Issue Contents

• President’s Letter
• Going to the AAAs in Tampa? Join NAPA at these events!
• Reimagining Anthropological Praxis
• The Annual Careers Exposition
• NAPA Workshop Offerings in Tampa
• NAPA Has Standards!
• Call for Volunteers – NAPA Notes Editor
• Call for Volunteers – Social Media Mavens
• General Call for Volunteers and Publications

President’s letter

As the weather begins to cool and it once again becomes pumpkin spice season, I hope this issue of NAPA Notes finds you well and looking forward to the season ahead! We at NAPA are excited to share updates and items in the works.

I am excited to announce our NAPA election results.  We are fortunate to have Matt Stoffer joining the Governing Council for a two-year term as Member-at-Large. Matt is a U.S. federal contractor and has supported contracts with the Departments of Homeland Security, Treasury, and Defense. We also lucky to have Suzette Chang as our new President Elect. Suzette is Founder and CEO of Thick Descriptions, and she works on the application of mixed methods and contemporary educational methods grounded in anthropology.  Matt and Suzette will take their offices following the November AAA meetings, and the wonderful Suanna Crowley will be our new President.

NAPA leadership is in good hands – but we also need your hands! We are working to provide more opportunities for member engagement throughout the year. If you have an idea or are willing to pitch in, please reach out to me at hall-clifford@napaotguatemala.org. Please also keep an eye out for new requests for volunteers.  NAPA is what we make it – and I’m routinely amazed by what our membership does as professional, practicing, and applied anthropologists out in the world!

Warmly,
Rachel Hall-Clifford
NAPA President

link back to table of contents

Contributions

Editor’s Note

Author: Joshua Liggett, MS, LSSBB, CPHQ, Communications Committee Co-Chair

NAPA Notes is back with a new format and a fantastic swathe of voices from our membership and anthropological community! Thank you to all of our contributors providing perspectives impacting anthropology! Readers will notice a more streamlined format this time around and we will continue to see this newsletter evolve over the next year and a new editorial team will be ushering in a fresh vision for this periodical. For 2024, look for our next issue being released after the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting!

Reimagining Anthropological Praxis

Author: Matt Artz, MS, MBA, Responsible AI & Emerging Technology, Founder of Azimuth Labs

Expanding the Scope of Impact

The American Anthropological Association’s 2024 Annual Meeting theme, Praxis: The Application/s of Anthropology in the Present and the Future, offers an opportunity to explore how anthropological knowledge can be operationalized to address real-world challenges. The theme’s focus on praxis aligns with NAPA’s commitment to supporting anthropologists in bringing real solutions to communities, organizations, and policymakers. 

As practicing, professional, and applied anthropologists (PPA), we work at the intersection of theory and practice, using anthropological insights to inform policy, improve organizations, and empower communities across diverse sectors, including government, nonprofits, and businesses.

Expanding the Definition of Praxis

However, as we reflect on this theme, it’s worth considering how we define and discuss anthropological praxis in its fullest sense. While the conference description rightly emphasizes theoretical frameworks and academic applications, including essential critiques of colonialism, neocolonialism, and power structures, there is less explicit focus on how anthropologists apply their skills in non-academic settings to create tangible impacts.

As PPA anthropologists, we know that praxis extends beyond theoretical critique and other expressions of anthropology common to academia. Every day, our colleagues are using anthropological thinking to do amazing things such as:

• Design more useful, usable, and inclusive technologies
• Improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes
• Develop sustainable business practices
• Enhance cultural competency in government agencies
• Advocate for marginalized communities
• Reimagine education and workforce development

These applications of anthropology represent a form of praxis grounded in rigorous theory and practical action and, most importantly, create real, measurable change in people’s lives. However, despite these impactful contributions, anthropology still faces significant challenges in demonstrating its relevance and value to broader society.

Addressing the Challenges Facing Anthropology

The conference theme rightly points out some of the difficulties confronting anthropology departments and questions about our discipline’s relevance. These issues are part of a broader crisis in anthropology that Lora Koycehva and I recently discussed in our Anthropology News article, Anthropology at a Crossroads: Confronting Challenges and Reimagining the Future. In light of these challenges, we believe that showcasing its real-world applications and impacts is one of the most effective ways to demonstrate anthropology’s value. While anthropology can contribute across many sectors, emerging technologies present a particularly compelling opportunity to highlight our discipline’s potential.

Emerging tech fields like AI offer high-stakes environments where anthropological insights can make critical contributions. Governments are scrambling to enact policies in a landscape where billions in venture capital are propelling innovation at breakneck speed, driving the global AI market toward a projected $1,847.58 billion by 2030. By engaging with rapidly growing sectors like emerging tech, anthropology stands to gain not only substantial impact but also increased visibility—an area where we currently lag behind other social and human sciences. Our contributions here could significantly enhance our discipline’s perceived value and relevance.

These opportunities underscore the importance of expanding our conception of anthropological praxis beyond traditional academic boundaries. PPA anthropologists are already demonstrating how our unique perspectives can inform responsible innovation and effective governance in emerging tech—a prime example of praxis in action. However, the conference theme’s limited focus on applied work risks overlooking these vital contributions. 

In our book EmTech Anthropology: Careers at the Frontier, Lora and I explore how anthropologists are making significant contributions across emerging technology fields such as AI, robotics, and blockchain. These case studies exemplify the kind of praxis that can enhance our discipline’s adaptability and relevance and highlight the critical need to include PPA perspectives in discussions about anthropology’s future. By broadening our understanding of praxis to encompass these cutting-edge applications, we can ensure that anthropology remains at the forefront of addressing complex societal challenges.

Given these opportunities and the pressing need to demonstrate our discipline’s value, we must take concrete steps to highlight the diverse impacts of anthropological work. By showcasing the full spectrum of anthropological practice, we can address the challenges facing our field while charting a path forward for a more engaged and relevant anthropology.

Showcasing the Impact of All Anthropology

As we gather in Tampa, let’s expand our conception of praxis to fully embrace the diversity of anthropological practice. While critiquing power structures and examining our discipline’s history are vital, we must also highlight how anthropologists are actively working to create positive change across sectors, even from within capitalist structures. This means:

1. Elevating the voices and experiences of PPA anthropologists in conference sessions
2. Creating more opportunities for dialogue between academic and PPA anthropologists
3. Showcasing case studies of successful anthropological applications in non-academic settings
4. Discussing how to better prepare students for diverse career paths in anthropology
5. Exploring new and emerging areas where anthropological insights can make a difference
6. Fostering interdisciplinary collaborations to amplify anthropology’s impact

The theme’s call to “reimagine anthropology in the future and design the next steps” is an ideal opportunity to bridge divides between anthropological approaches. By embracing a holistic view of praxis that encompasses both theoretical critique and practical application, we can strengthen our discipline and increase its impact.

Preparing Anthropology for the Future

As we look to the future of anthropology, it’s crucial that we prepare our students and early-career professionals for the diverse range of opportunities available to them. This means not only providing rigorous theoretical training but also equipping them with the practical skills and experiences needed to thrive in non-academic settings.

We need to create more opportunities for students to engage in applied projects, internships, and collaborations with organizations outside of academia. By doing so, we can demonstrate the real-world value of anthropological thinking and help ensure that our discipline remains relevant and impactful in the future.

Moreover, we must continue to advocate for the importance of anthropological perspectives in addressing global challenges. Whether it’s climate change, technological disruption, or social inequality, anthropologists have unique insights to offer. By actively engaging with rapidly growing sectors, particularly in emerging technologies, we can increase our discipline’s visibility and impact—areas where we currently lag behind other social and human sciences. This engagement should extend to policymakers, business leaders, and community organizations, ensuring our perspectives are heard and incorporated into decision-making processes. 

We should also strive to make our research findings and contributions more accessible and relevant to the public, industry stakeholders, and policymakers, including at the AAA annual meeting. This could involve dedicated sessions or workshops on translating anthropological insights for non-academic audiences and inviting key stakeholders from other sectors to participate in panel discussions. These efforts will enhance our discipline’s perceived value and relevance and demonstrate anthropology’s critical role in shaping responsible innovation and addressing complex societal challenges. 

By showcasing concrete examples of anthropological praxis at our premier gathering, we can inspire more anthropologists to engage with these crucial sectors and help bridge the gap between academic and applied anthropology.

A Call to Action

So, let’s use this conference as an opportunity to celebrate anthropology’s power to create positive change, both within and beyond the academy, and to inspire the next generation of PPA anthropologists. Together, we can chart a course for a more engaged, impactful, and resilient anthropology in the 21st century.

We encourage all attendees to seek out sessions that showcase diverse applications of anthropology and share their experiences of putting theory into practice. By actively participating in these conversations, we can ensure that anthropology remains relevant, impactful, and true to its mission of understanding and improving the human condition.

Whether you’re a seasoned practitioner, an academic researcher, or a student exploring career options, your voice and experiences are crucial in shaping the future of our discipline. Let’s make the most of this gathering to forge new connections, share innovative ideas, and collectively reimagine the role of anthropology in addressing the complex challenges of our time.

Matt Artz is an anthropologist, designer, and technologist specializing in AI product development. He is the founder of Azimuth Labs, host of the Anthropology in Business and Anthro to UX podcasts, and co-editor of EmTech Anthropology and the forthcoming Anthropology and AI. His work has been featured on TED, UNESCO, South by Southwest, and Apple’s Planet of the Apps.

link back to table of contents

The Annual Careers Exposition

Author: Eshe Lewis, Ph.D., Gender Specialist, Organizational Relations Committee member

On Friday, November 22nd , NAPA will host the annual Careers Expo at the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference in Tampa, Florida. At this event, you’ll have the opportunity to meet over 30 anthropologists in NAPA’s network who currently work in a wide array of arenas such as government, the non-profit sector, and the private sector. These career guides are eager to share their experiences, career trajectories, and insight into how anthropological skills and knowledge can be applied outside of the ivory tower. From 11am to 4pm, you’ll be greeted at the door by the Expo volunteers, asked about your interests, and presented to an anthropologist with related expertise. This is a fantastic opportunity to learn more concretely about your skillset as a trained anthropologist and where those abilities can take you by tapping into others’ experiences. Past Career Expos have featured anthropologists working in conservation, different levels of government agencies, international development, museums, think tanks, and research institutes. The Expo is also an excellent place to find resources that will help you properly recognize what you can bring to your chosen field and how to effectively market your abilities. This year, we’ll have a resumé clinic where a professional anthropologist will review hard copy documents and help you highlight what you can contribute to a future workplace.

We encourage you to attend and hope to see you there!

link back to table of contents

NAPA Workshop Offerings in Tampa

NAPA is offering a series of exciting professional development workshops in Tampa. You can add any of these workshops to your meeting registration.

A NAPA Professional Development Workshop: Magic, Bones & Rituals – Marketing Anthropology in Complex Times.

Workshop leader: Tanya Rodriguez

The marketplace for jobs is complex and competitive. Anthropologists can face challenges marketing their skillset(s) to employers and/or audiences unfamiliar or misinformed about the discipline. Enduring stereotypes or tropes about anthropologists in popular culture sometimes separate us from the reality of the diverse, human- centered, problem-solving, rigorously scientific positions we hold today. This workshop will enable participants to bridge that gap.

Workshop participants will engage in a reflexive exercise to explore their personal motivation(s) for practicing anthropology and help translate that into a powerful, concise Vision Statement. Alongside the Vision Statement, they will draft an Orienting Presentation that can be used to quickly showcase the usefulness of anthropology and articulate their point of view on the discipline. Equipped with their Vision Statement and Orienting Presentation, developing anthropologists will have a basic toolkit for not only marketing anthropology, but also for building and marketing their professional brand. This is fundamental for ensuring the broad application of anthropology in the present
and the future.

A NAPA Professional Development Workshop: Skills for Understanding and Utilizing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
(DEI) in Professional and Practicing.

Workshop leaders: Bonnie Pitblado, and Suzette Chang

In this workshop, participants will be introduced to the history, theory, and practices that ground current DEI in the workplace and other settings in which professional and practicing anthropologists function. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

1. Understand the meaning of DEI
2. Understand societal challenges and facilitators to successful DEI enactment
3. Develop a DEI cultural mindset that helps to counter the challenges
4. Develop specific tools for using DEI in professional settings:
   • tools – language, history, data/statistics that support “making the pie bigger”
   • How to build sustainable trust
5. Learn when and how to use these tools
6. We want participants to learn how to have trust building conversations that transition into trust building relationships among professional and practicing anthropologists and others.

A NAPA Professional Development Workshop:  Introduction to Effective Storytelling.

Thu, 11/21: 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Storytellers: Nathaniel Tashima, Cathleen Crain, Tanya Rodriguez, and Elisha Oliver

Professional, practicing, and applied anthropologists must consistently be able to effectively translate complex methods and information into easily understandable and actionable communications for professional and lay audiences. An important attribute/skill of good anthropologists is the ability to communicate with an audience rapidly and effectively. In this three-hour, hands-on workshop we will help participants to understand and use:

• The structure of good stories
• The function of the elements of the story
• How to develop and deliver an effective story

A NAPA Professional Development Workshop: Getting in the Door – Resume Design & Job Materials that Work

Workshop leader: Erica Hawvermale

In this three-hour, interactive session, participants will be taught about how employers review materials from job seekers. Getting through the initial screening process is often difficult for anthropologists as they frequently do not check the usual boxes. This workshop will provide a short course on employer culture and processes that will help anthropologists to get past that initial hurdle and put them into engagements that can result in their special skills and tools being recognized as valuable. As part of the workshop, a team of anthropologists who are also employers will work individually with participants to review and strengthen their resumes. Participants will learn how to develop materials that speak the language of the employer and can move them from the pile to being prospects! Participants will learn about and do:

• Career mapping
• Ad reading and parsing
• T letter development
• Resume design and development.

link back to table of contents

NAPA Has Standards!

Author: Cathleen Crain, MA, Past NAPA President

Professional, practicing, and applied anthropologists (PPA) are the rising majority of the anthropological work continuum in the United States; that disciplinary dominance will only continue in the future. Few schools are prepared to fully train anthropologists for the kinds of work that PPA anthropologists undertake. To date, no one has developed grounded guidance for how good and ethical PPA anthropologists will do in their work. NAPA has developed disciplinary standards to guide current and future PPA anthropologists. Through a series of reviews with PPA anthropologists, students, and academics, the standards were reviewed and refined and are now ready for presentation and use. On Saturday November 23rd at the AAA meeting in Tampa, the NAPA Professional Development committee will present the standards in an executive roundtable. Please join us! The standards will also be published on NAPA’s website and are free to use and disseminate.

link back to table of contents

Call for Volunteers

NAPA Notes Co-Editor

Have you enjoyed reading this issue of NAPA Notes?
NAPA is expanding it’s editorial team and we would love to include you, your ideas, and your enthusiasm in upcoming issues. Visit our contact portal and inquire today!

link back to table of contents

NAPA Communications – Social Media Mavens

Want to be at the center of the NAPA action? Want to know what we’re doing first and share that with the field? Become part of NAPA’s volunteer information communication hub and promote real world job opportunities and content across NAPA’s social media! Visit our contact portal and inquire today!

link back to table of contents

General Call for Volunteers and Publications

Interested in joining our team, but not sure which committee is right for you? Checkout our general volunteer application and one of our coordinators will connect you with the ones that best align with your interests and skill sets!

If you’d like to publish something with NAPA either in NAPA Notes, AnthroNews, or on our website or social media, visit our submission page and let us know.

link back to table of contents