SDSU Department of Anthropology

Two commentaries just out highlight the problematic nature of the 'vaccine hesitancy' construct. The first (shown here) was authored by Dr Sobo along with fellow anthropologists McClure (Alabama) and Schor (Idaho). The second focuses on San Diego and appears in today's Union-Tribune (link in comments). What's the take-home? Focusing on simplistically-defined ‘vaccine hesitancy’ glosses over persistent access barriers homogenizes reasons people have for non-vaccination, and places responsibility for getting vaccinated on individuals, diverting attention from the social determinants of health.

Check out the new publication by Dr Sobo, included in 'The Work of Hospitals: Global Medicine in Local Cultures' (Olsen & Sargent, eds.). Sobo's chapter is titled 'Each Child is Unique: The Responsible US Parent’s Take on Hospital Care Gone Wrong'. The collection documents, ethnographically, the vast gulf between the idealized mission of the hospital worldwide (e.g., policy) and the implementation of this mission in everyday life (i.e., practice). Learn more at https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/the-wo/9781978823037

This Juneteenth, SDSU celebrates the life of Palomar Mountain’s first Black resident, Nathan "Nate" Harrison. Learn more about Juneteenth here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/cultu/article/juneteenth

Tuesday 22nd June at 7 am our time, find out what Russian anthropologists are up to vis a vis STS. Andrey Korotayev and Leonid Grinin (editors of the Journal of Globalization Studies) along with Leonid Grinin will discuss COVID-19 as a trigger to the CYBERNETIC REVOLUTION, which they see as beginning in the 1950s. Pre-register via https://docs.google.com//1FAIpQLSdDaA05iRKCRod64Z/viewform

We invite you to join Dr Mallios and Crew in one of two ways to celebrate Juneteenth next Saturday. You can brave the mountain and see the dig in person or attend a simultaneous celebration at our exhibits at Balboa Park's San Diego History Center. DETAILS ARE BELOW. The latter will feature a live stream to the dig for the public program and Q and A session. Both options are family friendly and free. See you there!!

Are you Latinx? Are you NOT vaccinated for Covid? Do you live or work in the South Region (Chula Vista, National City, Sweetwater, Bonita, Imperial Beach, Otay Mesa, San Ysidro )? Are you MALE or nonbinary? If so, SDSU's branch of the CommuniVax project needs you! Led by anthropologists, CommuniVax is a national alliance of social scientists, public health experts, and community advocates listening to local viewpoints and developing stable, local systems that enable underserved groups to exercise collective agency over their own health and wellness. For more information about being interviewed, go to https://cal.sdsu.edu/research/communivax or contact Griselda Cervantes at (619) 693-6130 or [email protected].

Congratulations Dr Sobo on your latest peer-reviewed research publication, "Cultural conformity and cannabis care in the wake of intractable pediatric epilepsy," just out this week in Medical Anthropology. Part of a special issue on biomedicine's 'shadowside,' the paper explores how parents experience the iatrogenic effects their children's pharmaceutical overmedication, often casting this as inevitable and as productive of evidence necessary to finding better options in cannabis. Click https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2021.1893583 to read the abstract and access the article.

It's official! Dr Nicole Mathwich has been selected for a 'Faculty Forward Award' for demonstrating exceptional agility and dedication in transitioning courses to virtual formats during the pandemic. Specifically, Dr Mathwich adapted to online teaching with the help of a rotisserie chicken. It's true! Mathwich teaches archaeology lab classes that introduce students to osteological anatomy, analysis of historic tools and food remains, data analysis and other archaeology lab m...ethods. With the labs closed, Mathwich had to develop assignments using readily accessible materials. This is where the chicken comes in: it provided a readily available source of muscles and bones for the study of animal anatomy. Next came an experimental archaeology project: students made and tested slingshots, campfire cooking, and historical desserts from the 1700s. Mathwich supplemented these immersive, hands-on activities with high-resolution, 3D-modeled scans of bones, and also inaugurated a bilingual, digital research project using zooarchaeological data from Mission Dolores de Cosari in Sonora, Mexico, which students will co-author. CONGRATULATIONS Dr Mathwich!! See more

Congratulations to Alumna Chyna Lee, for her 'Center for American Archaeology Women in Archaeology Internship Program' award - well done! This internship is for women undergraduates, graduate students, and archaeologists in the early stages of their careers. Funded by a generous grant from the Monticello College Foundation, the Women in Archeology Internship provides an opportunity for participants to enhance their professional skills in research planning, field and laboratory supervision, teaching, and public outreach as part of the CAA’s award-winning programs.

Join us in congratulating Josh Trinidad, one of anthropology's three (3!) Master's Research Scholarship winners this year. Trinidad's research aims to examine the behavioral ecology of endangered moor macaques (Macaca maura) in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Specifically, he will explore how the provisioning (i.e., feeding) of a habituated group of moor macaques by humans from vehicles along a two-lane road shapes the nature of human-macaque interactions and macaque movement patterns. Ultimately, he aims to use this research to help inform conservation efforts, to provide insight into the behavioral plasticity of non-human primates in anthropogenic environments, and to assist in the mitigation of human-macaque conflict.

Check out our own Dr Mayes, featured in the Spring 21 issues of INSIGHT magazine! https://cal.sdsu.edu/our-faculty/stories/mayes

Guess who was just selected as a recipient of the inaugural SDSU Faculty Forward Award honoring faculty instructors who demonstrated exceptional agility and dedication in transitioning their courses to the virtual environment during Spring 2021? Dr. Nicole Mathwich, that's who! See more at https://www.instagram.com/p/CGlSVklleTk/

Congratulations SHANNON FARNSWORTH, winner of a 21-22 Masters Research Scholarship from SDSU. Ms. Farnsworth’s MA thesis focuses on The Lost Murals of San Diego State. These student-created pieces of art were meant to be permanent and lacked individual ownership, serving as the people’s art. These lost and newly restored murals can give those of us in the present insight into the campus and community attitudes during significant events and historic affairs in the past. Despite the fact that the study of murals and mural preservation is lacking within the historical archaeology discipline, Shannon will argue that it fits well within the scope of the field. This is one argument to which we all can look forward!

Here it is: the moment we've been waiting for! Please join the Department of Anthropology in celebrating the Class of 2021 through our Virtual Graduation Video :) Graduates: We are very proud of you! We invite you to plan a formal viewing event for you and your family and friends. Celebrate before, or after the College Graduation; or enjoy your departmental ceremony right now via this link: - https://youtu.be/gLA969D0icA Congratulations, Class of 2021!

The M.A. Program in Anthropology at San Diego State University is now accepting applications for admission in Fall 2021. Our program embraces an integrative anthropology approach with a strong emphasis in both theoretical and applied dimensions of the discipline, thereby preparing our M.A. students for: 1) Teaching positions in Anthropology 2) Doctoral training in Anthropology and allied fields (e.g., Geography, Public Health, Primate Conservation Biology, etc.)... 3) Professional careers in public and private sectors and non-profit organizations (e.g., cultural resource management, urban planning, program evaluation, administration, healthcare, marketing, and sustainable resource management and economic development) Our current faculty specialize in migration and border studies, medical anthropology, food studies, urban and political anthropology, science and technology studies, environmental anthropology, ethnoprimatology and primate conservation, human biology and human behavioral ecology, bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology, historical archaeology, marine historical ecology, computational archaeology, and zooarchaeology. Our graduate students receive training in these areas through mentored fieldwork with faculty and via our state-of-the-art laboratory facilities, including the Biological Anthropology & Primatology Lab, the Computational Archaeology Lab, the Environmental Archaeology and Anthropology Lab, the Historical Archaeology and Maya Research Lab, and the Zooarchaeology Lab (http://anthropology.sdsu.edu/resources/labs.html). For information on how to apply, please visit the SDSU Anthropology Graduate Admissions page: https://anthropology.sdsu.edu/graduate. Details are also provided in the attached flyer. Cal State Apply deadline: Dec 15, 2020 Departmental application deadline: Jan 12, 2021 (via Interfolio) Please direct any questions to the Anthropology Graduate Advisor, Dr. Erin Riley ([email protected]).

Reminder that CARTA's next symposium, "Exploring the Human-Ape Paradox" is this Saturday (10/24) from 12 pm - 3:30 pm. The symposium is FREE for all, but you to need to register https://carta.anthropogeny.org/node/322054

Dr. Mathwich brings lab work to life, even via zoom!

Welcome to the 1st annual Indigenous Peoples' Day Week of Action hosted by the Native Resource Center! The week will be filled with superb speakers such as Professor Cassady Lynch from the American Indian Studies Department, as well as Jordan Marie Daniel as the Keynote Speaker for Thursday, Oct. 15. Events are free and open to SDSU faculty, staff, students, and the larger community. Events will be hosted via Zoom - collect Meeting IDs from the flyers on the Native Resource Center website: https://sdsuedu.sharepoint.com//indigenous-peoples-week-of

In case you missed the live webinar, here is the YouTube link to Dr. Anthony's 'Race, Racism, and Resistance' interview: https://youtu.be/yYpSynHGr80

Monday, October 12th from 3 to 5 pm (EST) - Celebrating Reversed Gaze: Looking Towards Anthropology's Future in the #BLM Era Roundtable In Reversed Gaze: An African Ethnography of American Anthropology (2010) Kenyan anthropologist Mwenda Ntarangwi uses his training to dissect the inner workings of American anthropology - from its lack of diversity and tendency to exotify the "other" to the discipline's holistic lens that could potentially benefit African societies wary of the... field's past colonial entanglements. As Ntarangwi demystifies both American and African anthropologies, the significance of this book also lies in his recommendations to push the field(s) forward. This groundbreaking work is foundational for anthropology students and rising professionals navigating the field. While 2020 marks the 10-year anniversary of Reversed Gaze, the world has witnessed an outpouring of protests rallying against the incessant abuses that menace Black bodies and lives globally. Join our speakers on Indigenous Peoples' Day as they discuss why the arguments of this important text still resonate today. Presented by USF Anthropology Department's Committee on Diversity and Inclusion

Wondering if you chose the right major? Wonder no more: meet 2020 MacArthur Fellow, MARY L. GRAY. Dr. Gray is an ANTHROPOLOGIST investigating the ways in which labor, identity, and human rights are transformed by the digital economy. The MacArthur Fellowship is a $625,000, no-strings-attached grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work. It's no fluke that Dr. Gray is in the number: today's employers agree that one of the best ways to cultivate your creativity is through an anthropology degree! https://youtu.be/RsgtRVI_yhM

Anthropologists and Linguists Analyze the 2020 Election - click below to register for this free online forum, launching Friday, October 9, 6pm (CST)

For the first time, SfAA (Society for Applied Anthropology) will be conducting a hybrid meeting, with opportunities for both in-person and virtual attendance, thereby encouraging broad participation in these times of Covid-related travel and budgetary restrictions. SfAA’s annual meeting is quite affordable, especially for students. The theme is LINKING SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND PHYSICAL ECOLOGIES and the dates are March 23-27, 2021. See Flyer below for more info.

Important read for anyone teaching the origins of evolutionary thought and/or biological anthropology. https://www.vice.com//a-thousand-years-before-darwin-islam

Anthro Alum Dr. Anthony Jerry speaks on race, racism, and resistance on Oct 7 at 4:30 pm - please join us at: https://SDSU.zoom.us/s/95127438729

Anthro alum Dr. Anthony Russell Jerry speaks on race, racism and resistance at 4:30 pm Oct 7 - please join us via https://SDSU.zoom.us/s/95127438729

Misinformation and disinformation have created a mess. Check out this SDSU webinar series, 'Disinfecting Disinformation', meant to arm us with ways to stop the mess from spreading.

Congratulations Dr. EJ Sobo on your newly published contribution to ‘The Ethics of Research with Children and Young People: A Practical Handbook’ (2nd edition, edited by Alderson and Morrow): "IRBs and qualified approval. The piece is based on Prof Sobo's experience getting clearance to investigate cannabis use for children with intractable epilepsy -- a doubly vulnerable population.

As Hispanic Heritage Month begins, we celebrate a Latinx archaeologist who "opened a reading of the Aztecs and ancient Hispanic peoples of Mexico [that forced Anglo-European archaeologists] to see them on the same level, through the same lens, that they saw other great civilizations of the world ... changing the discussion. Thank you, ZELIA NUTTALL! As the attached Smithsonian article proclaims, "For Nuttall, archaeology wasn’t [about] exploring a foreign cultureit was ... about deepening and awakening her own."