Department of Anthropology

  • Dr. Linda Hunt and Dr. Heather Howard Awarded NIH Grant

    Dr. Linda Hunt and Dr. Heather Howard Awarded NIH Grant
    Dr. Hunt and Dr. Howard, via Katy Meyers
    Dr. Hunt and Dr. Howard, via Katy Meyers

    Dr. Linda Hunt and Dr. Heather Howard have been awarded a major National Institute of Health (NIH) grant to study the complex relationships between electronic health records, genomic concepts, clinical decision-making, and patient self-perception. Their study is designed to: 1) Examine how clinicians integrate genomic concepts with their existing understandings of racial identity, risk and responsibility, 2) Understand how patients interpret these complex concepts, and 3) Examine how electronic health records systems may promote concepts of biological racial/ethnic difference, and the consequences of these practices for individual clinicians and patients.

    The focus of the study will be diabetes management clinics currently using electronic health record systems (EHRs). The use of EHRs is expanding rapidly, and is intended to improve efficiency and increase standardization. However their rapid implementation has occurred without careful consideration of how their use may be redefining  clinical care. Drs. Hunt and Howard seek to identify ways that concepts of genomic difference are being articulated in EHRs, and consider how clinical care may be changed by the use of these new technologies. They want to address how different racial and ethnic group identities are treated within this changing landscape of health care. The project is designed to produce broad insights into the impact of new technologies on clinical care, so that these technologies may be implemented in ways that maximize equal access and unbiased treatment for diverse groups.

    The grant will provide multiple years of support for ethnographic research, including participant observation in diabetes management centers, of clinical consultations, nutritional counseling sessions, support groups and any other health services patients may be receiving. They will also conduct interviews with patients and practitioners, and review electronic health records as they are used throughout the process of care.

    Dr. Hunt and Dr. Howard’s research is important because it demonstrates how an anthropological lens can be used to critically consider how healthcare is being transformed through increasing reliance on genomic concepts, and use of EHRs. Their approach will provide an ethnographic perspective on the ways these innovations are entering into routine practices of everyday health care and their immediate impact on individual clinicians and patients.

    [This Article is featured in the Winter 2014 Department of Anthropology Newsletter]

  • New Book Co-Edited by Dr. Najib Hourani and Dr. Edward Murphy – The Housing Question: Tensions, Continuities, and Contingencies in the Modern City

    New Book Co-Edited by Dr. Najib Hourani and Dr. Edward Murphy – The Housing Question: Tensions, Continuities, and Contingencies in the Modern City

    PPCspine22mmThe Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce the release of the new book  The Housing Question: Tensions, Continuities and Contingencies in the Modern City Co-edited by Dr. Najib Hourani (Anthropology) and Dr. Edward Murphy (MSU Department of History), the book is publishing by Ashgate Publishing.

    The volume explores how housing raises a series of vexing issues surrounding rights, identity, governance, and justice in the modern city.  The volume analyzes the ways in which homeownership and other types of housing tenure embody suppositions about the proper nature of the urban order, such as the rights of citizenship, ideologies of the nation, and forms of spatial development.  Through finely detailed studies that illuminate national and regional particularities— including analyses of urbanism in the Soviet Union, the post-Katrina reconstruction of New Orleans, and squatting in contemporary Lima— the volume underscores how housing questions matter in a wide range of contexts.  Drawing on approaches from architecture, sociology, anthropology, history, and geography, the book develops an interdisciplinary, integrated perspective.  This approach illuminates ruptures and continuities between high modernist and neoliberal forms of urbanism, ultimately demonstrating how housing and the dilemmas surrounding it are central to modern governance.

    Featured Image Photo credit: Najib Hourani

  • Department of Anthropology Featured in American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology TV

    The Department of Anthropology is very pleased to announce that it was one of fourteen institutions featured on the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology TV.  Launched at the 2013 AAA annual meeting in Chicago, the profile on the Department of Anthropology featured on Anthropology TV  focused on our unique experiential learning opportunities for both graduate and undergraduate students.

  • Department Alumna A.R. Vasavi Receives Prestigious Infosys Science Foundation Prize

    Department of Anthropology Alumna A.R. Vasavi has been awarded the Infosys Science Foundation’s Prize in Social Sciences. Vasavi, who received her PhD in 1996, is currently Senior Fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library.  As noted in the award announcement, Vasavi received the award for her distinctive and pioneering research that spans a remarkable range covering four main areas: Agrarian society at the intersection of economy, culture and environment; school education in varied regional contexts; globalization and its impact on the moral economy of urban occupations; and social science as seen from the vantage point of Indian languages and regional cultures.

  • Ethan Watrall gives Keynote at Network Detroit Conference

    Ethan Watrall (Assistant Professor; Director, Cultural Heritage Informatics Initiative, Associate Director, MATRIX: Center for Digital Humanities & Social Sciences) delivered the keynote for the Network Detroit: Digital Humanities Theory and Practice conference. Bringing together the universities and museums of Southeast Michigan, Network Detroit is a conference aimed at sharing and promoting cutting-edge digital work in the humanities. The conference was  held at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan on September 27-28.

    Titled “Towards a Model of Openness in Digital Cultural Heritage,” the keynote parsed the idea of openness, exploring the issue both broadly and within the unique context of praxis in digital cultural heritage.  In order to maximize its value to scholars, professional practitioners, and institutions, the talk also suggest a series of thoughtful strategies that can be leveraged in order to better embrace a more open approach to work within digital cultural heritage.

  • Dr. Ethan Watrall and Dr. Lynne Goldstein featured in MSU Today for MSU.seum app

    MSU Today featured an article about the collaboratively created mobile application MSU.seum that was created by MSU Anthropology professors Dr. Ethan Watrall and Dr. Lynne Goldstein. The free mobile app allows you to explore the archaeology and heritage of the university’s campus, and uses geopositioning to identify the user’s location. For example, if the user was between Linton Hall and MSU Museum, the app would point them to Saints’ Rest, the first dorm on campus. They would learn about the history of this building and the archaeological work that was done there as well.  The original design of the app began within the first Cultural Heritage Field School, and based on this first product Watrall and Goldstein decided to expand it. In the future, they hope to get funding to further develop MSU.seum to include a social aspect that would allow for communication and discussion online.

    If you want to learn more about the project, you can read the full article here:

    http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/2013/free-app-digs-into-msu-history/

  • Mindy Morgan to Speak at School for Advanced Research

    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.

  • Department of Anthropology PhD Student Emily Niespodziewanski Receives JPAC Fellowship

    Physical anthropology graduate student Emily Niespodziewanski has been accepted as a fellow for the 2013 Forensic Science Academy held by the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory (JPAC-CIL) at Hickam Joint Base in Honolulu, Hawaii. This marks the sixth year of the Forensic Science Academy, a four-month fellowship during which fellows are in residence at the CIL and receive specialized training in forensic anthropology, archaeology, and lab techniques. Fellows also participate in a 35-day field mission to East Asia to aid in the recovery of the remains of American military personnel. Emily will be at the CIL from August to December 2013.

  • Recent PhD Carolyn Hurst was awarded the Ellis R. Kerley Scholarship

    Recent PhD Carolyn Hurst was awarded the Ellis R. Kerley Scholarship from the Kerley Foundation in February 2013. “The Ellis R. Kerley Forensic Sciences Foundation was established in 2000 in memory of Ellis R. Kerley Ph.D., Forensic Anthropologist (1924-1998). Ellis R. Kerley, one of the leading anthropologists, was a pioneer force in the creation of Forensic Anthropology. The Foundation, a charitable organization, is dedicated to furthering the development of forensic anthropology by assisting students in the field of anthropology and continuing the research in forensic identification of the skeleton” (http://kerleyfoundation.org/about-us/). This scholarship is awarded based on character, personal and academic merit and commitment. Merit is demonstrated through leadership in school, civic and extracurricular activities, academic achievement, and motivation to serve and succeed. The award was conferred at the Kerley Reception for the Physical Anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

  • Latest Issue of the Department of Anthropology Newsletter – Spring, 2013

    Our latest issue of the Department of Anthropology Newsletter (Spring, 2013) is out! Be sure to check out the latest news!