Anthro roundup: “Refugee sessions at the AAA in Minneapolis” #AAA2016 by @AmericanAnthro

cs5aljgwiaaimaj

To all:

There has been a great deal of interest in refugee issues among many of us in anthropology. This is a quick, but probably not complete, list of sessions at the AAA next week in Minneapolis. There are also many, many other refugee-related papers that appear in other sessions.

It will be impossible for any of us to get to all of these sessions so I will note two sessions in particular since they are designed for more open interactive discussion. One is the meeting of the Committee on Refugees and Immigrants at 12:15 pm on Saturday. The other is an executive session jointly organized by SUNTA and ASAP on Sunday morning at 8:00 am. It is a forum on refugee policies and programs.

If you are interested in refugee issues and cannot make it to either of those sessions, please at least let me know of your interest and your email address. Both SUNTA and ASAP would like to find a mechanism to continue this anthropological discussion of refugees on a longer term and more inclusive basis.

Very best regards,

David Haines – dhaines1@gmu.edu
Co-President Elect and 2016 Program Chair
Association for the Anthropology of Policy (ASAP)

*********************************

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2016
2:00 PM – 3:45 PM
REFUGEES, EVIDENCE, AND THE POLITICS OF PROOF (2-0075)
4:00 PM – 5:45 PM
MANIPULATED AND MARGINALIZED: THE TORTUOUS FATES OF MIGRANTS (2-0440)

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2016
8:00 AM – 9:45 AM
REFUGEES FROM THE MIDDLE EAST, NORTH AFRICA, AND CENTRAL ASIA: A HOLISTIC EVALUATION OF CONDITIONS (3-0105)
10:15 AM – 12:00 PM
BETWEEN FLIGHT AND RESETTLEMENT: DISCOVERING THE SHIFTING MEANINGS OF REFUGE (3-0440)
4:00 PM – 5:45 PM
THE DIALECTICS OF POWER AND POINTS OF ESCAPE: REFUGEES, UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS, AND SURVIVORS (3-1080)

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016
8:00 AM – 9:45 AM
WHAT’S IN A NAME? EVIDENCE, RESPONSES, AND POLICY IN GLOBAL REFUGEE ‘CRISES’ (4-0090)
1:45 PM – 3:30 PM
FALSE EVIDENCE OF A NEW CRISIS: TIME AND WAITING WITH REFUGEES (4-0940)
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2016
8:00 AM – 9:45 AM
REFUGEES, PRISONERS, EXILES, AND VIOLENCE EXCLUSIONARY POLITICS (5-0015)
12:15 PM – 1:30 PM
COMMITTEE ON REFUGEES & IMMIGRANTS (CORI) BUSINESS MEETING (5-0610)
1:45 PM – 3:30 PM
SEEKING SAFETY; MET WITH VIOLENCE: REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS ON THE MOVE (5-0830)
4:00 PM – 5:45 PM
SYRIA: FROM THE EVIDENCE OF DESTRUCTION TO THE UNCERTAINTIES OF THE REFUGEE CRISIS (5-0955)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2016
8:00 AM – 9:45 AM
EVIDENTLY IMPORTANT: A FORUM ON REFUGEE POLICIES AND PROGRAMS (6-0040)

 

 

In other news:

We asked Annual Meeting workshop organizers to give our blog readers a sneak peek at the events they have planned for AAA 2016. This post was submitted by Carwil Bjork-James. 

The day after Leonard Cohen died.

Suddenly the night has grown colder. 
The god of love preparing to depart.*

The chill of the 2016 US elections is still in my bones. Glued to any and all forms of media, I watched what Judith Butler called, “whitelash” unfold in graphs, charts, and all forms of measurable outcomes. I watched as the states of my country turned red one by one. This was not the first time I had seen this, but there was something unique about this time. This time, it was not just me and people who looked like me, who felt precarious, but rather I watched as the whitelash was aimed at and betrayed the white Left/Center Left. I watched and felt the hush over the newscasters in the newsroom as they realized the precarity of the first amendment, particularly of free speech and thus, their very existence.

Anthropology after November 8th: On race, denial, and the work ahead

For some people, the election that just took place might seem like just another choice between the lesser of two evils. One more election that we all learn to deal with, but that won’t fundamentally change much about their daily lives. But this isn’t everyone’s reality. For many people around the country the results of this election, which was fueled by messages of hate, bigotry, racism, and intolerance, has devastating implications. It’s not a matter of if it will affect their lives, but when and how. It is a privileged position to see this as “just another election” that we lament, accept, and endure. Many people here simply do not and will not have this choice.

Revisiting The Anthropology of Trump: Ethnography and the Power of Culture
Huffington Post
In May of this year, I published a Huffington Post blog, “The Anthropology of Trump: Myth, Illusion and Celebrity Culture.” In that piece, I tried to demonstrate how Mr. Trump had brilliantly manipulated the fundamentals of celebrity culture—glitz

At a pharmacy in Vyronas, Greece, Dimitris (left) provides a referral for medical care while Soula (top center) helps fill prescriptions. All services at this and other community-based clinics and pharmacies are delivered free of charge. Elizabeth Rovit

$7M art collection gifted anonymously to Museum of Anthropology
CBC.ca
An extensive collection of Indigenous art valued at about $7 million has been given to the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia by an anonymous donor. With more than 200 pieces, the museum says it is believed to be the largest …
Museum of Anthropology at UBC receives $10.5-million donation …Straight.com
$7-million collection of rare indigenous art donated to UBC’s Museum of AnthropologyVancouver Sun
Massive collection of First Nations art returns to B.C.MetroNews Canada

The role of #openaccess in Trump’s America

Trump’s victory yesterday was the result of many factors. The politics of academic publishing was hardly an important part of the elections results. Large for-profit publishers like Elsevier and Taylor and Francis did not secretly elevate Trump to victory, nor would the outcome have changed if voters in Florida had access the entire run of Anthropology and Humanism. But this election did raise issues that central to open access as a movement. It was about truth, credibility, and authority. It was about how the same fact pattern can be interpreted in different ways. It was about judging for yourself the quality of partial and possibly biased information. And what comes next is even more relevant to our academic values. In the next four years we will see many people pushing back against accepted truths — that African Americans face discrimination, that the holocaust occurred, that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and much much more, I’m sure. Now, than, we academics need to explain what scholarly and scientific knowledge is, why it is important that non-experts should take it seriously, and how open access  is central to a vibrant, functioning democracy.

We asked Annual Meeting workshop organizers to give our blog readers a sneak peek at the events they have planned for AAA 2016. This post was submitted by Alice Apley, executive director of Documentary Educational Resources, Inc.

SAFN at the AAAs in Minneapolis

Our section has an exciting lineup of sessions and panels at the upcoming AAA conference in Minneapolis. We have a number of new events and a few changes to annual events. We are thrilled to be co-sponsoring a career development workshop with Karen Kelsky on Thursday. Following this session, there will be a casual networking event where junior scholars can meet and chat with senior scholars.

This  post is an introduction to the November Guest Blogging Effort by Members of the American Anthropological Association Archaeology Division Executive Board. We are looking forward to having engaged dialog with Savage Minds readers on how the relationship between archaeology and anthropology can be rebuilt in the 21st Century! Jane Eva Baxter is coordinating this guest blogging effort and is the outgoing Secretary of the AAA Archaeology Division Executive Board.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Anthropology and Geology of Lebanon’s Presidential Election
The Cairo Review of Global Affairs (blog)
The election of Michel Aoun as Lebanon’s president Monday tells us much about how political power and state governance systems operate across the Arab World. His election should be analyzed as a fascinating anthropological event about how the political

We asked Annual Meeting workshop organizers to give our blog readers a sneak peek at the events they have planned for AAA 2016. This post was submitted by Jaida Samudra from Professional Editing for Scholars. 

This entry is part 9 of 9 in the Anthropologies #22 series.

Continuing with the Anthropology #22 Food issue, this next essay is from Aimee J. Hosemann, who is currently ABD at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Hosemann’s work focuses on linguistic and sociocultural anthropology. -R.A.

 

Anthropology professor to lecture at Madison museum Saturday
New Jersey Hills
Richard Veit, professor of anthropology at Monmouth University and the author of two books on New Jersey history, will lecture on “The Rise and Fall of New Jersey’s Incredible Terra Cotta Industry” this Saturday, Nov. 5, at Madison’s Museum of Early

Glassman to teach forensic anthropology
The Daily Eastern News
Even though he is currently serving as Eastern’s president, David Glassman will be taking another role as an anthropology professor next semester. The class Glassman will be teaching is ANT 3960F, Intro to Forensic Anthropology. The class will be from .

The Birth Whisperers of Timor-Leste

Rosa Bana (right), known locally as “Mana Rosa,” aims to provide adequate health care to pregnant women, such as Elizabeth Lasi (left), in Kutete and the nearby region in the country of Timor-Leste.Jerry Redfern

CEOs should hire anthropologists. After all, these CEOS speak to a complex set of stakeholders. How useful to have someone, an expert, whispering in their ear.

But it turns out that anthropologists are bad at whispering. Why?

There is now only one path to the White House for Donald Trump. There has to be a Brexit-type surprise in November.

This is the hope of the Republican party faithful. When confronted with numbers that show Hilary in the lead and the refusal of their candidate to pivot to a more presidential presentation of self, this is what they say. There is massive support out there. We just can’t see it. Because conventional polling cannot pick it up. People are concealing their real intentions. Trump will win.

Jigsaw Anthropology: Do the pieces fit together?

This post is the second in our November guest blogging effort reporting on the AAA Archaeology Division meetings at Amerind that explored the relationship between archaeology and anthropology. In this essay, Patricia McAnany, President of the Archaeology Division, reflects on the historical and contemporary ties than bind these fields of inquiry together. Dr. McAnany is the Kenan Eminent Professor of Anthropology at UNC Chapel Hill.

Tea with history: ‘Fact-centric’ look at pre-history, anthropologyand archaeology
The Hindu
In a refreshing and ‘fact-centric’ look at pre-history, anthropologyand archaeology, a motley group of people met at the government museum on Saturday to discuss the Stone Age over a cup of organic hibiscus tea. The event was conducted by ‘Chai With

6 Documentaries for the 2016 US Presidential Election

This is an idiosyncratic selection of what I consider to be some of the most important reports and documentaries released during the 2016 US presidential election campaign, with direct reference to some of the maximum stakes and vested interests behind the maintenance of the current “global (dis)order”.

 FoodAnthropology

The third in our series of abstracts of papers submitted for SAFN’s annual Christine Wilson Award. Winners have been selected and will be recognized at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. From Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet, this one raises important questions about what, exactly, is being preserved in efforts to insure that foods maintain their “authenticity.”

Mezcal: Hybrid Authentication

Nicolas Fabien-Ouellet
University of Vermont

Why do post-mortem reviews seem destined to fail?
Scientific American (blog)
This post is part of the Workplace Anthropology series. In business, one of the most dreadful things employees have to endure is the post-mortem. It’s an exercise meant to encourage team members to share and receive feedback on the processes that .

Several of us here at the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition recently had the pleasure of reviewing submissions for our annual Christine Wilson Award. Winners have been selected and will be recognized at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. It is common to say all the submissions were great, but, in fact, they were and we want to call attention to that fact by publishing abstracts of all submissions. This is the second abstract from the competition we are posting (the first one is here). This one comes from Abby Golub and reflects on fieldwork in a bakery in Belgium. One of the more striking features of this particular research is the use of various kinds of media, from a blog to videos. There is a link to some of that below.

Promotion of anthropology
Daily Times
Sir: The dearth of anthropology courses in Pakistani universities is only exacerbated by the lack of positions for anthropologists in government departments. The few anthropology majors that the country does produce choose to go into the private sector.

When Confederate immigrants began growing crops in the Brazilian Amazon, they found fertile soils that offered a window into pre-contact Amerindian peoples and their way of life. Nicholas C. Kawa

We asked Annual Meeting workshop organizers to give our blog readers a sneak peek at the events they have planned for AAA 2016. This post was submitted by Jean Schensul, Margaret LeCompte, and Margaret Weeks.

1. What makes your workshop a “must attend” event for the 2016 meeting?

Facial reconstruction of Griffin warrior

The face of Bronze Age fighter revealed: Scientists reconstruct face of the ‘Griffin Warrior’ who was part of an elite group 3,500 years ago

Anthropology Club digs archaeology: PLU community celebrates International Archaeology Day
Mast Media
Homecoming was not the only event that brought people to campus on Oct. 15. Pacific Lutheran University’s AnthropologyClub also drew visitors to the lower level of Xavier for a celebration of International Archaeology Day. The club created


Discover more from Erkan's Field Diary

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.