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Anthropologists “Wow” Chicago

By The American Anthropological Association

The American Anthropological Association held its 112th Annual Meeting last week in Chicago. A record-setting 7,000 anthropologists took part in hundreds of sessions, workshops and special events. The meeting theme, Future Publics, Current Engagements, featured participants from all over the globe, representing over 60 countries.
The annual meeting also presented an opportunity to recognize a number of anthropologists who have made important contributions to the field. The major awards conferred include recognition for excellence in undergraduate teaching, an outstanding dissertation project by a minority group member, excellence in anticipatory anthropology, engagement with the media, exemplary service to the field, applied work by an emerging scholar, and significant achievements in public policy.


The 2013 AAA/Oxford University Press Teaching Award recognizes Triloki Pandey from the University of California, Santa Cruz. In his 40 years at UCSC, he has taught nearly 5,000 undergraduates, many of whom have gone on to successful careers in anthropology. Dr. Pandey received the Ph.D in Anthropology in 1967 from the University of Chicago, beginning his academic career in the Department of Anthropology at UCSC in 1973. He is regularly invited to give presentations about his work on the American Southwest, India’s indigenous communities, Grande, and the intellectual history of Indian anthropology.
Karen G. Williams received the 2013-2014 AAA Minority Dissertation Fellowship. This annual fellowship of $10,000 is intended to encourage members of ethnic minorities to complete doctoral degrees in anthropology, thereby increasing diversity in the discipline and promoting research on issues of concern among minority populations. Williams’ dissertation, titled From Coercion to Consent?: Governing the Formerly Incarcerated in the 21st Century United States traces the day-to-day practices and strategies used to prepare people who are incarcerated for when they come home from correctional institutions.
Professor Jay Sokolovsky received the 2013 Robert B. Textor and Family Prize in Anticipatory Anthropology. Dr. Sokolovsky is a scholar whose career exemplifies an anticipatory mode of anthropological research in its broad contributions to the anthropology of aging, a nascent field he helped develop and grow over the years, organizing the field of the anthropology of aging in the United States and globally. In addition to making important intellectual contributions based on his own field work in multiple sites in the United States, Mexico, Croatia and England, Dr. Sokolovsky has spent over three decades establishing an aging research network and multidisciplinary community of practice spirit of the award and for all it stands.
The Anthropology in the Media Award recognized Kathy Reichs. The award honors “those who have raised public awareness of anthropology and have had a broad and sustained public impact at local, national and international levels.” Over the last 15 years, Dr. Reichs has made significant contributions to raising public awareness of anthropology through her fiction writing, television production, and public service.
The American Anthropological Association presented the 2013 Franz Boas award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology to Louise Lamphere, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology (Emerita), University of New Mexico. Throughout her more than 45-year career, Dr. Lamphere has made significant contributions to anthropological knowledge through her studies of the Navajo, workplace life, family and kinship, U.S. immigration, and U.S. healthcare policy and to the American Anthropological Association through her vision and leadership. She is perhaps best known as a “founding mother” of feminist anthropology, influencing decades of research in anthropology and related disciplines on issues of gender inequality and knowledge production. Dr. Lamphere received the Ph.D in 1968 from Harvard University. She served on the faculty at Brown University and later the University of New Mexico, from which she retired in 2008.
The 2013 AAA/SfAA Margaret Mead Award recipient is Sera L. Young for her book Craving Earth: Understanding Pica, the Urge to Eat Clay, Starch, Ice and Chalk. Dr. Young will be presented with the award at the SfAA Spring Meeting in March 2014 in Albuquerque, NM. Dr. Young completed a Ph.D. in International Nutrition/Nutritional Anthropology at Cornell University in 2008 and a M.A. in Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam in 2002. She is currently a research scientist in the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell University.
Finally, the AAA Committee on Public Policy recognized Nancy Scheper-Hughes for her contributions to public policy. Dr. Scheper-Hughes is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Medical Anthropology Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a nationally recognized expert on public health. The Anthropology in Public Policy Award was established in 2012 by the Committee on Public Policy to honor anthropologists whose work has had a significant, positive influence on the course of government decision-making and action. Dr. Scheper-Hughes’ body of work, especially in the area of organ trafficking, has shaped how governments and international bodies address the issues of illegal transplantation.
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Previously: How To Nail A Dictator And Other Highlights Of The Upcoming Annual Meeting Of The American Anthropological Association.
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Posted on November 28, 2013