This Anthro Life

Storyslamming Anthropology Series, Story 2. Written and Performed by Taylor GenoveseIn recent years, the terms Public and Anthropology have been paired with more frequency. Yet, what this seemingly suspect partnership is, how it could function, and what goals it could have are still in relative formation. Today, public anthropology might mean several different things ranging from jargony lectures that are “open to the public”, digital media (like blogs, videos, or podcasts) that are generally accessible online, or presentations given to an informant public on work produced by a researcher. Large voids remain. We ask, then, why not turn to already publicly oriented writing for inspiration? What if “Guns, Germs and Steel” (Diamond 1999), “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, (Harai 2015) or “Freakonomics” (Levitt and Dubner 2009) were written by anthropologists? What if we told you that once upon a time, they were? When Margaret Mead wrote “Coming of Age in Samoa” in 1928, anthropologists and non-anthropolog

Welcome to This Anthro Life x EPIC 2019. This is the first episode in our 2019 collaboration with the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community or EPIC. EPIC is a professional organization that brings together ethnographers and social science practitioners across fields like user experience research and design, marketing, computer science, academia, and more. This year’s conference theme is agency, which is fascinating given the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, voice recognition software and platforms like Alexa or Hey Google, and controversies over privacy and sale of people’s personal data. Today host Adam Gamwell and guest host Matt Artz virtually sit down with the EPIC conference chairs Julia Haines and Lisa Di Carlo.Julia conducts research at the intersection of technology, innovation, and human practices. She is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google where she leads UX research for a team of over 400 designers and engineers, bringing an inclusive, human-centered perspective to the project.

Adam sits down (in a cafe, so this is live, people) with Jay Hasbrouck, Founder and Principal of Filament Insight and Innovation and author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset, a how-to guide for anyone looking to better understand and apply many of the methods ethnographers learn to their own businesses and practices. We talk through some of the techniques Jay covers in his book as well as talk candidly about the world of consulting and client relationships. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5168968/advertisement

Adam and Andrea continue the conversation with Julie Lesnik, author of Edible Insects and Human Evolution, but this time they’re going prehistoric. Oh, and they’re talking about gorillas and chimpanzees too. Learn how to fish for termites, why we wish we had more baskets, and why any of those things matter to understanding human evolution. Edible Insects, part 3Check out discussion questions here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/insects/More about Julie:https://www.entomoanthro.org/about-julie.htmlhttps://www.octopusandape.com/--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5168968/advertisement

Think you could eat a cricket? What about a spider? In this episode of TAL Adam Gamwell and guest host Andrea Eller are chatting with Julie Lesnik about her new book, Edible Insects and Human Evolution. Listen in as they discuss why Americans tend to be so grossed out by bugs, and if it’s always been that way. Edible Insects, part 2We know many of you are educators, and some are already using TAL in the classroom. Great! To help support the educational impact of TAL, we are including some discussion questions from each episode. Please feel free to use these (in whole or part) for classroom discussion prompts, essay questions, or larger research inspirations. We think we cover a lot of quality anthropological knowledge on TAL, and we hope you think so too! TAL and their contributors are dedicated to the value of audio scholarship. Let us know how you end up using these questions in the comments below. We’d like to know how you want us to make more educational materials in the future. Check out the discussion q

Edible Insects part 1. Will crickets ever catch on as an alternative source of protein in the United States? How about cockroach “milk”? Why do people in so many parts of the world NOT eat insects? Where does that disgust for or against eating certain things come from? Adam is joined once again by guest host and biological anthropologist Andrea Eller to dig into edible insects, what just might be a new marketing idea for McDonald's, and how insects reveal underlying cultural trends of disgust, environmental resource use, gender and economic trends.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5168968/advertisement

Part 2 of The Social Life of Robots, with Emma Backe. In this episode hosts Adam Gamwell, Ryan Collins and Emma Backe tackle sex and gender norms underlying digital voice assistants like Siri, Cortana and Alexa, the history and gendering of science and technology studies (STS) and what this means in an era of AI and robots, and third, theories of rights such as the right to work, the right to sex and how robots clarify and confound these issues.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5168968/advertisement

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration between the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association, and This Anthro Life Podcast. In this fifth and final episode, Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker, and Ryan Collins focus on cultural survival, a complex subject framed by migration, misconceptions over language and identity, as well as by resilience of the human spirit across borders. With a subject like cultural survival, the question comes to mind, what factors threaten shared heritage, tradition, and disband communities? Here we are joined by Alejandro Santiago González (Ixil), and Mercedes M. Say Chaclan (K’iche) representatives of Washington, DC-based Mayan League, an organization working to sustain Maya culture, communities, and lands. Alejandro and Mercedes share their experiences and give insight into the ongoing struggles Maya peoples face today, including issues of language, translation, and communication for indigenous immigrants w

In the pop culture imagination, perceptions of robots and AI occupy a space of mystery and intrigue that gravitates between harbingers of impending societal collapse and bringers of mythical salvation. However, where does contemporary science and technology stand? Moreover, how do the social experiences of the past and in the present color our understandings of emerging technological realities? On this episode, hosts Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins are joined by Emma Backe to discuss these questions and more. In Part I of Making Robots Human our conversation embraces the humor of pop culture AI while making room to address that our fears and hopes of robotic futures are revealing of our complex social concerns today. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5168968/advertisement

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association, and This Anthro Life Podcast. In this episode, Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker, and Ryan Collins dive into the topic of curation. What does it mean to put on a festival or put on a museum exhibit? How can we understand culture on display and introduce outsiders to other social realms? Sharing their narratives and experiences with different forms of curation are Diana Baird N’Diaye, Cultural Specialist and Curator at the Smithsonian Center for Culture and Folklife, Arman Atoyan, CEO and Founder of the (AR) and virtual reality (VR) app and game development company Arloopa, and Pablo Girona, a researcher from Tucuman, Argentina who studies cultural heritage in Catalonia and Quebec. To learn more about Diana Baird N’Diaye’s work visit: https://folklife.si.edu/authors/diana-n-diaye. And, to learn more about Arman Atoyan and Arloopa, visit: http://a

On this episode of This Anthro Life, hosts Adam Gamwell and Matt Artz are joined by assistant professor and musicologist Nate Sloan and music journalist and songwriter Charlie Harding, the hosts of Switched on Pop, a podcast about the making and meaning of popular music. On Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate break down pop songs to figure out what makes a hit and what is its place in culture. They also help listeners find "a-ha" moments in the music, make you laugh, dance, and dig deeper into the world of pop music. Here Nate and Charlie speak with TAL on the study of popular music, the appropriation of musical elements, what defines “pop” and how that is changing. This episode focuses on Nate and Charlie’s choice to use podcasting as the narrative venue to house their storytelling and dives into the value of deep listening. Tune in to hear more. To learn more about Switched on Pop check out: www.switchedonopop.com andhttp://gideonandhubcap.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/mess

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move , an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life PodcastIn the US, fashion has been relegated to large impersonal retail spaces and increasingly online stores. Fashion in the US, as many know all too well, is transactional. The sense of community one has through clothing is often expressed through style though it is exceedingly rare for truly deep relationships to develop between the designer and the purchaser, even if an article of clothing is commissioned. But, community and fashion can be much more integrated. With this episode, we invite you into the conversations we had with participants in the Crafts of African Fashion program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2018. We speak with Soumana Saley a Nigerian leather worker and designer, Cynthia Sands and her mentee Tomara Watkins, also known as Tam, two fashion designers who work between the United States and

“I hope that more people will listen to more music outside of their own little comfort zone. I think that we enrich ourselves, we are better human beings when you open up your heart to other cultures, other music, to other worlds to other points of view. Because ultimately, as I said in the very beginning, we’re all the same. We’re all humans, and we all can connect in different ways with the things that we like. But, when we see it through the eyes of a different person. Then we better ourselves. We enrich ourselves.”Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move , an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life Podcast.The above quote comes from Betto Arcos, music journalist and host of NPR’s The Cosmic Bario. Music, whether you create it or are an avid listener, pulls you in a deep sensory allure. The connection humans make with music is so deep that it can impact us physically and serve as a key point of retur

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration series from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life Podcast. Join hosts Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker and Ryan Collins as they explore what it means to craft, form, and make culture in a world defined by movement, migration, and changing borders. Step into behind the scenes conversations and candid interviews from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Hear from artists, fashion designers, dancers, weavers, and craftsmen who give life to heritage and shape the many worlds of traditional culture in a planet on the move."Art is a Movement" How does art help contribute to political protest? Should art never be sold for money? How can dance unify a community? How are traditions like calligraphy and traditional dances passed on between generations?In this episode, we overview the subject of art as informed by representatives from The Armenian program and the Catalonia progra

This Anthro Life is opening the conversation with EPIC (the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community) on the theme of Evidence. Taking center stage at this year's Annual EPIC Conference. “Evidence” is a subject of increasing social importance in today’s political climate. What constitutes evidence and when it is found to be credible all have far-reaching consequences. Because of this, practicing anthropologists are exploring concerns of and around evidence through experimentation, new methodologies, and research innovations that speak to contemporary ethnographic practice.Joining TAL to open the conversation on evidence is Dawn Nafus and Tye Rattenbury, two of the EPIC 2018 Conference organizers. Our discussion with Dawn and Tye focused on the relationship of evidence in their work as ethnographic and data research scientists. Dawn and Tye work at the intersection of computational and ethnographic approaches. Dig in Deeper Here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/epic-evidence/--- Send in a voice message: https:

Andrea Eller is a biological anthropologist driven by a question of how do our bodies continue to react to things today? In other words, how does evolution continue to impact us and why is this important? To address this, Andrea Eller looks at how bodies respond and adapt to circumstances of chronic stresses. The stresses that Eller looks at, however, are both physiological and social. Not only does Andrea postulate explanations to account for change over time in relation to more visible circumstances like ecology, tool use, and disease. But, Andrea also considers less visible issues like, class, race, and gender as critical factors that also impact our physiology over time.Evolution Responds, it does not ReactOne of the compelling predicaments that Eller discusses with Adam has  to do with current data on primates. For example, data from captive  primates are excluded from wider studies. In part, the problem is that  there is a growing population of captive primates. With more an more  primates being born in

When TAL first interviewed Hamilton Morris, it was shortly after he and his production team had finished season 1 of Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia. Now, Morris has completed two seasons of his critically acclaimed show on VICE. This time on TAL, Morris has a more reflective tone.With Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins, Morris shares his experiences as a filmmaker in traditional and counter-culture environments. These experiences have given Morris a unique window into psychedelics, underground pharmaceutical research, and the ethics of sharing information. The last point hits home for many anthropologists and social researchers, who also must be wary of the unintended consequences of sharing information. Depending on what is at stake, information can endanger informants and friends. Similarly, journalists and ethnographers are confronted--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at

Dr. Tricia Wang sees her work consulting as sitting at the crossroads of data and social justice. As a global tech ethnographer, Dr. Wang is obsessed with how technology and humans shape each other. In her own words, she wants to know, “How do the tools we use enable us to do more of what humans do, like socializing, emoting, and collaborating? And how do human perspectives shape the technology we build and how we use it?” Said differently, Dr. Tricia Wang’s expertise inhabits a gray space between industry and the academy. A space where many social scientists do not find easy comfort. Yet, Dr. Wang’s very candid enthusiasm is enough to draw in even the most ardent skeptics. In her own words, Dr. Wang has “always been between worlds” seeing the best in both. Though academics tend to value known discovery methods, and excel, they are less likely to engineer new prototypes. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/messageThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested

Welcome back listeners! Adam and Ryan have taken some time away as of late to finish and defend their dissertations. Now that Ryan is done, and Adam defends in just one week (so close!), TAL is getting back into gear with new content in the development and production stages. Now, another key detail, several episodes recorded earlier this spring are also on their way. Some of these are guest interviews (including a second interview with Hamilton Morris of HBO’s VICE and Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia) as well as the remainder of our Story Slamming Ethnography episodes (we haven’t forgotten about those). All that is to say, there is an extensive repertoire of content coming your way, including an upcoming collaboration with EPIC. Speaking of…With this episode of This Anthro Life, we are joined by Dr. Alexandra Mack and collaborative guest host Matt Artz. Together we interview Alex and explore her story. What makes our discussion with Alex so distinct is her breadth of research and applic--- Send in a voice message: ht

Thanks to the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) for having Adam Gamwell and Matt Artz of This Anthro Life present at the annual meeting in Philadelphia. We presented as part of the New Methods, Interventions And Approaches session.Our paper title was Consulting Podcasters: Prototyping a Democratic Tool for Multiple Voices, Storytelling and Solution Finding. You can read it here. The session was recorded for the SfAA Podcasting project.The simple idea behind the notion of consulting podcasting is that we  are using the podcast format to intentionally bring together  professionals to co-create meaningful conversations that provides expert  advice through the anthropological paradigm of the emic and etic.  Consulting podcasting applies the flexible, digital recording techniques  of podcasting with a process of in-the-moment of real-time discovery.  To that end we askew rigid preconfigured narratives or storyboards in  favor of an open-format conversation that mimic the methods of  semi-structured interview