Annals of Anthropological Practice最新文献

This article presents opportunities for enriching anthropological knowledge and methods with machine learning and data analysis. Different examples show how quantitative methods empower anthropologists and how computational methods supplement ethnography, from sensor data and interview transcripts to designing technology solutions and automatically labeling cultural heritage. Conversely, the authors discuss the benefits of qualitative approaches in contemporary anthropological research and show how to transition from data analysis to ethnography and vice versa. Finally, the article pinpoints aspects in which each method can fail individually. It discusses why a combination of the two approaches, called circular mixed methods, minimizes the chance of failure and maximizes insights from the data.

In this article, we highlight a partnership between CommuniVax and a human-centered design firm (Bridgeable) that resulted in CommuniVaxCHAT—an online toolkit capable of engaging community members and translating their experiences and local knowledge in a way that decision-makers, including mayors and public health directors, can act upon. In addition to considering the process involved in creating CommuniVaxCHAT, and its associate practicalities, we examine how human-centered design, and more particularly personas and journeys, can act as boundary objects to facilitate engagement between groups and create interventions or policy. In this way, we argue that HCD can be used similarly to PhotoVoice as a tool to introduce ethnographic insights into applied and participatory contexts.

“Studying up” was Laura Nader's provocation to anthropologists to scrutinize the actions of the powerful few in relation to the ordeals of the powerless many. Engaging this lineage, this article describes CommuniVax, a rapid ethnographic research coalition supporting an equitable COVID-19 vaccine rollout in the United States. By tapping hyperlocal knowledge as well as that held by public health and governmental authorities at higher reaches, the coalition opened the possibility for a more just pandemic response and stronger democratic institutions. The project also broke with prevailing features in the studying up tradition: It operated as a multidisciplinary collective rather than a lone ethnographer, partnered with elites rather than a priori holding them at arm's length, and emphasized pragmatic solutions over scholastic critiques. These departures embody an “applying up” modality, supporting the idea ethnographers have plural strategies for studying actors who exert strong influence over others’ lives.

This special issue presents accounts of different aspects of the CommuniVax Coalition and its work—a project that conducted rapid, multisited, applied anthropological research to deliver guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our purpose in writing these articles is to provide details of our work so anthropologists interested in similar types of research can learn from our efforts. While anthropological research has been, and largely still is, an endeavor of individuals at a relatively slow pace, the future of the discipline, and especially of anthropologists working outside traditional academia, is team-based, rapid research. As such, anthropologists need to know how to conduct research at speed, participate as members of research teams and, more importantly, how to organize and lead teams to conduct timely, collaborative, focused, and practical research.

To ensure the real-world utility of emergency ethnographic research, plans must evolve as circumstances shift. The CommuniVax coalition's work provides a case study of this scenario. Using rapid ethnographic interviews, focus groups, and other methods, the six local CommuniVax teams sought to comprehend and improve COVID-19 vaccine access and uptake. To this end, they responded nimbly to varying community priorities, the pandemic's shifting nature, evolving bureaucratic mechanisms, and political fluctuations. This paper provides specific examples of such instances, highlighting some of the critical decision points that emerged, demonstrating the flexibility needed for effective rapid community-based research, reiterating the importance of a bottom-up orientation, and elaborating on the trade-offs that occurred in decision-making regarding how best to move forward. This discussion is relevant to tackling any narrowly defined research problem, emergency-related or not, as well as research seeking actionable answers to specific questions that have practical bearing on human lives.

Collaboration and communication serve as the foundation of team-based research, and this extends to the analysis phase of a project. This article discusses the work involved in developing, communicating, and managing the analysis plan for a large-scale, multisited project. To generate an effective analysis plan, we considered what data were needed to reach our project goals and then selected methods and designed data collection tools accordingly. Once data collection commenced, we developed a basic codebook that provided an overarching structure but flexibility for localized tailoring. We then coordinated updates to the coding scheme and conducted reliability checks on the analyses. All of this required regular communication and constant monitoring of progress toward project goals. While only one example, this article provides insights and guidelines for other researchers working on large, team-based, and/or multisited qualitative projects.

In mid-2021, the CommuniVax Alabama team broadened their community engagement by partnering with the Chamber of Commerce, the Alabama Department of Public Health, and others to bring vaccines to the workplace. Through this collaboration, the team hoped to fortify the state's persistently anemic rate of vaccination. The goals of increasing access to, and convenience of COVID-19 vaccination were only partially achieved due to human resource and policy challenges and incongruent priorities that resulted from those challenges. The accomplishments, challenges, and suggestions for improvement are outlined to aid future efforts at health promotion and community outreach, especially in jurisdictions with limited extant public health infrastructure.

In this paper, we discuss the experience of the Idaho CommuniVax local team and how a large-scale incorporation of college students into its ethnographic research process ensured bona-fide community engagement and a deeper understanding of the experiences of Hispanic community members as they considered COVID-19 vaccination within the broader context of non-Hispanic, rural, agricultural southeastern Idaho. We detail the logic behind the steps we took to rapidly recruit, train, and provide future-oriented opportunities for 20 students who were studying a variety of disciplines. The students were from geographic localities in or near the research communities of interest. Their familial and social connections served as critical information channels between policy-makers, decision-makers, academics, and community members. Their varied ethnic backgrounds and their sheer number resulted in comprehensive research results and an expansive network of evidence-based COVID-19 information sharing that would have been impossible without their involvement.

Development projects present ambiguous ethical terrain for anthropologists to navigate. Particularly in relation to WaSH (Water, Sanitation, Hygiene) infrastructures which mediate human and environmental health. Our interdisciplinary team of anthropologists and engineers initially set out to design context-sensitive on-site wastewater treatment infrastructures for homes along Belize's Placencia Peninsula. The project's beginning coincided with the announcements of a government sponsored centralized wastewater infrastructure project and the construction of a cruise ship port on a nearby island, however. Soon the wastewater project's promises—economic opportunity, improved human and environmental health, modernization - came crashing into its pratfalls—exacerbating existing inequalities, loss of livelihoods, and diminished local governance. Our team was left with uncertain decisions about how to engage with improving infrastructure, given the emerging community dynamics. By detailing the imperfect trade-offs at play, we highlight ethical complexities inherent when communities’ development futures are at stake. Anthropology's fraught history includes legacies of unintended harms from entanglement in others’ inequities. However, avoiding involvement out of excessive caution risks leaving marginalized voices unheard and extant problems unresolved. This case immersed our team in the inherent optimism and ethical experimentation which underlie development contexts. Our analysis adopts the structure from Whiteford and Trotters’ (2008) “Ethical-Problem Solving Guide” to reveal the layered tensions that underly critical WaSH infrastructures.