Widespread protests against police violence and anti-Black racism have recently swept the globe. In the wake of protests in May and June, specifically, many citizens and communities looked to build new momentum in the fight for civil rights and social justice.
The field of archaeology has its own history to confront. Racism, elitism, and colonialism suffuse the discipline and its practices. Although some scholars have been working to unearth these stories and envision a new future for the field, much work remains to be done.
To advance critical conversations about archaeology, a coalition of organizations created a new webinar series. These public dialogues—intended for both scholars and the larger public—are among academics, artists, and community members.
On Wednesday, October 7th the Wenner-Gren Foundation co-sponsored, “An Archaeology of Redress and Restorative Justice”.
Archaeologists and heritage professionals whose work overlays histories of colonialism, exploitation, collective violence, and genocide are increasingly aware that they cannot simply take refuge in prehistory to avoid troubling pasts; nor is it sufficient to merely acknowledge historical wrongs. And yet scholars often struggle to identify ways that archaeological and heritage work can make a meaningful impact. In this webinar, we explore how archaeology can not only identify the legacies of inequity, injustice, and violence that have shaped historical and contemporary communities, but also to open the possibility of redress for the continuing systemic inequities these legacies reveal (i.e. environmental racism, racialized disenfranchisement, heritage erasure). Panelists will discuss how they blend archaeology and heritage work with principles of redress and restorative justice.
Panelists:
Mary Elliott, Curator of Slavery, Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC)
Sada Mire, PhD, Director, Horn Heritage Organisation
Kisha Supernant, (Métis Nation of Alberta), PhD, Director, Institute of Prairie and Indigenous Archaeology, University of Alberta
Michael Wilcox (Yuman/Quechan descent), PhD, Senior Lecturer in Native American Studies, Stanford University
Moderated by Margaret Bruchac, (Abenaki), PhD, Coordinator, Native American & Indigenous Studies, University of Pennsylvania
CART captioning will be provided by Lori Stavropoulos.
Sponsored by the Society of Black Archaeologists, Indigenous Archaeology Collective, Brown University’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and SAPIENS
The Wenner-Gren Foundation, in collaboration with the Social Science Research Council, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, is proud to announce the recipients of Rapid-Response Grants on Covid-19 and the Social Sciences. Below is a list of the projects funded by Wenner-Gren, all of which were proposed by anthropologists and scholars in closely related fields. For a full list of recipients and further information about this program, please visit the SSRC website.
Covid-19 Messaging and Youth Engagements on TikTok
Crystal Abidin, Senior Research Fellow, Internet Studies, Curtin University
Enduring Social Inequalities: Black Communities’ Responses to the “Covid-19 Crisis” in Brazil, Colombia and Kenya
Jaime Alves, Assistant Professor, Department of Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Raquel de Souza, Researcher, Federal University of Bahia
Wangui Kimari, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Cape Town
Amanda Pinheiro, Doctoral Student, University of California, Santa Barbara
Terrance Wooten, Assistant Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara
Humor as a Semiotic Resource: Coping with Covid-19 Stress in Africa
Bassey Antia, Professor, Linguistics, University of the Western Cape
Sinfree Makoni, Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University
Occupational Diseases in the Context of Pandemic: Managing Risk and Care among the Working-Class Households
Basak Can, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, Koç University
Zeynel Gul, PhD Candidate, Johns Hopkins University
A People’s History of the Pandemic: Global Households and Covid-19 in Asia
Cathryn Clayton, Associate Professor and Chair, Asian Studies Program, University of Hawaii at Manoa
The Impacts of Covid-19 on Community-Based Maternal Health Projects
Haile Cole, Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut
Containment and Distrust: Impacts of Covid-19 responses and historical containment on city making from below in Nairobi
Anders Ese, Head of Research and Development, Urban-A
Romola Sanyal, Associate Professor of Urban Geography, London School of Economics and Political Science
Joseph Mukeku, Community Design Architect & Affordable Housing Specialist, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology
Benjamin Sidori, Research Assistant, Urban-A
Queering the Surveillance Assemblage: Covid-19 and Homophobia in South Korea
Timothy Gitzen, Postdoctoral Fellow, Society of Fellows in the Humanities, University of Hong Kong
Wonkeun Chun, Research Professor, Sookmyung Women’s University
Re/defining “Essential Work”: The Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Venezuelan Migrants in Argentina
Mariya Ivancheva, School of Histories, Languages, and Cultures, University of Liverpool
Jésica Lorena Pla, Permanent Research Fellow, Research Institute Gino Germani, University of Buenos Aires
Lockdown Diaries: Pandemic Stories from the Field
Ann Laudati, Instructor of Human-Environmental Geography, Department of Geography, University of California, Berkeley
Charlotte Mertens, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Melbourne
Stephanie Perazzone, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Antwerp
Re-Imagining Social Futures: Lessons from Diverse Household Experiences during a Global Pandemic
Marjorie Faulstich Orellana, Professor, School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Well-Being in a Time of Social Distancing: Indonesian Domestic Workers in Singapore and Hong Kong
Dyah Pitaloka, Research Scholar, Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship
Frenia Nababan, Lecturer, Universitas Multimedia Nusantara
Governing the Pandemic: Relief and Resilience in Ahmedabad, Gujarat
Maya Ratnam, Assistant Professor, School of Arts and Sciences, Ahmedabad University
Stigma Syndemics and End-Stage Kidney Disease in Disenfranchised Urban Communities Fighting Covid-19
Merav Shohet, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University
Insa Marie Schmidt, Postdoctoral Researcher, Boston University
Lauren Dana Stern, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Boston University
Mapping Daily Routines, Rituals, and Virtual Emotional Intimacies in Covid-19 Pakistan
Zujaja Wahaj, Assistant Professor, International Business and Marketing, NUST Business School, National University of Sciences and Technology
Oliver Kayas, Senior Lecturer in Business Information Systems, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School
Asfia Obaid, Assistant Professor, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad
Lubaba Sadaf, Assistant Professor, National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad
“Invisible Monsters”: The Pandemic Imaginary of Infectious Pathogens and Infectious Bodies
Lisa Wynn, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Macquarie University
Thomas Strong, Lecturer, Maynooth University
Susanna Trnka, Associate Professor, University of Auckland
On September 21st the New York Academy of Sciences will be hosting a webinar entitled, “Making your Research Make a Difference: Designing a Strategy to Engage the Public with Social Media”. Kristina Baines, Associate Professor at Guttman Community College, “Director of Anthropology” at Cool Anthropology, and Victoria Costa, Creative Technologist, “Director of Cool” at Cool Anthropology will be speaking. Baird Campbell, Public Scholarship Graduate Assistant at Cool Anthropology, and Hannia Delgado, Social Media Manager at Cool Anthropology will be co-facilitating.
The lecture will begin at 6:30 EST. Click here to register.
Social media platforms can be both a democratizing force and a dismissive space, simultaneously making research accessible and applicable to a wide audience while also rendering it reductive and dangerously generalized. In this workshop participants will develop a step-by-step plan to engage a wide audience with their research and applied projects without compromising rigor or grounded discussion. With the often complicated power dynamics inherent in Anthropology, to remain silent about political matters is, in itself, a political act. It is increasingly urgent that anthropologists think of themselves as engaged citizens, not simply researchers and practitioners. This workshop invites participants to expand their perspective on how their work is relevant to the public, and helps build the toolkit required to reach people outside of our discipline.
About the Speakers:
Kristina Baines is a sociocultural anthropologist with an applied medical/environmental focus. Her research interests include indigenous ecologies, health, and heritage in the context of global change, in addition to publicly engaged research and dissemination practices. She is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the City University of New York (CUNY), Guttman Community College, and the Director of Anthropology for Cool Anthropology.
Victoria Costa is a creative innovator who leverages her skills in design thinking, program management, technology and collective action to build community around projects supporting more just societies. Her interests include social permaculture, rethinking education and breaking down the walls of academia to provide wide access to research ideas. She is co-founder and principal strategist at Cool Anthropology, research scholar at the Ronin Institute, and serves on the advisory board of the Oglala Lakota Economic and Cultural Revitalization Initiative (OLCERI).
On September 23rd Danilyn Rutherford, the President of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, held a discussion of how to seek funding for your research in these tumultuous times. Danilyn discussed everything from changes to the application questions to the meaning and ethics of research at a moment when anthropologists and those affected by their work are facing enormous challenges. She also described some of the new programs Wenner-Gren is launching to advance anthropological knowledge, amplify the impact of anthropology, address the precarity of anthropology and anthropologists, and promote an inclusive vision of the field.
