Professor Emeritus Dr. William Lovis, in collaboration with Bolivian colleagues José M. Capriles (The Pennsylvania State University) and David Trigo Rodríguez (Universidad Mayor de San Simón, formerly of the Museo Nacional de Arqueología, or MUNARQ), coauthored the article “La Repatriación de una momia andina del Museo de la Universidad Estatal de Michigan al Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia” (The Repatriation of an Andean Mummy from Michigan State University Museum to the Plurinational State of Bolivia) in the Bolivian journal Textos Antropológicos. 

The article, in Spanish and accessible to the South American archaeological community, details the long and remarkable several year journey that led to the 2019 repatriation of the mummified human remains of a young Andean girl from Michigan State University to the Plurinational State of Bolivia.  She had arrived at MSU in 1890. This may have been the first such voluntary repatriation from a US institution of higher education under the terms of bilateral accords between the United States and Bolivia.  The coauthors, who were three of the principals in the repatriation, detail the various steps, stages, successes, and pitfalls of the extended repatriation process, and provide detailed information on the young lady’s material goods, as well as other pertinent data. 

Given the complexity of the negotiation procedures between a US institution and a nation state, numerous individuals from Michigan State University and various agencies of US and Bolivian government are mentioned in the text, and acknowledgements, for their roles in bringing the repatriation to fruition. The ceremony culminating the event took place at the Bolivian Embassy in Washington DC, on Bolivian Independence Day, in 2019; 129 years after the young lady’s arrival at MSU.

For more information, see this link for the article (Spanish).

Department of Anthropology Ph.D. student Alexis VanBaarle has been selected as the 2024 winner of the J. Lawrence Angel Student Award. The J. Lawrence Angel Student Award is given yearly for the best student paper presented at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference. Alexis’ advisor for this project was Dr. Heather Garvin of Des Moines University.

Alexis’ presentation was titled “The Use of Outline Analyses to Assess Kerf Floor Shape Patterns in Saw Marks.” As summarized by Alexis, “When presented with medicolegal cases of saw dismemberment, forensic anthropologists are asked to estimate information about the saw utilized (i.e., saw class characteristics) which can help narrow down possible tools or be used in legal proceedings. To estimate these characteristics, forensic anthropologists look to features left on the bony surfaces by the saw teeth during the sawing process and apply qualitative and quantitative methods. My work looked at one specific feature, called the kerf floor shape, which is thought to be an outline of the saw. Previously, the relationship between this outline and how well it described the utilized saw was qualitative (or relied on visual morphological observation). I took these bony outlines and applied elliptical Fourier and principal component analyses to quantify the relationship between kerf floor shape and the saw class characteristics, thus providing error rates for estimating the saw class characteristics from kerf floor shape.”

For more information on the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, see here.

Department of Anthropology Ph.D. candidate Kelsey Merreck Wagner’s artwork is currently featured in a two-person exhibit hosted by the Evanston Art Center in Evanston, Illinois. The exhibit is titled “You’re Not Really Seeing This” and will be on display through April 22, 2024. Kelsey’s work utilizes plastics and other recycled material through the medium of weaving to bring new life to trash.

Asked what inspired the project, Kelsey shared:

“I started weaving with plastic and recycled materials during the pandemic in 2019 which morphed into a large ethnographic art project wherein I collected materials from my community members, my household, family, friends, and river clean-ups. This has provided me the opportunity to engage in valuable discussions about the links between plastic pollution, waste management, capitalism and consumerism, and human impact on the environment. “

Kelsey’s Ph.D. dissertation involves the role Thai eco-activists play in environmental movements. “The work of these eco-artivists is especially salient in authoritarian contexts,” she says, “where negative discourse about the actions of the government and their corporate partners is heavily silenced and dissent is met with danger. During my fieldwork, I have not only interviewed many of these artists, but also built lifelong friendships and collaborations, including the co-founding of the ART WORMS Mekong Artist Collective. The collective engages in arts-based research along the Mekong River, allowing me the support and resources to continue my trash weaving project with an international team.”

The weavings are made with a cotton warp; and the weft is made from plastic and other recycled materials. The materials have been collected by the artist and her friends and family in the United States, Thailand, Laos, and Indonesia. The materials come from “corporate culprits” including companies like: Coca-Cola Company, Asia Golden Rice Company, Ulta, Hershey, Kroger, Walmart, Charmin, Amazon, Jockey, 7-Eleven, Procter & Gamble, Siam Golden Rice Company, Hanes, Sirinumma Company, Food Lion, Apple, Samsung, Hobby Lobby, Colgate-Palmolive, Nestlé, and Lays. Materials in these weavings will include things like: plastic shopping bags, flagging tape, plastic tablecloths, mesh produce bags, rice bags, feed bags, fertilizer bags, cables and wires, quilting waste, yarn waste, curtains, old clothing, holiday decorations, food packaging, rain ponchos, balloons, bubble wrap, packaging materials, and fishing nets.

Kelsey said, “My plastic weavings have been exhibited in a range of group shows, including at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum for Grand Rapids ArtPrize, and the 1.5 Degrees Celsius exhibit at the Michigan State University Museum. I have also had solo exhibits of these weavings at the Langley Arts Council in British Columbia, Canada; the Chenango Arts Council in Norwich, New York; the Marathon Center for the Performing Arts in Findlay, Ohio; and the East Lubbock Art House in Lubbock, Texas. These exhibits featured smaller weavings created on my rigid heddle loom, which has since been supplemented by a large tapestry loom and a 4-harness floor loom, allowing me to create plastic weavings that are over 40 feet long. I currently have a solo exhibit upcoming this April at Warin Lab Contemporary Gallery in Bangkok, Thailand that will feature 5 of the large-scale weavings in red/orange/yellow colors to connect plastic pollution to climate change.”

For more information, see the stories featured in The Evanston Art Center website or The Visualist, or see Kelsey’s website.

Department of Anthropology Ph.D. student Emily Nisch has been awarded an NCPE Internship through the National Park Service and the Indigenous America 250 initiative. Indigenous America 250 is a community-engaged, community-driven scholarly research project led by Indigenous scholars that is reexamining the Revolutionary War period and its aftermath from the perspectives of Indigenous communities and tribal nations.

The resulting study, produced for the National Park Service, Interior Region 1, will be a series of case studies that provide clearer understandings of tribal nations on their own terms and also develop new understandings about the significance of the Revolutionary War. The internship will give Emily experience working with historical archives in a community-engaged and collaborative environment in preparation for her dissertation research on Native American Boarding Schools.

For more information on the organization: https://www.indigenousamerica250.com

Department of Anthropology Professor Gabriel Wrobel has been awarded a research grant by the Alphawood Foundation. This funding is in support of a project based in Northern Belize titled “The Marco Gonzalez Archaeological Project: Exploring Ancient Maya Coastal Adaptations in Northern Belize,” and the research will run in conjunction with an MSU Education Abroad program. The funding will be used for research taking place during the summer of 2024, primarily to support graduate and undergraduate students from Belize that are participating in the project along with funding for specialized analysis.

The Alphawood Foundation is a private foundation located in Chicago, IL. More information on the foundation can be found here.

Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Chantal Tetreault was awarded a Humanities and Arts Research Development (HARP) Award for 2023 by Michigan State University’s Office of Research and Innovation. Professor Tetreault’s project is titled “What is Arabic Good For? Arabic Language Educational Reform in France” for which she is currently researching.

HARP funding is designed to support MSU faculty in the development of projects that seem likely to enhance the reputation of both the faculty member and the university, per the website. Further information on the HARP award and 2023 awardees can be located at the link below:

HARP Development Award Recipients 2023

Associate Professor Mara Leichtman has been awarded an Institute of Advanced Study fellowship at Durham University, UK, where she is in residence at St. Aidan’s College from January through March 2024. During this time, she will be working on her next book titled “Humanitarian Islam: Transnational Religion and Kuwaiti Development Projects in Africa,” which unpacks the micropolitics of Islamic humanitarian giving, and focuses on Kuwaiti Sunni and Shi’i charities operating in Senegal and Tanzania.

During this residency period, Dr. Leichtman will also be collaborating with Dr. Christopher Bahl from Durham’s Department of History on a project entitled “An Interdisciplinary Rethinking of the Making of Shi‘i Identities beyond the Middle Eastern ‘Centre.’” Their aim is to bring a more diachronic approach to the emergence and transformation of Shi‘i Islamic identities across time and space. They plan to organize an international and interdisciplinary workshop at Durham University, with further plans to publish on the importance of interdisciplinary work in the growing subfield of Shi‘i Islamic Studies.

For more information: https://www.iasdurham.org/people/current-fellows/dr-mara-leichtman/

Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Masako Fujita, Director of the MSU Biomarker Laboratory for Anthropological Research, is looking for mid-Michigan breastfeeding mothers to volunteer for an upcoming study, “Exploring Human Milk Immune Specificity.”

Qualifying volunteers will be asked to:
• Come to Michigan State University East Lansing campus, if possible, with baby – about 2 hours
• Pump about one ounce of milk (in a private office) and give blood drops via finger stick
• Answer questions and have their body measurements taken
We ask volunteers to pump milk at campus, rather than donating frozen milk, to be sure that all the immune factors in milk are still active when we take it into the lab. Participants will receive a $35 Amazon gift card. For more info please email masakof@msu.edu.

Department of Anthropology Associate Professor Masako Fujita, Director of the MSU Biomarker Laboratory for Anthropological Research, has been awarded the Post-PhD Research Grant by the Wenner-Gren Foundation in support of their new project, “Exploring Human Milk Immune Specificity.”

Breastfeeding is good for children’s health in many ways. Immune factors in milk—including antibodies and other proteins, white blood cells, and even commensal microbes—protect infants against infections and may prevent allergies. Understanding how the “immune system of milk” responds to microbes is important to understanding how breastfeeding affects children’s health.

This project will seek to understand how chronic stress mothers experience may affect how the “immune system of milk” responds to microbes. Dr. Fujita hypothesizes that high stress levels would disrupt milk immune specificity, underreacting to harmful bacteria like Salmonella or overreacting to benign microbes like Bifidobacteria, or both.

The research team includes MSU students Aditi Sharma (Anthropology/Human Biology), Alli Harkenrider (Anthropology/Human Biology), Ananyaa Asthana (Physiology/Health Promotion), Natalie Mourou (Anthropology), and Dr. Katherine Wander of SUNY Binghamton Anthropology.

Per the Wenner-Gren Foundation website:

This grant program funds individual research projects undertaken by doctorates in anthropology or a closely related field. Our goal is to support vibrant and significant work that furthers our understanding of what it means to be human. There is no preference for any methodology, research location, topic, or subfield. The Foundation particularly welcomes proposals that integrate two or more subfields and pioneer new approaches and ideas.

For more information: https://wennergren.org/program/post-phd-research-grant/