Podcasts from the SfAA

Jen Cardew and Christina Wasson (U N Texas) Paper PowerPoint

Theory and Practice in an Online Master’s Program in Applied Anthropology
As technology-mediated communication becomes a pervasive modus operandi in work and educational organizations, linguistic anthropology can provide tools to understand and improve such interactions. In fall 2006, the University of North Texas launched the first online master’s program in anthropology in the US. The authors conducted a study that compared students’ online versus on-campus experiences in the same graduate seminar. Drawing on theoretical constructs from linguistic anthropology, the study’s conclusions had practical applications for the design of the online master’s program. Furthermore, the study itself exposed an online master’s student (Cardew) to the nexus of scholarship and practice.

Keri Vacanti Brondo (U Memphis)

“Tooling Up” for Interdisciplinary Research in Organizational Settings
This paper focuses on training future scholar-practitioners to use and develop anthropological theory and method while working in interdisciplinary teams in organizational settings. The author draws upon personal research experience working with international NGOs, urban-serving CDCs, and private industry to offer lessons learned regarding effective communication across disciplines. Suggestions for “tooling up” future practicing anthropologists for theory-building in interdisciplinary settings are shared.

Wendy Bartlo, Tracy L. Meerwarth, and Elizabeth K. Briody (General Motors), and Robert T. Trotter II (N Arizona U)

A “Global Footprint” for Researcher Workspace: Consensus and Application
The authors conducted ethnographic research at General Motors R&D Centers in Warren, Michigan and Bangalore, India to understand features of a “global footprint” for R & D workspace. The study compares organizational roles and workspace perceptions to advance mid-range theory and cross-cultural applicability research. A consensus of cultural parameters for workspace emerges across Warren and Bangalore researchers suggesting that researcher culture preferences trump cross-cultural space differences.

Jacqueline Copeland-Carson (Copeland Carson & Assoc)

Financing Social Change in a Global Economy: The Case of Minnesota’s Pan-African Women’s Philanthropy Initiative
Since 1990 the world has come to Minnesota - once one of the USA’s most ethnically homogenous states. Now home to thecountry’s largest concentrations of Somalis, Hmong, Tibetans and urban Native Americans, among others, Minnesota is experiencing a demographic shift unprecedented in its history. This paper will describe and analyze the efforts of foreign-born and US-born women of African descent to create a transnational identity to define and address common social concerns. In particular, it will highlight the way that the author attempted to combine and apply aspects of africanist and feminist anthropology with current trends in the fields of philanthropy and activism to provide new leadership opportunities and ways to organize for social change.

Crysta Metcalf (Motorola Labs)

Interdisciplinary Research, Anthropological Theory and Software Innovation: Bringing it all Together
This paper describes the challenges and opportunities inherent in interdisciplinary applied work, focusing on research in a high tech lab where time is short and skepticism about the usefulness of theory is long. A number of projects are used as examples of how we fit together multidisciplinary teams, applied practice, and the application and advancement of anthropological theory. The author examines the themes of evolving theory with people from very different backgrounds, and how both method and theory are influenced by applied practice in situations where many different people must buy in to “the way we do things around here.”

Please click here to listen to the audio

OR download audio
OR subscribe to podcast.