Keisha-Khan Perry, assistant professor
of anthropology and African studies at Brown University was
interviewed
on NPR for a piece on the fight for social change across
the African Diaspora. The piece explores parallels between African
activism movements and the US Civil Rights Movement.
Tom Turrentine, a research anthropologist
at UC Davis Institute of Transportation is getting media attention
for his research on new plug-in hybrid sedans. The new hybrids
under testing can run on both oil and gas fuel and are less
expensive to run than the conventional hybrid. Read the
AScribe news article.
Penny Verin-Shapiro of Fresno State University
was profiled in a news story by the Fresno
Bee for her research on the Wiccans of Central Valley, California.
Sabina Maglioco of California State University, Northridge,
also offered insight on the worldwide growth of paganism in
the article.
Cathleen Willging and Elizabeth Lilliott
of the PIRE Behavioral Health Research Center of the Southwest
and Gilbert Quintero of the University of Montana were cited
in a PR
Newswire release for their research on cultural stereotypes
and Latino youth substance abuse. The PIRE study shows that
four cultural stereotypes-family, religion and spirituality,
gender roles and socioeconomic factors impede Latino youths
from seeking treatment for drug and alcohol addictions.
David Harrison,
professor at Swarthmore College and Director of Research at
the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, appeared
on talk shows and newspaper headlines all over the world—including
the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, the
Australian, “Good Morning America” and “The
Colbert Report.” Harrison answered questions about his
recent book, “When Languages Die,” which points
to five “hotspots,” or geographic regions, where
native languages are gravely endangered. The book grew out of
Harrison’s work for the National Geographic Society’s
Enduring Voices Project.
LA
Times
Washington
Post
The
Colbert Report
The
Australian
Good
Morning America
Eugenie S. Scott,
executive director of the National Center for Science Education,
was quoted in a New York Times article about a controversy over
a creationist T.V. documentary hosted by Ben Stein, called “Expelled:
No Intelligence Allowed.” According to the article,
Scott, Richard Dawkins, and others were interviewed for the
film, but not warned about the creationist bias of its content,
or even the real title of the film.
Meredith F. Small,
an anthropologist at Cornell University wrote an
article for LiveScience.com discussing a recent medical
study on sleep. Small quotes James McKenna,
an anthropologist at Notre Dame, on his cross-cultural research
on sleep, as a challenge to research that suggests seven hours
of uninterrupted sleep per night is the healthiest sleep pattern.
Janine R. Wedel,
professor of public policy at George Mason University and a
fellow at New American Foundation, called attention to the U.S.
government’s growing use of private military contractors
in a recent Op-Ed
published in the Boston Globe. Wedel argues that the Blackwater
scandal is just one part of a larger systemic problem that troubles
U.S. military, intelligence and homeland security efforts.
"Michael Wesch,
an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State
University who studies the impact of new media on human interaction,
was quoted in a New
York Times article on guerilla-style photographers hired
to capture the surprise moment of marriage proposals. Wesch
commented on the tensions of seeking fame and remaining authentic
as it relates to archiving our lives on the Internet.
Members in the News, September
2007
Alex W. Barker,
Director of the Museum of Art & Archaeology of the University
of Missouri, was quoted on the significance of the settlement
reached between Yale University and the government of Peru regarding
collections excavated by Hiram Bingham from Machu Picchu in
“Yale
and Peru Reach Pact on Artifacts,” published in the
September 17, 2007 issue of Inside Higher Ed.
Kate Browne of
Colorado State University, aired the Post-Katrina documentary,
“Still Waiting,” on PBS stations in late August
to coincide with the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
The one-hour documentary, which Browne produced in collaboration
with two-time Emmy award winning filmmaker Ginny Martin, follows
three women in a family of 150 over the course of 18 months—from
their evacuation to Dallas, TX to their heartbreaking return
to the New Orleans area. Many markets are broadcasting the film
in September or October 2007. For a list of when and where the
film is being broadcast, to view a low-resolution streaming
video, or to purchase the film for home or educational use,
please visit: http://www.stillwaiting.colostate.edu/.
Elizabeth Greenspan,
an anthropologist at Harvard University, and Silvia
Grider, a retired professor of anthropology at Texas
A&M, were quoted in a Denver Post article titled, “A
Tribute Etched in Stone.” The article addressed the
trend of fast-paced construction of memorial and shrines in
face of tragic events. Greenspan is quoted stating, “The
challenge is often bringing individual memories into some institutionalized
story that every one agrees upon. That's where conflict arises."
Thomas Headland,
an anthropologist at the Summer Institute of Linguistics and
adjunct professor at University of North Dakota, was featured
in a front page article in the Sunday Manila Times on September
2 (pp. A1 and A2) on his research among Philippine post-foraging
societies. That article is titled "Negrito (Agta) languages'
descent into extinction." Headland has identified over
30 endangered Philippine languages—mostly those of the
Agta (or Aeta or Negrito). Today, the Negrito peoples number
a mere 0.05% of the nation’s peoples.
John Tofik Karam,
assistant professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at
DePaul University in Chicago, was interviewed by the Instituto
de Cultura Árabe (Icárabe)—a grassroots
organization promoting Arab culture and history, based out of
São Paulo, Brazil. Karam’s interview and two other
reports about him were posted on the Institute’s website,
http://www.icarabe.org.
Karam spoke of his recent book, Another Arabesque: Syrian-Lebanese
Ethnicity in Neoliberal Brazil, his own family history in Lebanon,
the U.S., and Brazil, as well as post-9/11 racial politics in
the Americas.
Heather Walsh-Haney
of Florida Gulf Coast University was spotlighted
for working to establish an outdoor research facility or
“body farm” in Southwest Florida where anthropologists
and criminologists could practice forensic science on donated
cadavers. The article indicates that the proposed body farm
would be closely modeled after the University of Tennessee's
Forensic Anthropology Center.
Richard Wilk,
professor of gender studies and anthropology at Indian University
was featured as an expert on consumption for a Sept. 16 article
in TheStar.com titled, “In
an iPod world, the future is always now.” Wilk is
currently working on a book on the history of men and consumption.
Nina Jablonski,
department head and professor of anthropology at Penn State
University and author of “SKIN: A Natural History,”
was interviewed for a NPR
Morning Edition piece on August 28, 2007. The arts &
culture piece addressed a recent debate on the portrayal of
King Tut’s race in the museum exhibit, “Tutankhamen
and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs,” currently stationed
at the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia.
Jan Timbrook
of the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History was featured
in an article by the Santa Barbara Inquirer on her recent book,
“Chumash
Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern
Califronia.” The book which Timbrook has described
as “my life’s work,” offers a comprehensive
guide to the over 150 plant species utilized and mythologized
by the Chumash People.
Richard Leakey
of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Zelalem
Assefa of George Washington University were quoted
in a Washington
Post article on the controversial transportation of Lucy,
the famous 3.2 million year old bone-set discovered in Ethiopia
by paleontologists Donald Johanson of Arizona State University
and Tom Gray in 1974. Leakey
and Assefa spoke out against the transportation of Lucy to the
US for an eight-month museum tour. In an Associated Press
article, Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s
Human Origins program, also criticized
the Houston Museum for risking the safety of the irreplaceable
specimen.
David Lancy,
an anthropologist at Utah State University, was recently hosted
on “The
Brian Lehmer Show” on WNYC radio. The topic of the
show was inspired by a July 15 article in The
Boston Globe which critiqued the notion that the “mom-on-all-fours”
approach to parenting common among upper and middle class American
families is the best and only way to raise a child. The Boston
Globe piece cites Lancy’s cross-cultural research on mother-child
play which was published in American
Anthropologist in June 2007.
Edgardos Krebs,
an anthropologist living in Washington, published an eloquent
appreciation of Nazario Turpo in the Washington Post. Turpo
was a Peruvian paqo and activist who also worked as a consultant
with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American
Indian. He recently died in a bus
accident in the Andes.
Paul Draper,
an anthropologist, actor and magician who was last seen on the
History Channel special "Houdini: Unlocking the Mystery
" appeared on August 21 and August 22 on the A&E series
MINDFREAK with Chris Angel. In the episode titled, “Burning
Man,” Draper discussed Southwestern Native American rites
of passage.
http://www.aetv.com/criss_angel/index.jsp
Susan Anton,
associate professor of anthropology at New York University,
received widespread national media attention in August for her
co-authorship of a study on two Kenyan fossils, a Homo erectus
skull and Homo habilis jawbone. The recent discovery, led by
Meave Leakey of the famous paleontologist family, provides evidence
that the two species of early human ancestors may have co-existed
for at least half a million years, casting serious doubt on
the theory of linear evolution. Anton is quoted in several articles
discussing the surprisingly small skull of the Homo erectus
fossil which may indicate sexual dimorphism in the Homo erectus
species and multiple mates for the Homo erectus male.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/09/science/
09fossil.html?ref=world
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-earlyman_webaug09,1,2706577.story
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20178936/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/
story.php?storyId=12630660&ft=1&f=17
John Brett of
the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center,
Carole Counihan of Millersville University,
Miriam Chaiken of Indiana University,
Crystal Patil of the University of South Florida and
James Watson of Harvard University were cited
in the article “How
the World Eats” by Bryan Walsh in the June 11 issue
of Time Magazine. The article discussed changes in eating patterns
around the world resulting from industrialization, globalization
and the women’s movement. The above-cited members were
quoted discussing Coca-Cola availability in African villages,
meat consumption in China, family-style dining in Italy and
urbanization-related changes in Latin America. “How the
World Eats” was featured as one article in a collection
of articles relating to diet and health topics in the June 11
issue.
Jeffrey H. Cohen, professor of anthropology
at Ohio State University, was featured in the article “Hopping
Good” on the culture page in the June 2007 issue of
National Geographic. The article, based on his research in Oaxaca
Mexico, discusses the importance of chapuline (grasshoppers)
in the rural Oaxacan diet. .
Helen Fisher,
an evolutionary anthropologist and human behavior researcher
at Rutgers University, was referenced as an expert on the science
of love in two LA Times articles in July and August titled “This
is your brain on love” and “Are anti-depressants
taking the edge off love?” The latter article cites Fisher’s
2006 book, “Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience”
in which she published fMRI brain scans of men and women in
the early phases of falling in love. Fisher concluded that the
brain chemistry of an infatuated lover is similar to the brain
chemistry of someone addicted to drugs. Her 2006 research previously
gained national attention in “Love—The
Chemical Reaction” featured as the cover story in
the February 2006 edition of National Geographic Magazine.
Yolanda T. Moses,
vice provost for diversity and conflict resolution professor
of anthropology at University of California–Riverside
and the Understanding Race and Human Variation advisory board
chair, was quoted in The Politico on August 13, 2007.
The article titled “Calling
Color Into Question” addressed the issue of race in
the campaign of 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama. Moses
was quoted stating, “Race is not about biology. Race is
about the construction of social hierarchy.”
Shannon May,
PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, was spotlighted in “China’s
Green Revolution” by McKenzie Funk, an article featured
in the July 2007 issue of Popular Science magazine. May’s
dissertation research communicated via interviews from the field
served as the basis for Funk’s analysis of the sustainable
development project in Huangbaiyu, Liaoning, China, an experimental
“green city” designed by Chinese architects and
engineers to save the growing superpower from the environmental
threats of rapid-paced urbanization.
Barbara
King, a professor of anthropology at the College of
William and Mary, has received widespread media coverage of
her new book, “Evolving God: A Provocative View on the
Origins of Religion,” which explores the prehistory of
religion and was released in January 2007. Several news and
literary organizations have given “Evolving God”
favorable reviews, including the Chronicle of Higher Education,
where King's book was noted in the April 20, 2007, essay “The
DNA of religious faith.” “King's touchstone is 'belongingness,'
the idea that 'hominids turned to the sacred realm because they
evolved to relate in deeply emotional ways with their social
partners, ... and because the human brain evolved to allow an
extension of this belongingness beyond the hear and now,”
wrote the CHE essayist. Other reviews and discussions of the
book have included:
-“Matters
of faith,”,” Boston Globe, April 8,
2007
-“A
conversation with Barbara J. King,”,
Critical Mass (National Book Critics Circle Board of
Directors' blog), April 2, 2007
-“Did
religion evolve?,” On Faith (a joint online
religion feature of Newsweek and the Washington Post), March
30, 2007
-“We
feel; therefore, we believe,” Dallas Morning
News, Feb. 18, 2007
-“God and gorillas,” Salon.com, Jan. 31, 2007
Monica
Schoch-Spana, chairwoman of the Working Group on Community
Engagement in Health Emergency Planning for the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Biosecurity, appeared
as a guest and a source in several news outlets' coverage of
a recently released report that recommends that federal authorities
make a sustained investment in local health emergency preparedness
systems that collaborate with civic groups and private citizens.
Schoch-Spana was interviewed on the public radio program
“Homeland
Security: Inside and Out,” which aired April
17, 2007, on KAMU, Texas A&M University's campus radio station,
and April 18, 2007, on WAMU radio in Washington, D.C. She was
also quoted in an April 13, 2007, article in Congressional Quarterly's
Homeland Security publication (“Citizen groups could be
tapped as major force to mitigate death, destruction”).
“Officials need to work with citizens and civic groups
before disaster strikes to promote all the ways the public can
contribute, including taking part in policy decisions, building
volunteer networks, getting support for tax or bond measures
that limit vulnerability and improve health and safety agencies,
and yes, having family emergency plans, too,” Schoch-Spana
was quoted as saying. Schoch-Spana was also quoted April 4,
1007, in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (“Allegheny County's
emergency efforts national model of preparedness”). “Many
years post-9/11, there's a call for enhanced citizen preparedness,
and national polls continue to say Americans aren't prepared,”
she was quoted as saying.
Eben
Kirksey, an anthropologist investigating the 2002 shooting
deaths of two Americans and one Indonesian in Papua Province,
was named in an April 8, 2007, article in the International
Herald Tribune. “New
report sheds light on 2002 Papua shooting”
noted Kirksey as a co-author of a new study that analyzed ballistics
evidence in the shootings. The analysis found that 13 different
guns were used and more than 200 shots were fired from different
angles; this analysis was presented at the trial of a man who
confessed to the shootings. “We are the first to publicly
identify a smoking gun. In fact, we have unearthed evidence
of 10 smoking guns. This means that there was another group
of shooters, wielding enormous firepower,” Kirksey was
quoted as saying.
A
book by Richard Handler, professor and associate
dean of anthropology at the University of Virginia, and Eric
Gable, associate professor of anthropology at the University
of Mary Washington, was cited in an April 6, 2007, article in
the New York Times. “An
upgrade for ye olde history park” reviewed
the living history exhibition at Colonial Williamsburg. Handler
and Gable's 1997 book, “The New History in an Old Museum:
Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg,” was discussed
in relation to how changing perspectives on history during the
1970s have influenced the image and symbolic character the historical
village seeks to project.
Susan
Brownell, an anthropologist at the University of Missouri
at St. Louis and an expert on China sports, was quoted in an
Associated Press story that ran March 24, 2007, in the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer. “Despite
fast start, problems plague Beijing” examined
preparations for the 2008 Olympics, including questions about
the Beijing Organizing Committee's shunning of foreign experts.
Brownell provided cultural context for the committee's actions.
“Letting Westerners organize their Olympic sports would
have a bad resonance. The Olympic Games should be a stepping
stone to an increasing Chinese presence in the Western-dominated
institutions and cliques that underpin the world of international
sports. If you give Westerners too much control, it just reinforces
the Western-dominated status quo,” Brownell was quoted
as saying.
An
obituary remembering the life of William Sturtevant,
curator emeritus of North American ethnology at the Smithsonian
Institution's National Museum of Natural History, ran March
20, 2007, in the Los Angeles Times. The obituary
noted Sturtevant's half-century career at the Smithsonian, his
encyclopedic knowledge of the material culture of Native Americans,
and his pioneering work in ethnohistory and ethnoscience. The
Times adapted the obituary from an earlier one that ran in the
Washington Post.
Robert
Hayden, a social anthropologist at the University of
Pittsburgh, was named in a March 15, 2005, piece in The
Economist. “Really loving your neighbor”
focused on efforts to shift the conventional wisdom of conflict
studies and race relationship from understanding xenophobia
to promoting allophilia (the liking of other groups) as a policy
goal. Hayden was noted for coining the terms “antagonistic
tolerance” to describe how sacred sites were shared by
Christians and Muslims in the Ottoman world and by Hindus and
Muslims in British India. “His point? The fact that groups
accept a regime or 'truce' imposed by an imperial power does
not mean they will refrain from competing once they get a chance,”
wrote the piece's author.
Laura
McNamara, an anthropologist with the U.S. Department
of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories, and Alan Goodman,
a professor of anthropology at Hampshire College and president
of AAA, were quoted in a March 13, 2007, story in the online
Daily News section of the Chronicle of Higher Education. ““Anthropologists
discuss where to draw ethical lines in dealing with national-security
agencies” covered a panel at Brown University
involving several AAA members discussing how and where anthropology
should draw ethical lines in working with national security
agencies. The members were from AAA's Ad Hoc Commission on the
Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence
Communities. The article noted a recent essay by McNamara, paraphrasing
her points as arguing that “too many conversations about
anthropologists and the military tend to 'recycle the same issues'
about secrecy and informed consent. Anthropologists who work
with military and security issues today...often face different,
more subtle ethical challenges than did Vietnam-era social scientists.”
Goodman explained the commission's work was part of a larger
discussion about the rise of applied anthropology, in which
anthropologists work for corporations and other agencies. He
said the association needs to think about the degree to which
anthropologists are working for corporations who want some control
over the results of their research. “And that's related
to what this committee will discuss. Is working with intelligence
agencies really just a continuation of the same types of things
that one might be doing for a corporation, or is there really
something special about working in intelligence that makes it
entirely different?,” Goodman was quoted as saying.
Nina
Jablonski, a professor of anthropology and department
head at Pennsylvania State University, was interviewed about
her new book, “Skin: A Natural History,” on National
Public Radio's March 3, 2007, Weekend Edition program. A clip
of the interview is available on the NPR Web site. Additionally,
Jablonski was a guest on the Feb. 28, 2007, Comedy Central program
The Colbert Report, where she talked about her book and how
skin color evolved as an adaptation to environment and different
climates.
A
column by Hugh Gusterson, a professor of cultural
studies at George Mason University, was published Feb. 21, 2007,
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a magazine focusing
on global security and analysis. “A parent's quandary”
relayed a first-person account of Gusterson's participation,
with his son, in a protest against the Iraq war. “While
the Pentagon gets $450 billion a year...parents at my son's
school sell Christmas tress in the cold rain, organize auctions
and fundraising dances after they come home from work, and beg
local businesses to donate to the school, arduously raising
money dollar by dollar for books and teachers' aides. This is
why, far from being ashamed, I felt that I was honoring my son
by taking him to the protest. And honoring Martin Luther King.
He said, 'A society that spends more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death,'
” Gusterson wrote.
A
commentary by Roberto Gonzalez, an associate
professor of anthropology at San Jose State University, was
published Feb. 2, 2007, in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
“We must fight the militarization of anthropology”
discussed the issues surrounding military and intelligence interest
in and use of academic knowledge, particularly as an element
in the “war on terror.” “Recent events have
dramatically demonstrated that anthropological and other scholarly
information is a potentially valuable intelligence tool. But
history tells us that such information can easily be misused
when put into the wrong hands. That is why we, as scholars,
must make a continuing effort to speak out against the misappropriation
of our work,” Gonzalez wrote.
Research
by Glenn Davis Stone, a professor of anthropology
at Washington University in St. Louis, was covered in a Jan.
31, 2007, column on Salon.com. “Ganesh and Brahma bow
to a new god” discussed the use of hybrid cotton seed
varieties by farmers in India and genetically modified crops.
The column noted Stone's paper, “Agricultural deskilling
and the spread of genetically modified cotton in Warangal,”
which was published in the February issue of Current Anthropology.
“Stone obliterates the biotechnology industry thesis that
small farmers are switching because the new seeds are demonstrably
superior to the old ones — in the specific case of the
Warangal district...Stone's research has poked holes in what
proponents of GM technology want us to believe[; however,] that
does not mean Stone believes there is no place for GM technology
in the developing world,” wrote the columnist.
Richard
Wilk, a professor of anthropology at Indiana University,
was quoted in a series of stories in the San Francisco Chronicle
in January 2007. “Spin the (water) bottle” ran Jan.
17 and investigated the $11 billion-a-year U.S. bottled water
market. “This is an industry that takes a free liquid
that falls from the sky and sells it for as much as four times
what we pay for gas. There's almost nowhere in America where
the drinking water isn't adequate. Municipalities spend billions
of dollars bringing clean, cheap water to people's homes. But
many of us would still rather buy it in a store,” Wilk
was quoted as saying. On Jan. 19, the story “How water
bottlers tap into all sorts of sources” examined the sources
of bottled waters, which in many cases is not mountain springs
but the same pipes from which tap water originates. Meanwhile,
the story compared the price per gallon of bottled water ($7.50
to $11) vs. the price per gallon of gas ($2 to $3). “It's
ridiculous. Why do people spend so much to drink water from
glaciers or from Iceland? What's the difference?,” Wilk
was quoted as saying.
A
commentary by William Peace, author of “Leslie
A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology,” was
published Jan. 18, 2007, online in CounterPunch, a biweekly
newsletter created by journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey
St. Clair. “Protest from a bad cripple: The Ashley treatment
and the making of a pillow angel” discusses 9-year-old
Ashley, a mentally and physically disabled girl subjected to
surgery and hormone treatments to prevent growth, and the lack
of progress made in social perceptions of disability and disability
rights. “I am less concerned with medicine as science
but rather with the social decision that went into the application
of the Ashley Treatment. The problem Ashley's parents encounter
is not within the walls of the hospital where such extreme measures
were taken but in the social construction of disability in the
eyes of American society,” Peace wrote.
Jane
Adams, an anthropology professor with Southern Illinois
University, was mentioned in a column Jan. 14, 2007, in the
Los Angeles Times. “Definitions of whiteness amid the
Delta blues” contemplated the concept of “whiteness”
and noted Adams' research on the topic in the Mississippi Delta.
“...to Adams and Gorton,” the columnist wrote, “the
Delta is also a regional petri dish that can be analyzed to
better understand the construction of white identity in the
United States. What I learned is that even in the one place
where you'd expect the issue of black and white to be, well,
black and white, it's a whole lot more complicated, and that
it's a mistake, as Angelenos well know, to think that racial
identities always obliterate ethnic and class distinctions.”
The
International Herald Tribune published a commentary by Diane
King, a cultural anthropologist who studies Kurdistan,
is a fellow at Brown University and a researcher at Washington
State University. “A 16-year cycle of treachery”
reviewed the history of U.S.-Kurd alliances from 1975 through
current Kurdish-American cooperation in Iraq. “Iraqi society
has as its sociopolitical bedrock a patron-client system. A
rich patron provides for, protects and lends identity to clients,
who pledge loyalty in exchange. By participating vigorously
in the American project in Iraq, many Kurds may have initially
thought they were hitching their wagon to a star patron,”
King wrote. Meanwhile, their relationship with the United States
has not gone unnoticed by other Iraq ethnic groups, and King
warned retribution will follow. In the past, when the U.S. has
withdrawn support or failed to follow through with assistance,
Kurds have suffered. “...America must not repeat these
mistakes. It must recognize the responsibility it has taken
in depending so heavily on the people of Iraqi Kurdistan for
its mission in Iraq, and consider what will happen to them when
it significantly scales back its military presence,” King
concluded.
A
letter to the editor by Dan Segal, an anthropology
professor at Pitzer College, was printed in the Jan. 8, 2007,
issue of the New York Times. In “Climate change: No time
to debate,” Segal commented on an article covering the
global warming debate that claimed to identify an intermediate
position between the Bush administration and Al Gore's documentary,
“An Inconvenient Truth.” “The notion that
the truth is midway between two poles of debate is a longstanding
American myth, but it does not work in this case. While neither
“An Inconvenient Truth” nor the so-called middle
stance is the final word on climate change, both are responsible
efforts to get at the truth,” Segal wrote.
An
op-ed by David Vine, a public anthropologist
in residence at American University, was published Jan. 2, 2007,
in the Washington Post. “Island of injustice” discussed
the forced expulsions of the native population of the Chagos
Archipelago by the British and U.S. governments nearly 40 years
ago to make way for a U.S. military base. That base, according
to Vine, has recently been used as a key launching pad for wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan. The commentary also reported on the
status of recent lawsuits brought against the U.S. and British
governments; the British High Court has ruled the islanders'
expulsion illegal, opening the door to resettlement in the Chagos.
Meanwhile, lawsuits in the United States have been dismissed.
“Forty years almost to the day after the signing of the
initial Diego Garcia agreement, there should be no difficulty
in assessing the responsibility of the United States: The U.S.
government developed the idea for a base on Diego Garcia, demanded
the removal of the islanders, paid the British for the deportations
and gave the orders to complete the removals,” Vine wrote.
An opinion piece by William
Beeman, a professor of anthropology at the University
of Minnesota, was published Dec. 22, 2006, by New America Media,
a news service and collaboration of ethnic news organizations
founded by Pacific News Service in California. “Democracy
gets traction in Iran” analyzed recent elections and
political trends in Iran, including increased participation
and activism by Iranian youth and women. “If left to its
own devices without foreign interference, Iran undoubtedly [would]
be more democratic, more liberal, more secular and more positively
disposed toward the West than ever before in the Islamic Republic,”
Beeman wrote.
Theodore Schurr,
North American director for the National Geographic Society's
Genographic Project and an assistant professor of anthropology
at the University of Pennsylvania, was mentioned in a Dec. 10,
2006, article in the New York Times. “DNA gatherers hit
snag: Tribes don't trust them” covered the Genographic
Project's efforts to collect 100,000 indigenous DNA samples
and criticism that scientists seeking the DNA are underselling
the risks to donors, such as the impact on long-held beliefs
and cultural preservation. Schurr, however, is working with
a review board in Alaska, sponsored by the federal Indian Health
Service, to create a consent form for DNA donors that details
the potential risks, including database links between DNA and
tribal information. Meanwhile, early results in Schurr's work
have surprised some Alaskans who have already volunteered their
DNA, including one woman whose DNA linked her to a different
tribe than expected, sparking her interest in further research.
Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov,
an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, was noted
in an Oct. 30, 2006, article in The Times (U.K.) newspaper.
“But comrade Stalin, I thought you'd like an Indian bonnet”
covered the opening of a Moscow exhibit “Gifts to Soviet
Leaders,” which Ssorin-Chaikov helped to compile. The
exhibit featured objects presented to Soviet leaders by peasants,
workers, heads of state and others. “In many ways, the
scale of gift-giving is similar to that for the British monarchy.
Stalin and Brezhnev received the most, but we were surprised
to find so many for Krushchev,” Ssorin-Chaikov was quoted
as saying.
A guest column by Josiah
Heyman, an anthropology professor at the University
of Texas at El Paso, was published in the El Paso Times Sept.
19, 2006. “Immigration debate has moral heart” discussed
immigration in the United States and called for citizens and
immigrants to work together in the society they have mutually
created, where relationships are not only expressed person to
person but through laws. “A comprehensive immigration
reform is our collective national expression of bonds between
host society and new immigrants, the sum of all our individual
encounters. A legalization program for settled undocumented
immigrants recognizes the ties and loyalties they have developed
in America. A program supporting communities adjusting to new
immigrant populations – helping with hospitals, schools,
police and fire departments – acknowledges their pioneering
role in the renewal of America,” wrote Heyman.
Mary Pohl, an
Olmec expert at Florida State University, was featured on National
Public Radio's Morning Edition Sept. 15, 2006. “Earliest
New World writing discovered” discussed archaeological
investigations involving hieroglyph-bearing stone blocks found
in Veracruz, Mexico, which appear to be the oldest writing ever
found in the Americas. “We see that the writing is very
closely connected with ritual and the early religious beliefs,
because they are taking the ritual carvings and putting them
into glyphs and making writing out of them — and all of
this is occurring in the context of the emergence of early kings
and the development of a centralized power and stratified society,”
Pohl was quoted as saying.
Montgomery McFate,
an anthropologist and Pentagon consultant, was among those profiled
in the Dec. 18, 2006, article in the New Yorker “Knowing
the enemy: Can social scientists redefine the 'war on terror'?”
The article discussed the relationship between the government
and anthropology, as well as McFate's work with the U.S. Department
of Defense, including Iraq and her Pentagon project Cultural
Operations Research Human Terrain. CORHT involves social scientist
teams who will serve as cultural advisers on tours in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Pilot teams are slated to leave next spring. The
article's author wrote that McFate told him she is making it
her “ 'evangelical mission' to get the Department of Defense
to understand the importance of 'cultural knowledge'.”
An essay by Lawrence Breitborde,
a dean and professor of anthropology at Knox College in Galesburg,
Ill., appeared Dec. 5, 2006, in the online magazine Inside Higher
Ed. The essay, “Don't
tell me what I said. I know what I meant,” is an adaptation
of a talk Breitborde gave during AAA's 2006 Annual Meeting.
It discussed his experiences as a dean with higher education
management and how principles of sociocultural anthropology
play a role in those experiences.
Catherine Besteman,
an anthropology professor and director of African studies at
Colby College in Waterville, Maine, was noted in a Dec. 11,
2006, New Yorker article, “New in town: The Somalis of
Lewiston.” The article discussed the lives and experiences
of Somali refugees who have settled in Lewiston, Maine, and
recounts Besteman's participation in a college panel about “Recent
Shifts in Lewiston's Refugee Population.” Besteman and
her husband had lived in a Somali Bantu village, Banta, in the
1980s. She later wrote a book titled “Unraveling Somalia:
Race, Violence and the Legacy of Slavery.” After the Somali
civil war, Besteman had tried to find some of the families she
knew in the Banta area, but her efforts were unsuccessful. When
she arrived at the panel to speak, other panelists recognized
her. Three of her fellow panelists turned out to be men she
had known as children in Banta. Later, Besteman and her husband
met with the Lewiston Bantus community to share photos from
Banta. “Most of those who made it over here were babies
then. They never knew their parents. People in the audience
were seeing their moms and dads for the first time. It was very,
very moving,” Besteman was quoted as saying.
Several members were included
in a Nov. 22, 2006, article in the online magazine Inside Higher
Ed. “Torture
and social scientists” discussed resolutions
regarding Iraq and torture that were voted on during AAA's 2006
Annual Meeting, as well as the possible use of anthropological
research in creating tactics used at Abu Ghraib prison. Alan
Goodman, AAA president and a professor of anthropology
at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, commented on the message
that the vote on the resolutions sent. “I think this shows
how outraged members of the association are. Anthropological
knowledge has been implicated in nefarious forms of torture.
It's vital to show that we are opposed,” Goodman was quoted
as saying. Gerald Sider, an emeritus anthropology
professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center
and the College of Staten Island, also commented on the efforts
behind the resolutions. “We're trying to do something
against mealy-mouthed policies that don't hold responsible those
scum with Ph.D.s who stand beside torturers,” Sider was
quoted as saying. Roberto Gonzalez, associate
professor of anthropology at San Jose State University, and
Kanhong Lin, a graduate student in American
University's anthropology department, were noted as sponsors
of the resolutions. Gonzalez and Lin expressed how they experienced
increasing anger and disgust with reports of anthropology being
used to shift the focus of interrogation techniques from physical
to culturally based tactics. “This is a gross misuse of
social science knowledge,” Gonzalez was quoted as saying.
Lin also noted anthropologists' obligation to speak out because
of anthropology's past ties with U.S. and British colonial governments.
“We've had a closely intertwined relationship with the
CIA in the past,” Lin was quoted as saying. Felix
Moos, an anthropologist with the University of Kansas,
was noted for urging scholars to work with the federal government
and share expertise; he stressed he does not approve of torture
but was unsure about the effectiveness of anthropologists' position.
“The anthropological community is one that I have felt
is somewhat resistant to see the real conditions in which the
world unfortunately finds itself. The United States finds itself
up against serious challenges today and we should do our utmost
to reasonably approach those many challenges rather than rely
on the rhetoric of resolutions that in practical terms simply
stir up counterproductive reactions,” Moos was quoted
as saying.
Mark Lewine,
an anthropology professor at Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland,
Ohio, was named as a recipient of a U.S. Professors of the Year
award in a Nov. 15, 2006, USA Today article. The awards are
sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.
“Professors
honored for creativity” explained the awards and introduced
the 2006 roster of recipients. Judges select national winners
in four categories, and each winner receives $5,000. The categories
are baccalaureate colleges, community colleges, doctoral and
research universities, and master's colleges and universities.
Lewine won in the community college category “for his
dedication to promoting community college education.”
He said the award was a high point in his teaching career. Lewine
also described what he likes about the community college environment.
“A community college to me is a very magical place for
anyone interested in interacting with a highly diverse group
of people,” he was quoted as saying.
Kerry Fosher,
a security anthropologist, a research assistant professor at
Dartmouth Medical School and an associate with Syracuse University's
Institute for National Security and Counter-Terrorism, was quoted
in two recent articles in Government Executive Magazine. “Disaster
drills” (Nov. 1, 2006) explored how effective emergency
and preparedness exercises are, as well as the flaws relating
to preparedness tests. Fosher was quoted in a section discussing
the follow-up procedures government agencies are to carry out
after tests, including completion of an after-action report,
which summarizes lessons learned in a drill and corrective actions.
The reports, the reporter wrote, are “at last partially
made public, so it's perhaps understandable that they omit some
weaknesses identified in the exercise.” Fosher's quote
immediately followed. “In good organizations, those things
get taken care of. In bad organizations, those things get swept
under the rug,” Fosher was quoted as saying. The other
article, “One-hit
wonders” (Oct. 1, 2006), critiques Department of Homeland
Security and other agency habits of “allowing single events
and their public attention to shape security policies”
and allocating funding for emergency preparedness in an after-the-fact
fashion. Fosher, a member of the AAA Ad Hoc Commission on the
Engagegment of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence
Communities, was quoted about how the overall disaster preparedness
system can suffer when solutions are focused on specific threats
rather than all potential disasters. “The thing that's
particularly frustrating is that many of us work very hard to
develop an all-hazards approach to planning. We want to be efficient
with tax dollars and effective in terms of plan sustainability.
Then the press and Congress get enamored of a particular problem
and all of the sudden you have mandates that locals need to
generate smallpox or pandemic flu plans after you promised them
that you will not make them plan for the disease of the week.
Funds for planning are in very short supply and the all-hazards
model tends to be a cost-saver in the long run,” Fosher
was quoted as saying.
William Beeman,
now with the University of Minnesota anthropology department,
was quoted in an Oct. 29, 2006, story in U.S. News and World
Report. “Hey,
let's play ball: The insular world of intelligence reaches out
for a few new ideas” covered efforts of U.S. intelligence
agencies to engage experts outside of the intelligence community
to help understand topics such as why people join terrorist
and other groups, why extremism is spreading worldwide, and
how to stop it. Included was a discussion of the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence's Summer Hard Problems workshop,
or SHARP, which brought together specialists from the social
sciences, including anthropology, to help inform analysts from
the Central Intelligence Agency and several other intelligence
agencies. The article also discussed concerns within anthropology
over intelligence work and mentioned AAA's actions regarding
a CIA ad and recent launch of a commission to investigate anthropology
and U.S. Intelligence. Beeman, who has participated in seminars
under every administration since Carter's, talked about the
desire to lend expertise to an intelligence community asking
for help. He stressed the importance of lending expertise in
light of Washington's recent record of intelligence failures.
“I am very disposed to doing anything I can to bring some
enlightenment to these people,” Beeman was quoted as saying.
Several members were quoted in
a Sept. 5, 2006, article in PC magazine. “How
to build a better product — study people” explored
ethnographic research and development and how they help create
new products. Intel and Microsoft, both of whom employ anthropologists
(including many AAA members), were used as examples in the piece.
John Sherry, an Intel ethnographer, works in
the company's Digital Health organization. His comments related
to Intel researchers' multi-year study of the aging process
in various cultures; this research contributed to several new
technologies to help caregivers keep a remote eye on their loved
ones. “We don't want [the elderly] to feel like they're
under surveillance so we try and stay away from cameras and
work more with sensors. By putting simple sensors in doors,
chairs and under mattresses you can get a sense of how much
a person moves around the house and you can track their activities,”
Sherry was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, Ken Anderson,
an anthropologist with Intel's People and Practices Research
Group and an organizer of the AAA-sponsored Ethnographic Praxis
in Industry Conference, commented about Intel's research on
globalization and technology, specifically the company's studies
of transnational people (those who are born in one place but
live in another). “Besides the sheer value of money we're
also interested in the understanding of technology. For example,
a man from Ghana who was living in London went back to Ghana
with his iPod and transferred music onto his cousin's hard disk.
His cousin didn't have an iPod so he ended up cracking the hard
disk out of his machine and taking it to parties,” Anderson
was quoted as saying. The article also mentioned EPIC 2006,
the American Anthropological Association and AAA's Web site.
Additionally, past AAA member Tracey Lovejoy was
quoted in the piece.
George Baca, an
assistant professor of anthropology at Goucher College in Baltimore,
was guest editor of Urbanite magazine's November 2006 issue,
which featured a section on "The
race thing: Why Baltimoreans don't talk about it." The section
included two articles: "The elephant in the city" by Matthew
Crenson, who teaches political science at Johns Hopkins University;
and "Alone at the table" by R. Darryl Foxworth, a freelance
journalist who grew up in Baltimore. Urbanite is a monthly magazine
published in Baltimore, focusing on its cosmopolitan communities
and explorations of issues behind the news. Each edition of
the magazine centers on a theme and brings in a guest editor
"who has demonstrated visionary thinking on that topic locally
or nationally."
Alex Golub, assistant
professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,
published a column Nov. 2, 2006, on Inside Higher Ed, an online
magazine. In "Christianity: You're soaking in it," Golub describes
how he began incorporating the anthropology of Christianity
into his classes after an epiphany about its pervasiveness in
American society and his students' lives. Golub details how,
in his introductory anthropology courses, he now uses communion
and Christian ritual - rather than those from cultures foreign
to his students - to explain how symbolic action reinforces
worldview through culturally specific metaphors. "I begin by
having students explain what communion is to members of the
class not familiar with it, and we pause to consider the special
fact that practices within Christianity vary greatly from one
church to another. This is, literally, anthropology 101: Cultural
traditions are not internally homogeneous," Golub writes. He
later describes how he wraps up his course, noting that "metaphors
and identifications continue to circulate in our own culture
and keep us 'soaking' in Christianity."
Alex Barker, director
or the University of Missouri's Museum of Art and Archaeology,
was quoted in an Oct. 15, 2006, column in the Columbia (Mo.)
Daily Tribune. "Rational
policies keep drapes off 'nekkid' art" discussed school
policies regarding class field trips where students might be
exposed to nudity in art. Barker provided context about the
symbolism and cultural meanings of the use of nudity in artwork.
"Nudity in classical art, for example, isn't simply an aesthetic
decision by the artist but has specific meanings that are fundamental
to understanding both the canons of classical art and the way
the classical world understood and expressed the numinous,"
he was quoted as saying.
Barbara King, a
professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary,
published a column reviewing "To
Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret
Mead" in the October 2006 edition of Bookslut.com. The book
and other readings lead King to view Mead as "a person most
at home in two places at once," describing how that is demonstrated
in her career and personal life. King also writes that "[a]nthrophiles
will be rewarded for a close reading of these letters by references
to 'Papa Franz' (Franz Boas), Alfred Kroeber, and Bronislaw
Malinowski and by nuggets like this one: 'When the idea of studying
what the natives do instead of what they say they do was invented,
any sort of peaceful life for field workers was over.' Mead
occasionally muses on specific theories in the culture-and-personality
school of thought, and on the jealousy felt by others in the
face of her rising fame."
Kristen Godshee,
the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study and an assistant
professor of gender and women's studies at Bowdoin College in
Brunswick, Maine, was interviewed on the BBC radio program "The World"
Oct. 6, 2006. She discussed her current research on Islamic
revivalism in Bulgaria, especially the "tug-of-war" between
conservative and secular Muslims in that country. A clip of
the interview is available on The World's Web site.
Alex Golub, assistant
professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa,
had a column published Sept. 19, 2006, by Inside Higher Ed.
In "Stepping onto the tenure track," Golub relates his personal
experience with the tenure process, including a resulting "strange
sense of dislocation and culture shock."
U.S. News and World Report published a letter
to the editor by Mark Davidheiser, an assistant
professor of anthropology at Nova Southeastern University in
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Davidheiser wrote in response to a caption
on a photo taken in Lebanon showing a woman gesturing. The caption
referred to the gesture as a "victory sign." Davidheiser cautioned
against interpreting the actions and opinions of Lebanese civilians.
His letter appeared in the Sept. 11, 2006, print edition of
the magazine and was posted on its Web site Sept. 3. Also during
the past year, Davidheiser was interviewed on Radio France International
about joking kinship, also known as joking relationships, in
Africa. He spoke about how the relationships can play a role
in preventing and managing conflicts from interpersonal to intergroup
levels. The interview was aired in December 2005.
Barbara King, a professor of
anthropology at the College of William and Mary, was quoted
in an Aug. 28, 2006, column in The Washington Post. "What one
fewer planet means to our worldview" explored why human beings
care so intensely about definitions and categories in the context
of the recent debate over Pluto's planetary status. King provided
the answer to the "why" question. She was paraphrased as saying
that people care so much about one definition over another because
definitions serve as markers of group identity.
Ken Anderson, an anthropologist
and senior researcher at Intel Corp. in Oregon, was a source
in an Aug. 24, 2006, story in The New York Times. "Laptop slides
into bed in love triangle" covered changing trends in how people
use wireless technology around their homes, including using
Blackberries and other devices in bed. "The most comfortable
spot in the world is in bed, and that's where people start their
day and end their day," Anderson was quoted as saying. The article
also mentioned his research on the role technology plays in
people's daily lives, including a paper, published with other
colleagues, that found more technology is ending up in the bedroom.
Jennifer Babiarz, a University
of Maryland archaeologist, was quoted in a recent Associated
Press story circulated to newspapers in August. The (Raleigh,
N.C.) News and Observer published the AP story Aug. 20, 2006,
under the headline "Digging for slaves' history." The article
covered archaeological research at the site of Frederick Douglass'
childhood home, a plantation near Easton, Md. Babiarz talked
about the importance of uncovering the history of the people
who worked on the plantation. "We were very interested in what
daily life would have been like for people who were enslaved
on this plantation and making sure that people knew the rich
history, not just of the Lloyds [who owned the property], but
of all the people who lived and worked here," she was quoted
as saying.
