
VIE Healthcare announces it is the “first healthcare consulting firm to offer Ethnography and Patient Journey Mapping(TM)” for hospitals and healthcare organizations. Using ethnography in the service of customer experience comes to the healthcare industry.
Georgina Born (U. of Oxford) and Christopher Haworth presented a preliminary version of their research paper on mixing online and offline ethnography which focused on internet-mediated music genres.
A brief anecdote on using ethnography to reinvent a company appears in the India-based online site for entrepreneurs, YourStory.com.
Exhibit and Awards
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers the opening of an exhibit by artist/anthropologist Erika Diettes, “Shroud,” consisting of photo on silk of women from Colombia caught up in the decades-long civil war there.
The Society for Economic Anthropology’s 2016 Student Prize in Economic Anthropology was awarded to Mariel Kennedy (2016, Notre Dame) for her paper on debt collection in Pune, India.
The Society for Cultural Anthropology awards the 2016 Cultural Horizons Prize to Nicholas Shapiro (Chemical Heritage Foundation) for his article “Attuning to the Chemosphere: Domestic Formaldehyde, Bodily Reasoning, and the Chemical Sublime,” which appeared in Cultural Anthropology 30, no. 3 (2015): 368–93.
Around Campus
We missed the competition, but are looking for the final score, in the Atlatl Battle between SUNY Potsdam and Paul Smith’s College. The event was October 15th. Who took home the title of “Atlatl Battle 2016 Champions”? And when will the NCAA pick this up?
The U. of Missouri-St. Louis recognizes their own anthropologist and gerontologist Margo-Lea Hurwicz as she is invited to speak at NIH this past September.
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