We are pleased to announce that Dr. Mindy Morgan, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, will be delivering a public talk on July 10 at the School for Advanced Research. Dr. Morgan’s talk “Anthropologists at Work: The Production and Reproduction of Anthropological Knowledge in Indians at Work, 1933–1945” explores the ways in which anthropological expertise was produced in Indians at Work, a magazine published by the Office of Indian Affairs from 1933–1945.
From the the SAR website:
“Anthropologists at Work” explores the ways in which anthropological expertise was produced in Indians at Work, a magazine published by the Office of Indian Affairs from 1933–1945. While the magazine was primarily dedicated to chronicling American Indian participation in federal relief programs, particularly the Indian Emergency Conservation Work (IECW), Indians at Work served as a larger forum for publishing, and in many cases, republishing, ethnographic works authored by anthropologists about indigenous communities during the early twentieth century. This presentation examines the tensions that developed between anthropologists and the Office of Indian Affairs about the aims and goals of anthropological research and focuses on the strains within the discipline regarding the application of disciplinary knowledge to governmental policy.