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Lourdes Arizpe Award

The Anthropology and Environment Section, through its Lourdes Arizpe Award, has created an opportunity to recognize recent outstanding achievement in the application of anthropology to environmental issues and discourse in international or domestic arenas across all ecological and policy applications. The creation and naming of this award highlights the critical need for anthropological knowledge and perspective in addressing current environmental issues with larger implications for matters of global concern. The scope of the award is broad, and includes the government arena, the private and the non-profit sectors. The Lourdes Arizpe Award combines a practical component (results) with a knowledge-base component (advancement of knowledge) for outstanding contributions from specialists in any recognized field of anthropology.

The Award:

The Lourdes Arizpe Award is a biennial award that honors individual anthropologists or anthropology students, teams, or organizations involving anthropologists, which have made outstanding contributions in the application of anthropology to environmental issues and discourse. Nominations should focus on the contributions and accomplishments of the individual, team or organization in the arena of practice, policy, and application beyond academia. The award can be for work in international or domestic arenas across all-ecological and policy applications, from community-based work to national policy to global applications. There must be evidence of impact or results of the work within the past three years prior to the nomination. The Lourdes Arizpe Award consists of two award categories: 1) for post-degree professionals; and 2) for students, defined as individuals who were enrolled at an academic institution at the time of the work for which the award is proposed. It is envisioned that both awards will be made biennially in each category – post-degree professional and student. Those receiving the award are not required to be United States citizens or members of the American Anthropological Association; they may be specialists in any recognized field of anthropology. The recipients for the Professional and the Student categories of the Lourdes Arizpe Award will be presented in a ceremony and reception at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.

The Award Application Process:

Nominations may be made by any anthropologist, including self-nominations. Nomination packages should include four copies of:

1) A cover letter with original signature from the nominator indicating the body of work or action for which the nominations is being made;

2) Three letters of support from individuals knowledgeable regarding the work of the nominee(s) and its impact (it would be useful for at least two of these letters to be from individuals outside of academia); and

3) Any materials that support the candidacy of the nominee. Examples of support materials that support the student nominee may include but are not limited to: booklets, DVD, video, or news articles about the impacts of the activities or project. Materials may be submitted either electronically or in hard copy, but the nomination cover letter must have an original signature.

The Selection Process:

Award nominations will be reviewed and award selection made by a four-person committee appointed by the Anthropology and Environment Section of the AAA.

Award Venue:

The Lourdes Arizpe Awards will be presented in a ceremony and reception hosted by the Anthropology and Environment Section at the annual AAA meetings. The Professional award consists of a certificate of recognition and a handcrafted medal symbolic of the human-environment relationship. The Student award consists of a certificate of recognition and one year’s membership in the A & E Section of the AAA.

Who is Lourdes Arizpe?

Lourdes Arizpe is a cultural anthropologist, specializing in culture, migration, rural development and global environmental change through fieldwork research and has also been involved in international academic and policy activities. Her books include Parentesco y Economía en una Sociedad Nahua, Antropología Breve de Mexico, The Cultural Dimensions of Global Change: An Anthropological Approach, and Culture and Global Change: Social Perspectives of Deforestation in the Lacandona Rain Forest. She was a member of the U.N. World Commission on Culture and Development. As Assistant Director General of UNESCO for culture she directed all cultural programs in Unesco and was scientific director of the World Culture Reports. She was also Director of the Anthropological Research Institute of the National University of Mexico. She has served as a member of the Advisory Committee on the Environment (ACE) of ICSU (International Council of Scientific Unions). She has served on the Joint Latin American Committee of the Social Science Research Council and the Executive Committee of the Latin American Studies Association. Her honors also include Fulbright and Guggenheim fellowships, the medal for distinguished activities in the field of culture from the Ministry of Culture in Pakistan, and membership in the Royal Anthropology Institute in England. A founding member of the Academia Mexicana de Derechos Humanos, she also has served as President of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences. At present, she is President of the International Social Science Council and a Professor at the Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research (National University of Mexico).

For more information, refer to the webpage.

 

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