Applied Anthropology Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

She Ji is a peer-reviewed, trans-disciplinary design journal with a focus on economics and innovation, design process and design thinking. The journal invites papers that enrich the understanding and practice that enable design innovation... more

What is applied ethnomusicology and why did they say such bad things about it for so long? And why have they stopped? This essay is a description and history of applied ethnomusicology, with particular attention to its development in the... more

What is applied ethnomusicology and why did they say such bad things about it for so long? And why have they stopped? This essay is a description and history of applied ethnomusicology, with particular attention to its development in the United States, from the late 19th century to the present, by Jeff Todd Titon. The essay is Section 1 of the Introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Applied Ethnomusicology, a volume edited by Jeff Todd Titon and Svanibor Pettan (Oxford University Press, 2015). Reprinted from Toward a Sound Ecology: New and Selected Essays (Indiana University Press, 2020).

Abstract. In 1801 at the cemetery in Vienna, Austria, the skull of W.A. Mozart was exhumed, and now it has been examined for identification. The osteological findings correspond with the available data of W.A. Mozart. Additional... more

Abstract. In 1801 at the cemetery in Vienna, Austria, the skull of W.A. Mozart was exhumed, and now it has been examined for identification. The osteological findings correspond with the available data of W.A. Mozart. Additional individual particularities and a bone lesion are described. This Applied Anthropology Inquest is available at http://www.pontecorboli.com/scheda.php?codice=puech

In this article we want to evoke two characters that each suggest different points of departure for thinking about Kolkata as a queer kind of space. By this we want to evoke something of the sexual geography and life-ways of the city, but... more

In this article we want to evoke two characters that each suggest different points of departure for thinking about Kolkata as a queer kind of space. By this we want to evoke something of the sexual geography and life-ways of the city, but to go beyond this standpoint too, to question ways in which ethnographic characters might be evoked in respect of any context, Kolkata or elsewhere. In one sense this is to open out a perception of Kolkata as a scene of many sexual life-worlds, inviting a plural kind of analysis suggestive of a multiplicity of perspectives; persons/subjects each with a unique viewpoint to be captured. The two characters we explore here each draw attention to issues of belonging and migration,
of both wanting to move to and away from Kolkata; creating new lifeworlds via the city amidst its shifting sexual geographies, class and caste divisions, and wider diasporic connections and fault-lines. Kolkata itself emerges as an attribute of the characterisations to hand: sometimes as distinct mise-en-scene, at others a kind of sensibility or resonance field for understanding self and others.

Nell’ambito del progetto I.C.A.R.E (Integration and Community Care for Asylum and Refugees in Emergency), l’AOU Meyer attraverso il Centro di Salute Globale (CSG) in convenzione con la regione Toscana, ha recentemente promosso una... more

Nell’ambito del progetto I.C.A.R.E (Integration and Community Care for Asylum and Refugees in Emergency), l’AOU Meyer attraverso il Centro di Salute Globale (CSG) in convenzione con la regione Toscana, ha recentemente promosso una collaborazione con il Centro di Studi e Ricerche Salute Internazionale e Interculturale (CSI) dell’Università di Bologna. Tale collaborazione è finalizzata al miglioramento dell’accesso ai servizi consultoriali e della loro fruizione da parte di utenti titolari e richiedenti di protezione internazionale attraverso un intervento di formazione antropologica “on the job”. In questo contributo proponiamo una riflessione attorno ai bisogni, alle aspettative e alle richieste degli operatori socio-sanitari rispetto alle forme dell’intervento antropologico nell’ambito dei servizi. A partire dai momenti di confronto con i referenti istituzionali e con gli stessi operatori rispetto al bisogno dei diversi contesti territoriali, emergono infatti percezioni e narrazioni di tipo culturalista e, di conseguenza, richieste di risposte e strategie operative altrettanto categorizzanti. Il lavoro sul campo mette in luce la possibilità di ritagliare spazi di negoziazione e la necessità di sperimentare modalità di intervento in grado di problematizzare tali visioni e, di conseguenza, declinare un’operatività volta a rimodellare le forme della relazione tra operatori e utenti, posizionando le soggettività degli utenti stranieri (e non solo) al centro dei processi di cura.

Although FASD is first and foremost a health issue, it is a consideration in the justice system because individuals with FASD have contact as victims, witnesses and offenders. This chapter will draw on research with justice professionals... more

Although FASD is first and foremost a health issue, it is a consideration in the justice system because individuals with FASD have contact as victims, witnesses and offenders. This chapter will draw on research with justice professionals to argue that there is an ethical need, and indeed an obligation, for appropriate training to better prepare police to work with clients that have FASD. By illustrating the ways in which many frontline workers misunderstand FASD, coupled with the stigma associated to FASD, this chapter argues that individuals with FASD have unique needs and the stakes in the justice system are simply too high to not have appropriate training in place to meet those needs.

Native title claims in Australia require research about traditional Aboriginal connections to land and waters. The relevant legislation seeks to establish if traditional law and custom has continued to provide rights to ‘country’ on the... more

Native title claims in Australia require research about traditional Aboriginal connections to land and waters. The relevant legislation seeks to establish if traditional law and custom has continued to provide rights to ‘country’ on the part of those identifying with deceased forebears and their occupation of the land at the time of British colonization. For the region of southeast Queensland there is a rich body of photographs documented in the late 1800s that can inform both research data and the evidence of Aboriginal native title claimants. Photographs in our case study emerge as potentially of considerable significance for anthropological research that is commissioned and applied in the production of expert opinion reports for native title legal proceedings. The photographs are, subject to memory and interpretation, also of great relevance for Aboriginal people seeking to claim rights and interests in their traditional lands and waters. This article addresses the potential intellectual productivity of historical photographs as well as tensions arising from their ambiguous status in legal proceedings.

The ever increasing population along with global climatic changes i.e. variations in the ecosystem, thinning of arable land and diminishing soil and water resources has led us to the inevitable challenge of food insecurity and resource... more

The ever increasing population along with global climatic changes i.e. variations in the ecosystem, thinning of arable land and diminishing soil and water resources has led us to the inevitable challenge of food insecurity and resource management. The paper advocates the need to improve the government interventions for sustainable agricultural development, by making it more participatory in its design and implementation, blending the traditional local knowledge with reference to their opportunities or constraints to bridge the transitional lag. Moreover, the extension services must engage with

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine released a report detailing how cancer survivors in the United States were "lost in transition" from specialty to primary care. Here, I address a different problem: that of being "lost in translation."... more

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine released a report detailing how cancer survivors in the United States were "lost in transition" from specialty to primary care. Here, I address a different problem: that of being "lost in translation." Interviews with cancer survivors in community-based primary care practices across the United States revealed a fundamental disconnect between survivorship rhetoric and patients' perspectives on what was clinically, emotionally, and physically relevant to them. In reflecting on this disconnect, I ask how anthropologists can negotiate top-down stakeholder interests with ground-level understandings in biomedical research settings, where clinicians and biomedical scientists often dictate the terms of research. I argue that anthropology has a valuable role to play in teasing out the complexities of clinical and identity categories in biomedical research.

Comment on Salverda: Business Anthropology Fieldwork Problems in the 21st Century

Over the last three decades, the United States has seen a growing problem in both urban and rural areas where access to fresh, affordable and nutritious foods has been severely diminished; while access to cheap, high-calorie,... more

Over the last three decades, the United States has seen a growing problem in both urban and rural areas where access to fresh, affordable and nutritious foods has been severely diminished; while access to cheap, high-calorie, low-nutritional value food has increased. The proliferation of convenience food, including fast-food chain restaurants, in neighborhoods around the country coupled with a sedentary lifestyle has contributed to an epidemic of diet-related diseases. The neighborhood of Frog Hollow, an urban food desert, in Hartford, Connecticut, is no exception to this trend. This paper explores three specific topics related to urban food deserts and food oppression - access, affordability and health - and their impact on the Frog Hollow neighborhood. This is followed by an examination of nutritious and affordable food alternatives and programs that exist in Hartford including farmers’ markets, community-supported agriculture and community gardens. Data collection included determining the cost of a healthy food basket in Frog Hollow versus the neighboring, wealthier community of West Hartford, as well as mapping out the locations and types of food outlets in Frog Hollow. Through quantitative analysis of the data, the findings presented in this paper support an argument that food oppression and food desertification exist in Frog Hollow. The research showed that Frog Hollow residents shopping at the subject bodega for their weekly grocery list are paying prices that are on average 26% higher than those charged in the West Hartford subject supermarket. Finally, I offer suggestions for future research to further illustrate the breadth of the food gap that exists between large urban metro areas like Hartford and their suburban counterparts, and touch on the non-food related community benefits of green food options.

Surf tourism is a largely ignored mode of touristic behavior in the academy. This investigation adds to a very limited body of work by providing explorations of the significance of surf tourism for surfers and by bringing forward data... more

Surf tourism is a largely ignored mode of touristic behavior in the academy. This investigation adds to a very limited body of work by providing explorations of the significance of surf tourism for surfers and by bringing forward data and observations of the impacts surf tourism has had on Playas Jacó and Hermosa, Costa Rica. Interviews with twenty-five surf tourists, seven local business owners and a co-director of the local Chamber of Commerce were obtained. Interview, statistical, and observation data were then used to argue that: a surfer habitus creates dispositions for many surfers to travel to exotic coastal destinations on the periphery; surf trips to Costa Rica in many ways are experientially similar to pilgrimages; and that surf tourism can be seen to be directly and indirectly associated with many economic, environmental, and socio-cultural costs and benefits to the local communities under study.
In order to approach the theoretical considerations of the study, insights are drawn from theories associated with the ritualistic processes of rites of transition that were first brought forward by Arnold van Gennep and later refined by Victor and Edith Turner. In this way, the study supports Nelson H.H. Graburn’s contention that tourism in general is a sacred journey through an analysis of the experiential attributes of surf tourism in particular. Considering the applied dimension of surf tourism in Playas Jacó and Hermosa, it is argued that, as pathfinders into territories that lack an existent tourism infrastructure, surfers may indirectly set in motion a process of development and foreign investment into areas that are ill-prepared for large numbers of visitors. Richard Butler’s formulation of a Tourism Area Life Cycle (TALC) is shown to be a useful model with which to examine this process of development and the possible difficulties that may come about without proper planning and regulation. Observations of the direct impact of surf tourists on the area’s economy, environment, and society are also brought forward to argue that this mode of tourism is in many ways distinct from most other forms of leisure travel.

La evolución de los destinos turísticos constituye un ítem de importancia en los análisis del turismo. Son múltiples los estudios y publicaciones al respecto y, sin embargo, las variadas aproximaciones (fundamentalmente basadas en el... more

La evolución de los destinos turísticos constituye un ítem de importancia en los análisis del turismo. Son múltiples los estudios y publicaciones al respecto y, sin embargo, las variadas aproximaciones (fundamentalmente basadas en el modelo de ciclo de vida) suelen partir de variables cuantitativas, obviando el turismo como hecho social, estructurado y estructurador de significados, producto y productor de modos de vida. En este trabajo, con el objetivo de mostrar la relevancia que puede mostrar la perspectiva antropológica social en el estudio de la evolución de los destinos turísticos y su renovación, analizamos los discursos de oferentes y turistas respecto a la situación actual, atribuciones causales y perspectivas de futuro de Puerto de La Cruz (Tenerife, Islas Canarias, España), un microdestino en declive.

UK law prohibits direct marketing of gambling to children. However, our data, gathered between 2018 and 2020, demonstrate that gambling logos occur frequently in football related products and media consumed by children. This is a pressing... more

UK law prohibits direct marketing of gambling to children. However, our data, gathered between 2018 and 2020, demonstrate that gambling logos occur frequently in football related products and media consumed by children. This is a pressing issue for policy makers because research suggests that although children engage with football as spectators, they engage more often through readily available material culture. Discussions in the media about sponsorship of football teams by gambling companies have focused on the exposure of children to advertisements during live broadcasts. Analysing visible gambling sponsorship in children's media, this paper shows how a single gambling logo on a player's shirt is refracted many times through collectable cards, football magazines, and the mediatized 'play' of a child fan's world. It concludes that discussions around gambling advertising and its impact on children should be informed by an awareness of how children, as opposed to adults, engage with football.

At the request of the City of Mukilteo, students and staff from the Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School at Edmonds and Everett Community Colleges surveyed Japanese Gulch and Big Gulch for spawning salmon from... more

At the request of the City of Mukilteo, students and staff from the Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School at Edmonds and Everett Community Colleges surveyed Japanese Gulch and Big Gulch for spawning salmon from November 1 through December 15, 2013. The survey demonstrated that adult coho have returned to Japanese Gulch for the second year in a row after the completion of a significant stream restoration project removing four major barriers to salmon migration. The survey also confirmed reports of chum returning to spawn in Big Gulch. Both streams provide valuable salmon spawning habitat in an urban setting.

As a research collective we have discussed a range of methodological issues here and simultaneously worked towards dissolving existing boundaries between self with the field as the Other (Grossman and Kimball, Dass) while constituting or... more

As a research collective we have discussed a range of methodological issues here and simultaneously worked towards dissolving existing boundaries between self with the field as the Other (Grossman and Kimball, Dass) while constituting or understanding social memory (Wood and Latham, Weber) and framing them as a field for our enquiry. Long-standing epistemological divisions between object and subject (Grossman and Kimball, Wood and Latham, Dass, Weber), observation, participation and performance (Grossman and Kimball, Dass, Rossmanith, Ila Jones and Arries, Winkewinder), notions of inside and outside (Dass, Karl, Weber), and place, space and imagined spaces (Rossmanith, Peaslee) need to fade away. We take positions in the field, off the field, in writing and by not writing ethnographically (Arora 2006). Far from arrogantly claiming to represent others, some of the contributors admit the transformative impact of ethnographic research on themselves (Weber, Grossman and Kimball, Hurst). The evolution of us as persons and as researchers undertaking fieldwork is intertwined and not distinct or separable.
We arhue that in as much as we are governed and shaped by our disciplinary roots, in traversing these disciplinary boundaries we are equally in turn shaping future fields. We value disciplinary appropriation and are committed to translation and the evolution of shared vocabularies. Interdisciplinary methodologies can blur or change existing boundaries but not erode them altogether.

Anthropology is the one social science that is most adept at dealing with economic and cultural change. Anthropologists focusing on business and industry are in the admirable position of being able to study these change effects even more... more

Anthropology is the one social science that is most adept at dealing with economic and cultural change. Anthropologists focusing on business and industry are in the admirable position of being able to study these change effects even more quickly than anthropologists focusing on classic topics such as religion, political structures, ideology, and family life. Maryann McCabe and Elizabeth K. Briody articulate this well in a new collection, Cultural Change from a Business Anthropology Perspective (McCabe and Briody 2018). As McCabe and Briody point out, however, the progress in understanding that is gained through engaging in business anthropology requires the development of new and innovative field methodologies, which bring with them fieldwork challenges.

I explore how public policies and educational practices define and manage teenagers’ sexual health in the Italian context, and anthropology’s contribution – both as an analytical and a more practical tool - within teenage sexual health... more

I explore how public policies and educational practices define and manage teenagers’ sexual health in the Italian context, and anthropology’s contribution – both as an analytical and a more practical tool - within teenage sexual health promotion.
In particular, I analyse a public Health Care social service addressed to youth – Bologna’s Spazio Giovani – and a specific sex education project, whose development and trial I actively engaged during a three-years- long action-research, named W l’amore. Presenting my experience within the social dynamics among the stakeholders involved in this project’s trial – between Italy and the Netherlands - I reflect on the ways youth’s sexuality is handled by public policies and practices in Italy, and how anthropology can play an active role in highlighting socio-political implications of sex education. Anthropology, both as a deconstructive and constructive knowledge, can provide critical and more operative suggestions in the field of teenage sexual health promotion. Doing public anthropology, then, means not only to stress sex education’s socio-political implications, its contradictions and potentials, but also to trial anthropological skills within this field. It also means to engage the public debate regarding the discipline’s future inside and outside University. Applying anthropology to sex education for teenagers can contribute to the development and implementation of more equal poli- cies and practices promoting everybody’s sexual health.

L'antropologia italiana, di fronte ai processi di patrimonializzazione culturale che attraversano la società contemporanea, tende a porsi in modo critico. Tuttavia, le Convenzioni internazionali sui diritti culturali e sulle politiche di... more

L'antropologia italiana, di fronte ai processi di patrimonializzazione
culturale che attraversano la società contemporanea, tende a porsi
in modo critico. Tuttavia, le Convenzioni internazionali sui diritti culturali
e sulle politiche di salvaguardia del patrimonio immateriale parlano il
linguaggio che, in Italia, caratterizza le scienze demoetnoantropologiche
con le relative applicazioni. Le politiche di salvaguardia del patrimonio
immateriale chiedono ai professionisti di collaborare con la società civile
e le istituzioni al fine di stimolare processi virtuosi di patrimonializzazione e sviluppo sostenibile a partire da un elemento culturale (una tradizione, un parco naturale, un monumento, un museo). Alla luce di ciò, in Italia è opportuno un ripensamento etico e applicativo del fare antropologia nello spazio pubblico. Questo testo ridefinisce, per sommi capi, il ruolo del demoetnoantropologo nel quadro di attuazione della Convenzione del 2003 in Italia. L’analisi delle candidature nelle Liste Unesco e dei percorsi che attualmente realizzano il “work in progress italiano” sarà il passo successivo per quanti desiderano misurarsi coi nuovi strumenti che le Convenzioni internazionali offrono a questa professione oggi in Italia.

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social... more

Back cover text: Real Social Science presents a new, hands-on approach to social inquiry. The theoretical and methodological ideas behind the book, inspired by Aristotelian phronesis, represent an original perspective within the social sciences, and this volume gives readers for the first time a set of studies exemplifying what applied phronesis looks like in practice. The reflexive analysis of values and power gives new meaning to the impact of research on policy and practice. Real Social Science is a major step forward in a novel and thriving field of research. This book will benefit scholars, researchers, and students who want to make a difference in practice, not just in the academy. Its message will make it essential reading for students and academics across the social sciences.

We, Adivasi leaders, academics, activists and all those concerned about adivasi peoples’ rights and their futures, call on the IUAES, (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), IAA (Indian Anthropological... more

We, Adivasi leaders, academics, activists and all those concerned about adivasi peoples’ rights and their futures, call on the IUAES, (International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences), IAA (Indian Anthropological Association) and the World Council of Anthropologists,
to change the venue and sever ties with the giant Factory School, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India to stop it from hosting the 2023 World Congress of Anthropology (WCA).
Schools like KISS disinherit adivasi children from their histories and describe adivasi ways of life as ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’. Referring to a tribal community in Odisha, Mr. Achyuta Samanta (founder of KISS) has said, “….. they fill up their stomachs only with the forest products and cover their bodies with the leaves of the plants. There are 13 primitive tribes in Orissa. They live, they sleep, on the branches of the tree like monkeys”. Schools built on this colonial and racist foundation are stripping adivasi children of their identities, spirituality and connection to their ecologies.
KISS has been taking funding from mining and extractive industrial corporations like Adani and Nalco and partnering with Vedanta to name a few, to run its model. Besides these, as found on their website and annual reports, KISS has signed MoUs with dubious industrial houses like National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), EMAMI and RECL (Rural Electrification Corporation Limited). It has recently opened Adani-KISS factory school in Mayurbhanj, Odisha.
It is an established fact that mining and extractive industries have been historically oppressing and exploiting adivasi communities by illegally grabbing their habitats for profiteering. When KISS partners with such companies it enables an atmosphere of learning that teaches adivasi children to support the mining and industrial economy that feeds off their lives and lands. Such partnering teaches Adivasi children to support the mining and industrial economy that feeds off the lives and
lands of their own communities. In the words of Dongria Kondh elder Dodhi Pusika, “Children are being taught in these schools to get them to sell our land and mountain ... they will become useless and become brokers for mining companies ... We don’t agree to that.”
Schools built on this colonial and racist foundation, with support from giant mineral extraction corporations, are contrary in every way to the spirit, ethics and mission of modern anthropology. We believe that anthropologists around the world should and would boycott KISS
which would otherwise give further legitimacy to their model.We strongly believe that anthropologists should not dignify an institution like KISS that treats adivasi children as lab rats.

Neoliberal economic frameworks threaten the ability of marginalized people worldwide to grow, harvest, and access sufficient healthy food because they deny traditional collective seed ownership and preclude subsistence as a viable... more

Neoliberal economic frameworks threaten the ability of marginalized people worldwide to grow, harvest, and access sufficient healthy food because they deny traditional collective seed ownership and preclude subsistence as a viable livelihood. Many internationally-oriented counter-responses work to reframe intellectual property law in favor of traditional farmers. In the United States, various grassroots agricultural biodiversity conservation projects designed to re-establish the control of open-pollinated seeds within communities have emerged with similar intent. This paper situates and explores the role of open-pollinated seeds and agricultural biodiversity conservation strategies in local food sovereignty. The authors direct applied research projects that collaboratively document and disseminate open-pollinated seed varieties throughout the Southeastern United States with a specific focus on the Ozark Highlands and Appalachian Mountains. The research methods represent an activist anthropology—participant observation and ethnographic interviewing while collaboratively growing and sharing seed varieties with local farmers, gardeners, seed-savers, and activists—with the explicit purpose of forging more sustainable, integrated sovereign local food systems.

This article provides a brief introduction to advancements in the anthropology of disasters as well as the historical antecedents and the intellectual collaborations that contributed to contemporary work in the field. It reviews the... more

This article provides a brief introduction to advancements in the anthropology of disasters as well as the historical antecedents and the intellectual collaborations that contributed to contemporary work in the field. It reviews the multiple directions, methodological approaches, and theoretical leanings that comprise today’s diversified field of disaster anthropology and discusses how the monographs included in the special edition of Human Organization (74[4]) on the applied anthropology of risks, hazards, and disasters showcase the variety of topics and themes engaged by applied anthropologists who work on disaster-related issues.

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot... more

This article examines five common misunderstandings about case-study research: (a) theoretical knowledge is more valuable than practical knowledge; (b) one cannot generalize from a single case, therefore, the single-case study cannot contribute to scientific development; (c) the case study is most useful for generating hypotheses, whereas other methods are more suitable for hypotheses testing and theory building; (d) the case study contains a bias toward verification; and (e) it is often difficult to summarize specific case studies. This article explains and corrects these misunderstandings one by one and concludes with the Kuhnian insight that a scientific discipline without a large number of thoroughly executed case studies is a discipline without systematic production of exemplars, and a discipline without exemplars is an ineffective one. Social science may be strengthened by the execution of a greater number of good case studies.