Department of Anthropology

  • Heather Howard Receives Grant to Study Diabetes in First Nations Communities

    Heather Howard Receives Grant to Study Diabetes in First Nations Communities

    In 2010-2011, Dr. Howard led a collaborative research project with the One Nation in Unity Youth Program of the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto and local Aboriginal diabetes educators to gather the perspectives of Aboriginal persons living with diabetes in Toronto, and of providers of health and social services which impact diabetes prevention and management in this community. That project was funded by the Indigenous Health Research Development Program (a Canadian Institutes of Health Research sub-grant). This project will continue Aboriginal youth engagement in the dissemination of perspectives that were gathered during the initial research, and bring together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health and social service providers to review and assess strategies to incorporate results of the research into practices that support the development of more efficient better quality services aimed at the prevention and management of diabetes within the Aboriginal community. The research emphasizes the significance of urbanization for Aboriginal health, and the ways in which the social determinants of Aboriginal people’s health are elaborated by a multiplicity of healthcare knowledges and practices, unique urban-adapted kinship and social networks, as well as gender, age, socioeconomic and cultural diversities. The research will also examine shifts in the production of knowledge emerging from the evolving implementation of the new Canadian ethics guidelines (Tri-Council Policy Statement 2, Chapter 9) required for research with Aboriginal communities, focusing in particular on the capacity-building and dialogical processes of knowledge translation. The study is situated in the context of broader analyses of the dynamics and complexities of fluctuating Native community culture and politics in social and health service delivery, which Dr. Howard has described elsewhere in her publications.

    Howard, H.A. Principal Investigator, “Sharing Transformation of Diabetes Prevention and Management for and by Urban Aboriginal Peoples,” Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Meetings, Planning and Dissemination Grant – Knowledge Translation Supplement Priority Announcement: First Nations Inuit or Métis  ($98,069).

    [IMAGE: Urban Aboriginal Diabetes Research Project Team in training during this recently completed community-based project led by Anishnawbe Health Toronto. Left front (and then clockwise) Heather Howard (Co-lead Investigator), Ernie Sandy (Indigenous Research Integrity Advisor), Krystine Abel (RA), Jessica Keeshig-Martin (RA), Lynn Lavallee (Co-lead Investigator), Nancy Sagmeister (Project Coordinator), Carolyn Akiwenzie (RA, standing), Melissa Riciutti (RA).]

  • MSU Scientists Identify Brucellosis in Ancient Skeletal Remains

    MSU Scientists Identify Brucellosis in Ancient Skeletal Remains

    For the first time, researchers have found brucellosis in ancient skeletal remains. In collaboration with Albanian archaeologists at the site of Butrint, MSU Anthropology’s Dr. Todd Fenton confirmed the presence of this infectious disease in medieval bones. Brucellosis, still a problem in modern Mediterranean countries, presents very similar skeletal pathology to tuberculosis, but DNA samples analyzed by Dr. David Foran of MSU Criminal Justice determined that the skeletal damage was instead caused by brucellosis. Their findings were published in the February 2012 volume of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.” MSU News Report: http://research.msu.edu/stories/msu-scientists-crack-medieval-bone-code

  • 2012 Morton Village Fieldschool Currently Accepting Applications (Deadline 4/27/12)

    The Morton Village Fieldschool is current accepting applications – with a deadline of April 27th, 2012

    The MortonVillage Fieldschool focuses on the Morton Village Site, a late prehistoric village in the central Illinois River Valley near Lewistown, Illinois. This cooperative project with the Illinois State Museum focuses on the A.D. 1300-1400 community associated with a period of social integration and conflict among Oneota and Mississippian groups. Our work builds on prior research at the site, utilize state-of the-art geophysical techniques, and have a strong public outreach component. Students are exposed to survey work as well as excavation.

    As in any archaeological field school, students learn through hands-on application of methods. Students are contributing members of the research team, and work closely with the instructor, teaching assistants, and other professional archaeologists and specialists. We are fortunate to have the Dickson Mounds Museum of the Illinois State Museum as partners in this research endeavor. We utilize the museum as a place to learn about the rich archaeological record of the region, and draw on the considerable expertise of the archaeologists at that institution. Our field lab is also housed at the museum.

    For more information please go here. The fieldschool application form can be downloaded here (PDF)

     

     

  • Sean Dunham Recipient of 2012 SAA Student Paper Award

    Sean Dunham Recipient of 2012 SAA Student Paper Award

    The Department of Anthropology is very pleased to announce that PhD Candidate Sean Dunham has been chosen as recipient for the Society for American Archaeology 2012 Student Paper Award for his paper entitled Late Woodland Landscapes in the Eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

    ABSTRACT: This explores pre-European settlement ecosystems in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Pilot studies have shown that Late Woodland peoples utilized certain environments more extensively than others and also modified landscapes through their activities. Likewise, there is evidence that Native Americans used fire for landscape modification in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. While forest and understory clearing for horticulture has been viewed as the primary rationale for this burning, evidence for habitat improvement for other resources is presented. Finally, the evidence is also considered in relation to prehistoric land use in the region.

  • University Relations Faculty Conversations: Andrea Louie

    University Relations Faculty Conversations: Andrea Louie

    Dr. Andrea Louie, Director of the Asian Pacific American Studies program and Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, talks with university about her research on the adoption of Chinese children by American parents. To read the story and watch Dr. Louie’s video interview, visit http://news.msu.edu/staff-faculty/story/10270

    [photo copyright: MSU University Relations]

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • GSA’s Silent Auction

    The GSA is looking for awesome, unusual, and/or beautiful treasures to feature in this year’s Silent Auction.  If you would like to donate a treasure, please bring the item to 412 Baker Hall anytime between 9-5pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays or contact Sylvia (deskajsy@msu.edu) to make other arrangements.  We need your donations  to make this auction successful.

    We are accepting donations until Thursday, March 1st, 2012.

    Please be sure to label your donated item with the following pieces of information:

    1) What is it?
    2) Where is it from?
    3) A suggested opening bid price

    For those who are new to the department: donated items will be on display for approximately two weeks.  During this time, people will come, look, and “bid” by writing on the bid sheet attached to each individual item.  At the end of the two-week period, the highest bidder will have won the item for the price they indicated.

    Thanks,
    GSA

     

  • Saints’ Rest Project Receives Governer’s Award

    One of six Governor’s Awards for Historic Presevation was presented to MSU for the Saints’ Rest Archaeological Project on May 18, 2006.

  • Book Award: Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United States

    Andrea Louie’s book Chineseness Across Borders: Renegotiating Chinese Identities in China and the United States (Duke University Press, 2004) received the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award in the category of Social Sciences for titles published in 2004.

  • Book Award: Calling Cards: Theory and Practice in the Study of Race, Gender, and Culture

    Calling Cards: Theory and Practice in the Study of Race, Gender, and Culture , edited by Jacqueline Royster and Ann Marie Simpkins, received the 2006 College English Association of Ohio Nancy Dasher Award. Susan Krouse, faculty member in Anthropology, has a chapter in this volume, titled: “Transforming Images: The Scholarship of American Indian Women.”

  • Book Award: Aztalan: Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town

    Robert A. Birmingham and Lynne Goldstein, Aztalan: Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town, won The Midwest Independent Publishers Association Merit Award for the History category, 2006.