Dr. Robert C. Mainfort, archaeologist and a triple alumnus of the MSU Department of Anthropology (BS 1970, MA 1974, PhD 1977), re-settled in Lansing in 2013 for retirement. MSU Anthropology was honored to bring him on as an adjunct professor, and he recently co-taught a graduate seminar, “Readings in Eastern North American Archaeology” with his long-time buddy from grad school, Dr. William Lovis.

Dr. Mainfort’s most notable work focuses on prehistoric societies in the Midsouth. As Regional Archaeologist in Tennessee, he directed several years of research at Pinson Mounds, one of the largest mound groups in North America, dating to the Middle Woodland period. Some of the mounds had been relatively unstudied prior to his research and were quite large (one was 72 feet tall). His excavations there were the focus of many years of scholarship, and his recent book, Pinson Mounds: Middle Woodland Ceremonialism in the Midsouth (2013), was named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2014 by Choice Magazine.

Dr. Mainfort spent many years working as Regional Archaeologist for the State of Tennessee before taking a position at the University of Arkansas, where he served as Director of Sponsored Research and Series Editor with the Arkansas Archaeological Survey, and taught and mentored grad students as a professor in the Department of Anthropology. One of his favorite projects in Arkansas, produced with the Old State House Museum in Little Rock, was an exhibit of prehistoric Native American artifacts from the turn of the 20th century. Dr. Mainfort curated the exhibit, playfully titled “Raiders of the Lost Arkansas” (2004-2007). The exhibit received an Award of Commendation from the Southeastern Museums Conference and was named Exhibit of the Year by the Arkansas Association of Museums. The exhibit was viewed by about 80,000 people and was also made available through an illustrated book.

On another occasion, Dr. Mainfort’s efforts to bring archaeological and historical knowledge to the public stirred up local politics. Early in his career, he collected data to help reconstruct fortifications at the Civil War site of Ft. Pillow in West Tennessee. His research helped confirm that Ft. Pillow had been the site of a massacre of black Union troops by Confederate soldiers under General Nathan Bedford Forrest. Dr. Mainfort and a colleague, historian John Cimprich, combed through previously untapped materials from the National Archives to piece together what had occurred at the Fort. Their results were published as several articles, including one in The Journal of American History, in which they provided definitive figures that the battle was in fact a massacre in which black soldiers were disproportionately targeted over white Union soldiers. The research came under attack from local white politicians who revered General Forrest as a war hero. Dr. Mainfort became a key contributor to an exhibit about the massacre, where letters that surviving soldiers wrote after the battle were made public for the first time, testifying to the horror that had taken place.

In recent years, much of Dr. Mainfort’s research has focused on late prehistoric mortuary practices in the Midsouth. Most of his data comes from museum collections, including excavation records made over 100 years ago that have largely been ignored by later researchers. These records are very brief by modern standards, but nonetheless contain valuable data.

Considering that people’s ancestors were excavated haphazardly, Dr. Mainfort felt it was important to make good use of the information already obtained. This work also presented opportunities to pass along records to Native peoples, helping tribes connect with scholarship and, in some cases, regain control over ancestral materials (although this isn’t always possible because of contested claims).

As they approached retirement, Dr. Mainfort and his wife (historical archaeologist Mary L. Kwas) longed to return to Michigan. Here they have become involved with civic groups such as the Historical Society of Greater Lansing. They’ve both been writing for the Society’s newsletter and helping with exhibits and collections, including the recent exhibit at City Hall on Prohibition and its aftermath. They also are involved in the Delta-Waverly Garden Club, where they share their love of cultivating daylilies and roses.

Top image: Dr. Mainfort speaking at the exhibit “Raiders of the Lost Arkansas”

Bottom image: Dr.  Mainfort with Mary L. Kwas

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.

The proportion of individuals 65 years of age and older is expected to double by 2050. As such, concerns over their anticipated needs have largely focused on older adults as the recipients of care. I take a different approach by highlighting the fact that older adults can and do serve as caregivers themselves for spouses, siblings, friends, and their grandchildren. My dissertation research examines family dynamics and caregiving practices among African American grandmothers raising grandchildren in Detroit, Michigan. Specifically, I explore the moral obligations for providing care: what circumstances and reasons do grandmothers give for raising their grandchildren?  I also research the resulting material forms, such as family heirlooms and photographs, that emerge as a conduit for displaying affective kinship ties.

In the beginning of my fieldwork, I met with an administrator familiar with caregiving grandparents in Detroit. When asked about the state of these caregiving older adults, they explained: “Many of these women don’t want to do this. They are tired and frustrated and have enough going on with themselves and getting old. Along with everything that comes along with that.” I left their office wanting to learn more about the grandparents who decided to take this responsibility upon themselves. What motivates one take on such an intensive caregiving task?

For the past year, I have sat in on numerous kinship care support group meetings throughout Detroit. Many of the participants are older women. One of the most interesting aspects of my dissertation research has been grappling with the generational difference between group members and myself and how it has shaped our interactions. For example, comments directed towards me are usually punctuated with: ‘You probably are too young to remember this, but..’ Or ‘Back in the day, before you were born…’ On the other hand, because of my age, I have been dubbed the unofficial technology consultant. I might show an older adult how to setup an email account and send an email, or how to text a picture to a relative.

Kinship care support groups are diverse in nature and cater to different populations. During group meetings, members may exchange information about upcoming events or useful services, give updates on their lives, or entertain a guest speaker. I initially heard about kinship support groups through a previous interviewee who, unfortunately, was unable to introduce me herself due to being hospitalized. I arrived to the meeting early making sure to introduce myself to other group members. By the time the meeting started, the group coordinator introduced me as a ‘guest speaker’ and stated the following: ‘Fayana is going to tell us who she is, why she is here, and exactly what she wants from us.’ I spent the next 15 minutes conducting an unexpected Q&A on where I grew up, who my parents were, how much time I’ve spent in Detroit. Eventually, I was able to talk briefly about my research interests.

At this point in my fieldwork, I have conducted interviews primarily with grandmothers raising grandchildren. I ask grandmothers about what they hope their grandchildren learn from them in terms of values, and the material objects that they hope to leave in their wake once they have passed. If I can, I ask that the grandmothers gather family pictures and other items to help facilitate our conversation.  This usually ends up becoming a tour of the household or common living areas and I make sure to take notice of which specific items are pointed out and try to get them to explain their importance. This method helps me understand how material objects inform kinship.

I have interviewed administrators, social workers, and child and family services. Eventually I hope to conduct informal interviews with some of the grandchildren. As part of my fieldwork, I have gone to garage sales, bingo halls, church services, and birthday celebrations of grandmothers and their grandchildren. I’m even learning how to knit. I am also identifying archival sources for an historical perspective on the lives of African American families in Detroit following the Great Migration.

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.

I’m Sean Dunham and I am the Heritage Program Manager/Archaeologist at the Chippewa National Forest (CNF) as well as a triple alum of the MSU Anthropology Department (BA 1985, MA 2011, PhD 2014).  The CNF manages about 660,000 acres in north central Minnesota near the headwaters of the Mississippi River.  Serendipitously, I started working up here soon after my dissertation defense and have been enjoying living and working in the north woods!

There are about 3000 archaeological and historic sites within the boundaries of the CNF and we identify more sites every year.  These range from 10,000 year old Native American sites to twentieth century Forest Service buildings.  My primary responsibility is to ensure activities such as timber harvests or campground development do not impact those sites (as per the National Historic Preservation Act) and to work with other resource managers towards more integrated ecosystem management.

About 40 percent of the CNF land base falls within the boundaries of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe Reservation.  As a result, I work closely with the LLBO Tribal Historic Preservation Office as well as their Heritage Sites Program.  The CNF has had a long heritage partnership with LLBO going back to the late 1980s.  One of the projects we are currently working on is an archaeological survey which is part of a vegetation management project geared towards diversifying and protecting stands of ash trees from emerald ash borers, an invasive insect that has decimated ash populations throughout the Great Lakes region.  Ash fills an important ecological niche in the forest and is also important to the LLBO for making ash bark baskets. Projects like these have mutual significance to the LLBO and the CNF and reflect the link between heritage and natural resource management.

I also work with historic buildings associated with Forest Service and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) activities on the CNF.  The Supervisors Office, where I work, was built in 1936 by the CCC and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (see photo). We just put a new HVAC system in while maintaining the historic character of the building. We also have one of the most complete CCC camps in the US, Camp Rabideau, a National Historic Landmark.  Camp Rabideau, as well as myself, appeared in a video by Prairie Public Television on the CCC in Minnesota (Google it). Rabideau was recently stabilized and restored and we hope to find a partner who might be able to make use of this unique facility (let me know if you know anyone who is interested).

The highlight of my undergraduate experience, and the event that laid the groundwork for where I am today, was the archaeological field school at the Marquette Mission site in 1984. I’ve kept in touch with Dr. Lovis and recently enjoyed seeing him and Drs. O’Gorman and Goldstein as well as numerous other MSU affiliates at the Midwest Archaeological Conference in Milwaukee.

Top image: Dr. Dunham (on left) with Ken Sandi, the heritage program manager at Grey Towers National Historic Site.

Left image: The CNF Supervisors Office in 1953. Dr Dunham’s  office is the second floor window to the right.

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.

Dr. Heather Howard spent the semester as a Visiting Scholar with the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford, where she gave a paper titled, “What’s in a name? ‘Metabolic surgery,’ Curing Diabetes, and the Transformation of Weight Loss Procedures and Patients,” as part of the seminar series of the Unit for Biocultural Variation and Obesity (UBVO).  She also presented her research at the Institute of Preventative Medicine at Frederiksberg Hospital and Governing Obesity group at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, this past March. These papers draw on findings from NIH-funded research carried out with Dr. Linda Hunt, and describe the social transformations of patients with diabetes who undergo bariatric surgery. The larger study focuses on diabetes and explores risk status, treatment responsibility, and clinical care choices, especially as these may differentially impact diverse patient groups.  Her work illustrates how strongly diabetes is a motivation for patients to pursue surgery, and raises questions about the broader socio-political and ethical implications of surgical treatment for diabetes, as well as the implications for group identity and concepts of racial and ethnic difference.

The UBVO at Oxford is an interdisciplinary research unit whose academic work focuses on the various dimensions of obesity, especially the social, cultural and political aspects of the emergence of obesity among many of the world’s populations. It is one of several thematic research interest groups in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA) which organizes weekly seminars given by visiting scholars from throughout the UK and abroad. Dr. Howard attended seminars on medical anthropology, material culture and museum studies, as well as the department’s weekly seminar. During her time there she also had the opportunity to engage with Professor Stanley Ulijaszek, Director of the UBVO, and with other Oxford medical anthropologists with biocultural and ecological perspectives on health, the materiality of biomedicine, identity, and the body. “The intellectually stimulating environment was particularly productive for me in thinking through some of my analysis,” Dr. Howard explains more:

A significant preliminary outcome of the research is that it has brought into relief the complexity of transformations in patient identity compelled by rapidly changing scientific and technological approaches to the treatment of diabetes. These include surgical (bariatric) and health information technological imperatives which are re-conceptualizing patient responsibility and choice in important ways. Of particular interest to me is the extent to which an increased representation of bariatric surgery as a “cure” for diabetes has shifted the landscape of the clinical management of obesity, and dominates the decision-making of patients to pursue surgery. It also presents a valuable case study to highlight the processes by which the political determinants of disease and health unfold, and raises important ethical and policy questions. For instance, how are the lines between patient educational information and marketing blurred in the translation of scientific knowledge production about this approach to diabetes? What issues may arise around access and targeting particular populations? Will a surgical cure for diabetes be a right; a first resort? Might the surgical treatment of diabetes sustain, or even increase inequalities? And, relating back to the genomic focus of our research, how are constructions of metabolic disorder and “faulty” hormones displacing or extending genomic explanatory narratives about diabetes and obesity?

Dr. Howard was also awarded funding from the Provost Undergraduate Research Initiative to support anthropology undergraduate major, Kailyn Williams, who developed analysis of the multiple ways in which insurance coverage impacts bariatric surgery patient experience. She presented this work as a poster at the Undergraduate Research and Arts Forum in April.

Photograph of Dr. Heather Howard (above), taken by Stanley Ulijaszek

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.

The Department of Anthropology is very pleased to introduce our new Graduate Secretary, Joan Reid, who joined the department Fall of 2015. She is a longtime MSU employee and very experienced in working with Graduate Students. She’s been at MSU 26 years, having worked in Urban Affairs and for several language programs in the College of Arts and Letters. Prior to coming to Anthropology Joan worked in the Graduate Office for the School of Social Work’s Masters of Social Work (MSW) and PhD graduate programs.

In Anthropology, Joan provides graduate students with information and resources necessary to progress through the graduate program. She facilitates their progress, from admission to the program through their final defense. She says, “I love working with graduate students and the feeling that in some small way I have contributed to the student’s success by helping them progress through the program.”

Joan attended Muskegon Business College and Lansing Community College but is a diehard Spartan fan. “We bleed GREEN. We are big sports fans, especially the basketball team. Tom Izzo is a fellow Yooper and I am very proud of his success.”

Joan and her husband Tom have two children and one grandson who was born just last year. When not at work, Joan loves spending time with her family, especially outdoors. They love camping and visiting Michigan’s great lakes, and have been to most National Parks. Yosemite is next on her bucket list.

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.

With the end of Spring Semester now in sight, we have a new cohort of promising graduate students waiting in the wings and defending dissertators on center stage.  It may be some sort of record for us this year as we anticipate that 17 Ph.D. students will have defended and submitted their dissertations between August of 2015 and August of 2016. Happy reports of jobs landed and dissertations completed make their way to my door in increasing numbers.

Our newer graduate students are also impressive. With the revenue from our online courses we are able to offer recruiting packages to several very competitive graduate applicants, and all of our first year students for next year will have funding. Two of our pre-ABD students now have prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program Fellowships.

I always look forward to the undergraduate spring commencement and the department reception for our graduates and their families. It’s so rewarding to hear about the great interactions that our undergraduates have had with the faculty, and the wonderful opportunities students engaged in during their time here as we celebrate each of the individual graduates.

Over the past year we have also had many occasions to celebrate faculty achievements, some of which you will see in the pages of this newsletter. Dr. Anne Ferguson will soon be retiring and we highlight her remarkable career in this newsletter. Dr. Judy Pugh and Dr. Kenneth David retired this year and we wish them long and happy retirements. Their keen insights and sharp wits will be missed.

This article appears in our Spring 2016 newsletter. Read the entire newsletter here.