TWIAN: AAA’s Profiles in Practice Podcast Series

The American Anthropological Associations’s new “Profiles in Practice Podcast Series” is the topic of This Week in Anthropology.  Podcasting has finally arrived into the world of Practicing Anthropologists!

In 2007-08, the Practicing Anthropology Working Group (PAWG), with Shirley Fiske serving as an editor, began the “Profiles in Practice” column in Anthropology News. The purpose was to increase awareness of work being done by anthropologists outside of academia.  Eleven columns were published.  Subsequently, a permanent column was established titled “Anthropology Works.”  In 2008,  PAWG was  replaced by a permanent standing committee of the AAA, the Committee of Practicing, Applied and Public Interest Anthropology (CoPAPIA) .

The Profiles in Practice columns focused on the following questions: (b) What was your career path to getting to where you are?  (b) Why are anthropologists or anthropology critical or important?  (c) What are the challenges in your work and what are the challenges that a national association, such as AAA, can address?  (d) Are there ethical, gender, structural, or political dimensions to those challenges?

CoPAPIA is building upon past Profiles in Practice columns with an online interview series geared towards students interested in anthropology but uncertain about the career paths that await them following graduation.  Practicing anthropologists are interviewed about how they obtained their jobs, the usefulness of their anthropological training, important skills to have, etc.  The series is hosted by Ruth Sando, owner of Sando and Associates, who is a practicing anthropologist and former board member of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists.

The podcast series features interviews with:

• [Listen] Kevin Bialy, an international program officer at the National Institutes of Health
• [Listen] Megan Hawkins, a cultural resource specialist with the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, where she is working with the US Army
• [Listen] Lee Cerveny, a research social scientist at the US Forest Service
• [Listen] Cheryl Levine, a social science analyst at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If you have trouble listening to the podcasts, please try downloading Quicktime.

If you are interested in participating in this podcast series, please contact Brian Estes at bestes@aaanet.org.