Annals of Anthropological Practice最新文献

This article describes how seed funding from one major Australian University, designed to encourage interdisciplinary collaborations among academics, led to the implementation of a safe and sustainable energy supply at a community development project in remote Timor-Leste. This article reflects on the process, the results, and insights developed during the project primarily from the point of view of the academics. A participatory process of co-design was virtually impossible to implement due to time and resource constraints that barely allowed genuine collaboration between academics. The consequent nurturing of a social relationship between partners across borders, which would have allowed a genuine process of co-design, was therefore not possible. Misunderstandings around the local context, tensions in understandings of timelines, and competing priorities all provided additional barriers to timely implementation of the development project. The final conclusion is that even with the best of intentions, if resource constraints do not allow the time and space to develop collaborative social relations and prioritize “process over product,” then genuine partnerships and participatory development have little chance of flourishing.

The following discussion summarizes Our Kitchen Table's (OKT) food justice project and how I used research methodology to support their community capacity building efforts toward systems change. I also compared and contrasted the work of OKT with that of other food security initiatives in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Time spent doing fieldwork with OKT led me to the conclusion that research should prioritize supporting the implementation of community-driven solutions. Otherwise, similar to organizations with a top-down focus, those with ties to the academy, often predictably impose an outside agenda. I explain how this occurrence can be avoided through the use of OKT's preferred method for interacting with researchers, what is referred to as a community-owned and managed research (COMR) model. Further related discussion highlights the importance of reciprocity, restructuring tenure requirements to support engagement as scholarship, and ensuring the relevance of anthropology as a discipline.

While team-based and interdisciplinary research is increasingly common for anthropologists and other researchers, pedagogical strategies for integrating hands-on training in this area is underexplored. As anthropologists reflect on how to prepare the next generation of researchers, this article addresses a strategy for designing and assessing undergraduate assignments that provides undergraduate and graduate students experiences that are transferable to interdisciplinary and team-based projects. I argue that a collaborative assessment approach to undergraduate applied anthropology assignments based on a model for developing team-based codebooks by MacQueen et al. (2008) can support graduate and undergraduate students in acquiring skills for their future careers. Drawing on several years of experience teaching medium-to-large enrolling introductory cultural anthropology courses, this article illustrates how a collaborative assessment approach offers graduate teaching assistants hands-on experience with navigating team-based projects and codebook development as well as supports undergraduate students in refining their critical thinking and writing skills interdisciplinarily.

At Minnesota State University, Mankato, the Anthropology Department pursued service-learning as a means of educating and engaging diverse publics. An assessment of the service-learning program began after it became clear that standard course evaluations provided an inadequate assessment of service-learning's efficacy. We employed a mixed- method, multiperspective approach, combining interview data gathered from students, faculty, community partners, and program coordinators to complement existing archival and survey data. Through these interviews and participant observation, we explore the pedagogy of service-learning, its effectiveness, and the relationship among anthropological theory and practice. Our research identified three forms of value regarding student and community partner motivation. Additionally, we consider the role of culture in what constitutes value. One emergent theme, “realness,” was vital for enhancing student outcomes through providing embodied examples of concepts and practical experience in field methods. Service-learning enhances comprehension through practical application, demonstrating the relevance of anthropology while improving students’ learning outcomes.

Social activities define the place of a person in the society. Even small population groups contribute to social changes of an active and independent actor-individual in postindustrial society. Therefore, the work is relevant and rather interesting for research. The main objective of the work is research of the Tomsk Region from the perspective of an anthroposocietal approach. To achieve this objective, the author used interviews requiring close contact with respondents. In this work, questionnaires were applied as one of the components of interviewing. The sociological survey was conducted among the inhabitants of Tomsk and Seversk. The author found that men were more independent. It was also found that the value transformations were mostly motivated by the global trends. Considering the fact that the shift toward anthroposocietality (commonality of human being-in-the-world) is the global trend, the data of Tomsk Region may be interesting to other scientists for conducting comparative researches.

In this study, we show how household health, economic instability, and food insecurity are inextricably linked and how disruptions in individual health or income create cumulative and interdependent challenges faced by multiple household members. Drawing upon semistructured focus groups with English- and Spanish-speaking clients of an urban food pantry, we demonstrate: (1) the impact of economic scarcity on health, (2) the impact of one household member's health on the health and food security of all household members, and (3) food-sharing behaviors among family and social networks, including multigenerational families and nonkin individuals. We identify the gap in the literature between household-level assessments of food insecurity and individual-level health reports, which may obscure poor health among other household members. Understanding the social and family context of health and food insecurity may inform future interventions that address the interrelated challenges of diverse and disadvantaged households and communities.

In this article, we examine the structure and meaning of community gardens in Florida's most cohesive and oldest African American community of Frenchtown in Tallahassee. Here, residents reclaim and transform empty spaces into places of engagement and empowerment, effectively resisting systemic racism. Using a mixed methods approach during a 5-week NSF-funded ethnographic field school with the Health Equity Alliance of Tallahassee, we counter the prevailing stigma of Frenchtown that perpetuates its continued marginalization. We argue that community gardens are expressions of social resistance. Through garden activities, residents transcend race, culture, income, and neighborhoods, while also promoting health, heritage, place-making, and economic opportunities. Place is constituted by spatial politics in a cultural milieu, evident in the community's ability to intersect diverse institutional boundaries via gardens. This research contextualizes how a community-based participatory research project successfully resists violent environments through spatial transformation.

Women provide crucial support in Indian agriculture and household livelihood; however, they remain confined as workers. Designed farm tools available are mainly used by male farmers, and rural women are left to use traditional tools and procedures resulting in low efficiency, drudgery, occupational health risks, and low income. Their contributions fall under indirect material income and go unacknowledged even in decision making. Illiteracy, lack of knowledge among rural women, improper training, and less opportunity for skill development worsen their subdued existence. Formal education, availability of economically viable agricultural machinery for women, training, extension services, social engineering, and gender budgeting is need of the hour. Gender budgeting would assess the quantity and adequacy of allocation of resources for women and establish the extent to which gender commitments are translated into budgetary commitments. Active participation of rural women would boost their socioeconomic recognition, confidence in economic competence, and promulgate sustainable societal growth.

Food insecurity among college students is higher than the national average of 12.7 percent. Prevalence studies report a range of 14–59 percent of students being food insecure at some point during their college career. This article discusses the meaning and experience of food insecurity among students, its impact on motivation and academic success, and participant suggestions for local solutions. An ethnographic, exploratory study was conducted, including 27 semistructured interviews with food insecure students and five focus groups with food secure students. Food insecurity among students is considered faceless, has no standard image, and is often silent. Most food insecure students were faced with issues of stigma and shame daily, which prevented them from seeking assistance from parents and federal social services. Participants articulated a strong motivation to attend college. Obtaining a degree, securing a better job, and improving their living standards were priorities that outweighed hunger concerns. Alleviating student food insecurity requires multiple local solutions, which should be discreet, protective of student confidentiality, and work to alleviate stigma associated with food insecurity by raising awareness on campus.

This article explores structural constraints on knowledge production and practice among volunteer members of a community-based coalition in a southern U.S. state that addresses intimate partner violence among those whom identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). Male violence against women is a serious social problem and sufficient support systems are lacking. The availability of competent support systems for LGBT-identified persons affected by intimate partner violence is even grimmer. In response to this epidemic, advocacy organizations have responded through policy, advocacy, service provision, education, and training. This article focuses on one community-based coalition to explore the ways hegemonic discourses interplay with organizational structure, fear, and a crisis mode orientation to shape the ways people advocate for social change and justice causes. This ethnographic research reveals the ways sociopolitical structures constrain members' willingness to explore alternatives outside of the hegemonic frameworks guiding understandings of and responses to intimate partner violence.