Dr. Chantal Tetreault announces the publication of her new book Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités, available from Wiley-Blackwell starting May of 2015.
From the publisher’s website: Transcultural Teens provides readers with a window onto the cultural and linguistic creativity of the housing projects, or cités, that ring Paris, showing how young people of Algerian Arab origins play with language in fascinating ways that subvert commonly held notions of intercultural animosity.
Dr. Andrea Louie’s new book How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture was released in August of 2015. In it, Dr. Louie examines the challenges Chinese adoption presents to families trying to honor their children’s “birth culture.” This ethnographic study analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course.
Available through NYU PRESS:
http://nyupress.org/books/9781479894635/
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
The Department of Anthropology is very happy to announce that Sabrina Perlman (left) and Julie Fleischman (right) have been awarded Fulbright IIE Grants. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Julie will conduct her dissertation research on Khmer Rouge regime violence by analyzing skeletal trauma and memorialization in Cambodia. Sabrina will conduct her dissertation research on the gender dynamics of self-managing type 2 diabetes in Ghana.
Julie Fleischman and Sabrina Perlman have been awarded Fulbright IIE U.S. Student Program research grants. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Julie will conduct her dissertation research on Khmer Rouge regime violence by analyzing skeletal trauma and memorialization in Cambodia. Sabrina will conduct her dissertation research on the gender dynamics of self-managing type 2 diabetes in Ghana.
The Department of Anthropology is honored to announce that Dr. Todd Fenton and Dr. Joseph Hefner have been selected as inaugural members of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) Subcommittee on Anthropology. This is part of the larger organization, National Institute of Justice and National Institute on Standards and Technology, made up of more than 500 forensic science practitioners and other experts who represent local, state and federal agencies, and are within academia and industry. Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner were announced in October 2014 as two initial members of OSAC’s subcommittee on Anthropology, and the first inaugural meeting of the committee took place in January 2015. The Subcommittee on Anthropology is a subsection of Crime Scene/ Death Investigation and part of the new OSAC. The broader goal of the initiative is to develop standards and best practice guidelines for the discipline.
The Subcommittee on Anthropology is an eighteen member committee that includes the top practitioners and researchers within Forensic Anthropology. Within the subcommittee, each member serves as a co-chair on a different best-practice guideline committee. Dr. Fenton is the Executive Secretary and co-chairs the Personal Identification and Trauma Analysis committees, and Dr. Hefner is serving as the co-chair for the Statistical Methods and Ancestry committees. The goal of the subcommittee is to establish best-practice guidelines for the discipline that will become standards for the field. This is an important step in that these standards can be referenced in court, helpful for legislation in the future, and will promote the use of common standards among forensic practitioners. Both Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner strongly believe in having these standards not only to improve the methods of discipline, but also to create stronger guidelines for personal and laboratory certification. These documents will set qualifications for who can be considered a forensic expert, promoting more rigorous certification of individuals and training labs, which will further add weight to court testimonials.
It is an honor for Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner to have been selected for these position, and is a positive reflection of the broader Department of Anthropology. Their service on these committees for the next four years or more, and will help to improve forensic anthropology as a discipline. The guidelines and standards developed by the Subcommittee on Anthropology will be living documents that will continue to be updated to reflect with new research and advancements. For now, the current goal is to create the first set of standards so that this process can begin.
You can learn more about the Subcommittee on Anthropology, as well as the broader Organization of Scientific Area Committees on their website at: http://www.nist.gov/forensics/osac/sub-anth.cfm
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
With increasing archaeological applications of natural and physical scientific technology, there is an increased need to train students in their principles, application, interpretation and reporting. By doing this, students are able to compete successfully in a changing employment landscape. Working in tandem with Prof Tyrone Rooney (Geological Sciences), William Lovis and Rooney were awarded a $48,000 Provost’s Office TLE grant for purchase of a handheld (portable) X-Ray Florescence (pXRF) instrument for student training and research in advanced technologies. The Bruker Environmental Tracer unit acquired for this purpose will be housed in Geological Sciences. Lovis, along with graduate students Frank and Nicole Raslich, have undertaken EHS and State of Michigan training certification for use of analytical X-ray apparatus.
The portable XRF is in common use in archaeology and museum studies as a vehicle for evaluating artifacts to determine their material sources, compositions, technologies, and transmission. This can help answer questions about tool production, migration, manufacturing processes and more. The technology is effectively applied to a broad range of raw material categories common in archaeological analysis, including ceramics, stone, metals, glass, pigments, food remains and others. Moreover, the technology is in use in facilities at universities, museums, government agencies, and in private enterprise. Students appropriately trained in this technology will have an advantage in a competitive employment market especially in Heritage Management and environmentally related programs and projects funded by public dollars. These careers place a premium on the ability to employ various cutting edge technologies, portable XRF among them. Bruker Environmental will provide a comprehensive, on-site, training session at MSU for potential users. Students will be informed of scheduling particulars, and are urged to take advantage of this training opportunity when presented.
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
In November 2012, Anthropology PhD students including Adam Haviland, Marie Schaefer, Kehli Henry, Nikki Silva, and Mike Cavanaugh, and law students from the Indigenous Law Program, including Sarah Donnelly, Nellie David and John Simermeyer, started a new graduate student organization at MSU for American Indian/indigenous students and other students interested in indigenous issues and scholarship. They created the Indigenous Graduate Student Collective (IGSC) to provide a space to collaborate, debate, and address common issues for graduate students working on indigenous issues across the University.
The founding members were also inspired by a meeting with the University of Toronto Native Students Association, organized by Dr. Heather Howard in October 2011. Marie Schaefer explains, “We were inspired by their organization and the work they do to bring a similar group to life on MSU’s campus.” While MSU already had an indigenous undergraduate student group, the North American Indigenous Student Organization, graduate students felt it was important to have a group to support their distinct experience as graduate students. As Sarah Donnelly explains “It’s easy to just focus on school work and forget why we came to school in the first place: to help our tribe. The Native American Law Student Association (NALSA) and other native student organizations are a great way to collaborate and find support over native issues as well.”
Since its founding the collective has worked on building connections with indigenous graduate students across campus. According to former member Victoria Sweet, “What I think is so valuable about this particular group is the potential it has for building strong inter-departmental connections. Sometimes those connections are hard to make because we are all so busy with our own coursework and research that we don’t make the time to reach out. Bringing the strengths of the various graduate programs together will only improve the quality of the conversation about American Indian issues on campus and provide greater opportunities for all students involved.” The mission of the IGSC is to promote indigenous scholarship and camaraderie among graduate students while building campus and community connections. One of the many objectives of the IGSC is to offer learning opportunities and to forge partnerships and community ties. In order to meet the needs of its members, IGSC has held a number of events including a symposium and an all day writing workshop, and faculty fry bread forums where members are able to ask questions of AISP faculty from across campus about graduate school and research while eating homemade fry bread.
If you are interested in learning more about the IGSC you can visit their website at: www.msuigsc.weebly.com or email them at: msu.igsc@gmail.com.
In 1974 and 1975 Professor William Lovis performed the original archaeological survey for what would become Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore – one of Michigan’s premier tourist destinations. Lovis had an opportunity to return to Sleeping Bear during summer 2014 as part of an interdisciplinary, inter-departmental, inter-institutional partnership with the National Park Service to investigate the effects of global climate change on endangered archaeological sites – their taphonomy and preservation.
Working closely with NPS liaison Laura Quackenbush, under both Archaeological Resource Protection Act and National Environmental Policy Act permits, a team of researchers including G. William Monaghan, and Andrew Stewart performed extensive landscape reconstruction and sediment and charcoal sampling in the vicinity of precontact occupation areas dating ca. AD 700-1200. These samples are being OSL and AMS dated at Illinois State Geological Survey, with funds provided by a public/private partnership with the local business Cherry Republic, courtesy of Mr. Robert Sutherland. Wood samples from rooted trees, and dated ca. AD 1448 have been identified by Prof. Frank Telewski from MSU Plant Biology as northern white pine. Dune processes are being reconstructed by Prof. Alan Arbogast, MSU Geography.
The goal is to reconstruct the dynamic landscape evolution of the area, and predict long term effects of climate change on the future of cultural resources. Lovis and colleagues hope to continue this exciting research throughout the coming year, and use the information to enhance interpretive information available to park visitors.
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
Dr. Julie Pelletier’s planned to specialize in medical anthropology when she arrived at MSU. However, her academic career took a different direction when she was awarded doctoral research funding by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians to conduct a project on indigenous identity. She completed the PhD program in 2002, after being hired into a tenure track position in Anthropology at the University of Minnesota – Morris (UMM). UMM had actually been an Indian residential school in the late 1800s. To counter this history, Dr. Pelletier faculty in English and a senior professor in History to create a major and a minor in American Indian Studies. The creation and administration of an American Indian Studies program provided Dr. Pelletier with valuable experience in curriculum evaluation, resource allocation, program planning, and other challenges related to an interdisciplinary program.
After earning tenure and promotion to associate professor at UMM, Julie took a position, as the director of Aboriginal Governance Program, at the University of Winnipeg. She was the first person hired into the program without a law, political science, or Canadian Aboriginal studies background. With the support of her faculty, Dr. Pelletier launched a successful effort to promote the program to full department status; its name was changed to the Department of Indigenous Studies, and Dr. Pelletier’s title was changed from Director to Chair. During Dr. Pelletier’s five years as Chair, the department has hired two permanent faculty members, raising the total to five, and has developed and added almost twenty courses to the curriculum.
During Dr. Pelletier’s first year at UW, she was also appointed as the founding director of a new applied master’s program, a role she held for eighteen months. The Master’s in Development Practice (MDP) degree is offered by an international consortium of universities, with seed funding provided by the MacArthur Foundation. UW is one of two Canadian universities offering the MDP degree and the only one in the world with an indigenous focus. As Director of the MDP, Dr. Pelletier Developed extensive international contacts. In 2004, she attended the first United Nations Forum on Business and Human Rights in Geneva. She has established several Memorandums of Understanding for UW with colleges and universities domestically and abroad that have a commitment to indigenizing the academy. She is proud to note that undergraduate students in her department know more about indigenous peoples in Canada and the world than most people, academics and policy-makers included.
Dr. Pelletier’s interest in American Indian casinos, which began in during her doctoral fieldwork, has continued, and she is currently co-editing a book on representations related to casinos and gaming in Canada and the U.S. with Dr. Becca Gercken, a faculty member in English at UMM. The contributors come from both Canada and the U.S. and range from the social sciences to the humanities. Michigan State University Press is the publisher, and the press’s “sister” relationship with a Canadian academic press means that the book will be easily available in both countries. Julie has also conducted fieldwork in New Zealand/Aotearoa, with a focus on indigenizing and decolonizing research methods and ethics. While her heavy administrative duties have constrained her research agenda, Julie is active in professional organizations, regularly presents at conferences, and is committed to mentoring junior scholars. Her five year term as Department Chair ends soon and she will enjoy a year of reintegration leave, intended to allow former chairs to rest and recharge. During this leave, Dr. Pelletier will be a visiting professor at several American universities and she is considering a trip to Finland, Sweden, and Norway to build contacts with the indigenous Sami people and she has been invited to New Zealand/Aotearoa and the Philippines.
This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
