National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
AnthroCurrents — June 28, 2016
Practicing Anthropology from the South Pole to Wall Street
Our colleagues are using ethnography to study the interchange between scientific expertise and policy-making at the South Pole, to make visible the invisible sanitation workers of New York City, and to understand the people inside the faceless “market” of Wall Street (Marketplace returns to Karen Ho’s research (Liquidated, 2009) for their “Price of Profits” series).
Remaining in New York City, ethnographers share their “Human-Centered Research in Policymaking” to counterbalance the quantitative, “Big Data” approach in urban planning. On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times profiles anthropologist Susan Kresnicka. She explains the value of social science as Hollywood analyzes what makes a blockbuster and how we find meaning in fandom and binge-watching.
Think Globally. Act Locally.
Journalist Peter C. Baker, writing in The Nation, reviews Professor David H. Price’s ouevre on anthropology’s and America’s national security apparatus. The occasion is Price’s newest book, Cold War Anthropology, which concludes comparing the use of anthropology in American national security work during the Cold War and post-9/11.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Purdue, Su’ad Abdul Khabeer is quoted at length in The Atlantic, responding to Donald Trump’s query “What’s Going On” with Muslims.
Paul Stoller uses his platform at the Huffington Post to call for more political action by anthropologists.
Honors
Professor Sue Black, forensic anthropologist at the University of Dundee, Scotland, has been honored with a dameship for her services to the profession.
No other comic manages to satiate so many of my interests at once (18th century, phpsiloohy/theology, books… I could go on). So, speaking for myself, there’s plenty of good reasons to read it, Biblical scholarship jokes being just one of them. Keep up the good work, Hungarian puns would be awesome too!And good luck with all the crap reality throws at you – I hope you and your family get through it with the least consequences possible.