Department of Anthropology

  • MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab Brings Closure to Families

    MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab Brings Closure to Families

    Dr. Joe Hefner of the MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab, housed within the Department of Anthropology, was recently featured on ABC 12 News, a local Mid-Michigan subsidiary. When human remains are found by the Michigan State Police, they are brought to the MSU Forensic Anthropology Lab for identification, as was the case this fall when remains were found in both Saginaw and Flint. Hefner and his team of colleagues and graduate students work tirelessly to create a biological profile of the unidentified individual so that comparisons can be made to existing medical records. These comparisons allow both a positive identification of the body to made and a cause of death determined so that the family can be notified. Their job “is to provide closure for the families first and foremost,” says Hefner.

    To watch the full interview on ABC 12, click here.

    This is not the only job of the lab however. Contained within the Department of Anthropology at Michigan State University, their facility is a teaching area where students come from far and wide to learn forensic and human remain identification techniques. Dr. Hefner and his colleagues hold teaching and research positions as well as the work they do for the Michigan State Police and other law enforcement agencies. The graduate students that work in the lab with him also attend the university full time as anthropology graduate students, completing Master’s and PhD.s and hold part time assistantships as teaching assistants for classes across the university in areas like anatomy, biology and anthropology.

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  • Congratulations Dr. Ryan Klataske!

    Dr. Ryan Klataske defends his dissertation.The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce it’s newest PhD., Dr. Ryan Klataske.

    We are proud to see Ryan come to the completion of his graduate school career here at MSU after the successful defense of his dissertation on December 8th. The department faculty and staff wish Ryan and his family all the best as he moves forward with his professional career.

    Dr. Klataske’s dissertation entitled Wildlife Management and Conservation on Private Land in Namibia: An Ethnographic Account documents the use of common property as a tool for wildlife management and conservation on private ranchland in Namibia. Based on 13 months of ethnographic research, it examines how and why groups of white ranchers have used common property as a tool for managing common-pool wildlife across boundaries of private land. These arrangements and the territories they govern are called freehold or commercial conservancies. His work suggests that common property offered not only a tool for conservation, but also a strategy for survival in post-apartheid southern Africa. By working together, these ranchers attempted to construct a new niche for themselves based on the conservation and sustainable use of African wildlife. Since the early 1990s, freehold conservancy members have transformed their relationship to wildlife and each other, contributing to the conservation of wildlife and habitat on private land. Yet, despite their accomplishments, many ranchers see their efforts as failing or falling short. Their disillusionment stems from the politics of land, fear of a potentially predatory state, and an insecure sense of belonging.

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  • Dr. Lovis named editor for Midwest Archaeological Perspectives Series

    Dr. William LovisDr. William (Bill) Lovis has been named the inaugural Editor for a new book series, Midwest Archaeological Perspectives, launched by a partnership between the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Inc. and the University of Notre Dame Press.  The series will include the most compelling and current works of archaeological narrative and insight for the American Midwest region, exploring standing questions from new vantage points, and innovative new questions arising from the deployment of cutting edge theory and method.

    The American Mid-continent, stretching from the Appalachians to the Great Plains, and from the Boreal Forests to the Gulf of Mexico, is home to a rich and deep multi-ethnic past that even after 150 years of exploration continues to fascinate scholars and the public alike. Beginning with colonization by the first Native American big game hunters, through the origins of domestic food production and construction of the largest earthen monuments in North America, and ultimately the entry of multiple colonial empires and their varying interactions with native populations, the story of the region is an exciting one of changing cultural and environmental interactions and adaptive strategies. The diverse environments that characterize the region have fostered a multiplicity of solutions to the problem of survival, ranging from complex sedentary agriculturally intensive societies to those with highly refined seasonal resource strategies keyed to timed movement and social flexibility.

    For more information about this series, check out the Midwest Archaeological Perspectives page here.

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  • LEADR lab featured in the State News

    LEADR labThe Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR) was recently featured in the State News, highlighting Anthropology graduate and undergraduate students. This lab is a collaboration between the Department of History, Department of Anthropology, and MATRIX: The Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences to allow students to engage with digital tools and technologies and to learn new digital pedagogies. It is open to Anthropology and History majors and those who have a course hosted in the lab.

    LEADR, located in Old Horticulture Hall, is changing the way social sciences and humanities are traditionally researched, turning text-heavy publications into documentaries, turning podcasts, photographs and diagrams into 3-D models or interactive maps. Basically, the program veers away from traditional historical and anthropological research and switches to modern, digital, innovative platforms.

    “It’s given me the ability to be digitally literate,” anthropology senior Hannah Trevino, said. “In one of my classes I learned how to code, which allowed me to maybe not do it proficiently in my own setting, but I can at least speak the language.”  Trevino didn’t know how to utilize technology tools before her class as few have prior experience with these kinds of digital resources before utilizing the lab.

    “It’s not just a paper that is read by the student and the professor and then is thrown in the trash, but they’re projects that contribute to ongoing discussions about history, culture and heritage,” the director of the lab, Brandon Locke said of the projects created here.

    LEADR represents the Department of Anthropology’s commitment to thoughtful digitally inflected work in anthropology and cultural heritage.

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  • Congratulations Dr. Fayana Richards!

    The Department of Anthropology would like to congratulate our newest PhD. Dr. Fayana Richards!

    Dr. Fayana RichardsWe are very excited to see Fayana come to the completion of her graduate career here at MSU after the successful defense of her dissertation on November 21 and we wish her and her family all the best as she moves forward with her professional career.

    Fayana’s research recognizes the role of older African American women in providing care for their own grandchildren, nieces, nephews and even non-kin, crediting historical and structural factors that have shaped observed forms of African American kinship and caregiving patterns. Her dissertation explores African American grandmothers’ motivations for providing care and their associated caregiving practices. In identifying their motivations to care, her research focuses on how relatedness is constituted, as a form of sociality, between grandparents and kin, as well as between non-kin. Questions such as; How are ties of caregiving responsibility created and maintained among grandmothers caring for their grandchildren? How are perceptions of the good life and wellbeing related to transmitting values to their grandchildren? were examined.

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  • Congratulations Dr. Adam Haviland!

    The Department of Anthropology would like to congratulate our newest PhD., Dr. Adam Haviland!

    We are very excited to see him come to the completion of his graduate career here at MSU after the successful defense of his dissertation on November 13 and we wish him and his family all the best as he moves forward with his professional career.

    His research shows how Lansing, Michigan, Nkwejong (the place where the rivers come together) has a long history as an Indigenous intersection and space that challenges the local settler-colonial narratives of removal and erasure. Lansing has remained an Indigenous space through traditions of movement and migration that were driven by the auto industry and educational opportunities. Through these movements, Anishinabek from reservations in and around Manitoulin Island came here in the 1960s and 1970s who were fluent speakers of Anishinaabemowin. Anishinabek from Canada and local Anishinabek, who had lost the language, created community and belonging through educational programs. These spaces have become focal points where community comes together and, for many individuals, are the primary spaces where language, culture, and identity are reclaimed and passed on. However, these are also spaces of tension where gender roles, language ideologies, and linguistic practices concerning language as an ideological marker of identity and its role as a communicative system are challenged and reimagined.

     

     

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  • MSU alumna discusses volunteer tourism

    Dr. Andrea Freidus recently published a piece in The Conversation, an online not-for-profit media outlet. Her piece entitled “Volunteer tourism: what’s wrong with it and how can it be changed,” came out on November 8th.

    Here is a small excerpt from her piece: “Volunteer tourism, or voluntourism, is an emerging trend of travel linked to “doing good”. Yet these efforts to help people and the environment have come under heavy criticism – I believe for good reason.

    Voluntourists’ ability to change systems, alleviate poverty or provide support for vulnerable children is limited. They simply don’t have the skills. And they can inadvertently perpetuate patronising and unhelpful ideas about the places they visit.” To read the full article, click here.

    Dr. Andrea Freidus received her PhD. from the Department of Anthropology at MSU in 2011 entitled “Raising Malawi’s Children: AIDS Orphans and a Politics of Compassion” under the guidance of her chair, Dr. Anne Ferguson. Currently, Dr. Freidus is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at University of North Carolina, Charlotte. She specializes in applied and medical anthropology. She also has an Masters of Public Health in global public health. She has worked in Latin America, Africa, and South Florida. Her research has looked at the rise of grassroots transnational organizations targeting aid to orphans in Malawi, southern Africa. She explores the emerging global connections among volunteers, donors, development workers, program organizers and the directors associated with these organizations and the children they serve.

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  • Open Faculty Position: Assistant or Untenured Associate Professor in Archaeology

    Michigan State University Department of Anthropology in the College of Social Science invites applications for a tenure-system position in archaeology at the assistant or untenured associate professor level. The appointment will begin August 16, 2018. We seek an anthropological archaeologist specializing in Environmental Archaeology. Successful applicants will have appropriate research background, skills, and training to interact effectively with other disciplines across issues of human-environment interactions. These skills may include multidisciplinary training in related fields including laboratory analysis, computer modeling, and data-science methods. Applicant’s research should enhance or compliment current department strengths in anthropological archaeology or our emerging strength in cultural heritage studies. Interdisciplinary research and an interest in the application of archaeology to current human issues are desirable. We seek a candidate with an established track record of external funding or the promise of attracting external funding.

    To view full posting, including requirements and deadlines, visit careers.msu.edu (search for job #469082). Alternatively, visit http://careers.msu.edu/cw/en-us/job/497908/associate-professortenure-system directly.

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  • Campus Archaeology Program Featured on MSU Today

    The Campus Archaeology Program was recently featured in MSU Today.  The article and video (below) explored their excavations of Station Terrace as part of the program’s summer fieldschool.

    To read the full article, go to http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2017/digging-deep-msu-campus-archaeology-uncovers-history/

  • Bill Derman Enjoys a Productive Retirement

    bill dermanDr. Bill Derman retired from MSU in 2006, but has hardly slowed down. In fact, since moving to Norway and joining the faculty at the Norwegian University of the Life Sciences (NMBU) in the Department of International Environment and Development Studies (Noragric), his academic life has flourished. He’s started new collaborative projects and published prolifically thanks to funding from the Research Council of Norway. In 2010 he even “retired” a second time (from NMBU which has a forced retirement age), but continues to teach. His research since he left MSU has taken four tracks: land reform and land restitution in South Africa, the migration from Zimbabwe of Zimbabweans to Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia, Integrated Water Resources Management and water governance in Zimbabwe, and water, gender and human rights in southern Africa. This research has led to new international collaborations and new publications. One edited volume entitled In the Shadow of a Conflict: Crisis in Zimbabwe and its effects in Mozambique, South Africa and Zambia co-edited with Randi Kaarhus Harare, came out in 2013. Another volume co-edited by Dr. Derman came out that same year, this one called World of Human Rights: The Ambiguities of Rights Claiming in Africa. This latter book project began with a symposium honoring him on the occasion of his MSU retirement, and features MSU alumni such as Kari Bergstrom Henquinet, Andrea Friedus, and Natalie J. Bourdon.

    Dr. Derman’s most recent publication is a special issue of Water Alternatives. He is co-author on five of the articles as well as a guest editor. Additionally, he has co-authored a book with a PhD student at NMBU (Shai Divon) analyzing US development assistance policy in Africa since WWII (Routledge 2017). Their historical analysis demonstrates how the development policy was based upon US strategic interests rather than the needs of people in Africa. At NMBU, Dr. Derman continues to teach on the topics he’s always loved including International Development Studies, human rights and political ecology. He fondly recalls working with CASID and the African Studies Center to teach capstone and graduate courses at MSU. He enjoyed fruitful collaborations at MSU as well, with colleagues such as Anne Ferguson and David Wiley. While at MSU, Dr. Derman served on around 20 dissertation commit-tees and has been gratified to see most of his former students get tenure track jobs.

    Dr. Derman’s research has always been driven by a commitment to the rights and well being of poor and disenfranchised Africans, but his optimism about social change is tempered by his understanding of the complexities of their world. While he consistently works for social justice during his research, the results have been partial. In the 1980s, he and colleagues helped halt a dam project in the Gambian Basin which would have had a disastrous human impact, but he notes that it was largely the economic analysis that convinced officials. He also tried promoting a human rights based approach to water in Zimbabwe, and although human rights language was eventually incorporated into the constitution, he questions whether it will be implemented. The customary rights to water he documented remain unrecognized. “Over time you realize you can’t change the power relationships where you work; it’s their lives, connections, and networks.” But the privilege of entering the lives of people has allowed him to observe human resilience, even in oppressive conditions. “In the places I have worked, I see a highly problematic future. But when you scratch the surface and view the lives that people lead it’s always much richer, less bleak, and filled with hidden potentials.”

    Click here to read the full newsletter.

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