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Introduction. The Public South: Engaging History, Abolition, Pedagogy, And Practice, Helen A. Regis, C. Mathews Samson

Southern Anthropologist

With this issue of Southern Anthropologist, we introduce several new features, which we hope will enliven conversations and expand the readership of the journal.

Blood Will Tell: Eugenics Education At A Twentieth-Century Southern University, Meg Langhorne, Alison Bell

Southern Anthropologist

During the 1920s and ‘30s, Washington and Lee University (W&L) biology students visited local families suspected of “degeneracy.” At the direction of their professor and with the support of social workers, physicians, and other authorities, students recorded generational histories as well as such variables as age, material conditions, educational level, employment, illnesses, and supposed proclivities toward promiscuity, alcoholism, illegitimacy, “idiocy,” and “feeblemindedness.” W&L Special Collections and Archives contains 25 of these eugenics term papers. Together they document ways that young White men – many from well-to-do southern families – learned or affirmed that their social position was a function of …

Standing Together Against Silencing: Anthropology As Inclusive Public History In The Anti-Crt Legislative Era, Ann E. Kingsolver, Elena Sesma

Southern Anthropologist

The authors – a high school student, undergraduate and graduate students, and Anthropology Department faculty members at the University of Kentucky – discuss ways that existing ethnographic, archival, and archaeological data can be explored with new analytical lenses to contribute to public history centering voices and perspectives that have been silenced and marginalized in dominant historical narratives. This is argued to be a vital pedagogical project in secondary and postsecondary educational as well as inclusive community discussions, given the current legislative environment across a number of states in the southeastern US that discourages the teaching and even availability of texts …

Abolition 101: Anthropological Praxis And Education For Liberation, Daniel A. Pizarro

Southern Anthropologist

Anthropological praxis has the potential to help build and sustain social justice movements by speaking truth to power, exposing structural violence, and questioning communities’ safety and well-being. Anthropologists who engage in praxis interrogate the root causes of oppression by critiquing the discipline’s pedagogies. The current structure of academic institutions encourages scholars to overlook the popular and political education necessary to ameliorate social suffering and advance human rights. This paper explores prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, a liberatory praxis framework that socio-cultural anthropologists may adopt as active participants in the abolitionist struggle. This case study draws on community-based participatory action research …

Human Trafficking Research: Developing Collaborative Partnerships With Local Agencies, Jaymelee Kim

Southern Anthropologist

This article considers an effort to develop meaningful research collaborations with non-governmental organizations and local agencies working on human trafficking. Scholarship discussing challenges and insights for “finding the field” and developing partnerships in the rural US is sparse. This research report briefly discusses considerations that should be taken into account when developing applied research projects with non-academic collaborators. Using Ohio-based human trafficking research as a case study, this piece discusses how cultural factors, misconceptions, confidentiality, and goals can be navigated to ultimately benefit the partner agencies and the populations they serve.

Putting Anthropological Critiques Into Practice, Amanda J. Reinke

Southern Anthropologist

How do we use anthropological critiques of institutions, practices, and processes to improve practices that address the needs of the public?Drawing on applied anthropological literature and from the author’s experience as a conflict management practitioner and academic, this essay discusses the relationship between critiques of practice and practicing anthropology. Rather than a diametrically opposed relationship (academic vs. practitioner or Ivory Tower vs. applied), I use my positionality as a researcher, academic, entrepreneur, and practitioner in conflict management to argue that engaging with theoretically informed critiques is necessary for practice improvements, and that practitioners are central to improving theory.

Pedagogy In Times Of Crisis, James Daria, Abigail Wightman, Shelly Yankovskyy, Amanda J. Reinke

Southern Anthropologist

Editors’ note: With this issue, we launch a new feature of the journal, drawing from a panel discussion or roundtable at SAS, which sparked important discussion for panelists and conference participants. This panel, which took place on April 9, 2022, in Raleigh, NC, was part of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Southern Anthropological Society with the theme “Public Interest and Professional Anthropology in the South.” The roundtable was organized and moderated by Amanda J. Reinke. The transcript was created by Helen Regis and the conversation was lightly edited by the authors, who also had an opportunity to include references …

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Doing Oral History As Public Anthropology, Helen A. Regis

Southern Anthropologist

Doing Oral History engages students as co-researchers in a community-engaged oral history project begun in 2011. Supported by a research partnership between a faculty member, a university oral history center, and a non-profit archive, the course engages learners in the exploration of a festival and its communities. Through oral histories with long-time festival workers, artists, staff, volunteers, and neighbors, we contribute to expanding the history of a festival and the social movements that have shaped it. We also consider the ways in which diverse festival workers come to feel a part of a community centering African American working-class folk, cultures, …

People, Places And Transport: St. Paul’S Parish Then And Now, Kimberly Pyszka, Maureen Hays

Southern Anthropologist

As archaeologists we study change through time. Certain themes, however, timeless. One such theme is how relationships and communities are formed when people gather together. In her book, St. Paul’s Parish, Jennifer Gilliland (2012) provides an historical overview of twentieth century St. Paul’s Parish, South Carolina, focusing on four themes: 1) Agriculture and Industry, 2) Gathering Places, 3) Trains, Planes, and Automobiles, and 4) Parish People. In this essay, we apply archaeological methods in St. Paul’s Parish on a property known today as Dixie Plantation to argue that these themes were as critical in the parish’s development during the …

Islamic Moral Values And End-Of-Life Care: Examining The Intersection Of Religious Beliefs And The U.S. Health Care System, Cortney Hughes Rinker, Oliver Pelland, Serena Abdallah

Southern Anthropologist

End-of-life care is a central aspect of health care in the United States. Given the country’s diverse population, it is crucial to understand different religious perspectives on policies, standards of care, and medical practices. Religious beliefs impact the ways that end-of-life care is perceived and administered to patients of different faiths. This article examines Islamic approaches to end-of-life care within the context of the US health care system. Drawing on data collected through a literature review and interviews with Muslim physicians, imams, and scholars with extensive knowledge of Islam, four areas are identified in which end-of-life recommendations in the US …

Facebook Realness: Exploring Online Authenticity Through Drag Queens And The Infamous ‘Real Name Policy’, Ray Leblanc

Southern Anthropologist

Winner: 2015 Graduate Student Paper Competition

Early September 2014, Facebook profiles of popular drag queens on the West Coast were suspended for violating the rule of authenticity. Facebook profiles are designed to represent “real” people, and a battle began between corporate identity politics and the obnoxiously contradicting, subversive identities of drag performance. Drawing upon my own ethnographic work on drag performance and the social media of drag performers, I present this event as an opportunity to explore how drag queens bring their protest into cyberspace. Drag queens are disruptive cyborgs whose queer identity both on a digital and physical stage, …

Book Reviews, Robert Waren, Sara Snyder

Southern Anthropologist

Book Reviews:

• Historically Black: Imagining Community in a Black Historic District / Mieka Brand Polanco (New York University Press, 2014) by Robert Waren, University of Mississippi
• Cherokee Reference Grammar / Brad Montgomery-Anderson (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015) by Sara Snyder, Western Carolina University

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Structures For Environmental Action, Katherine Bunting-Howart, Avi Brisman, Willett Kempton, Dorothy C. Holland, Peggy F. Bartlett

Southern Anthropologist

This article develops a typology of what we term “structures for action”—strategies, mechanisms, and means—used by local environmental groups to facilitate actions such as lifestyle shifts, civic protest, and environmental preservation. Based on data from nineteen groups in several states, we distinguish between internal structures that facilitate action for members of the groups and external structures that facilitate action among nonmembers and other groups. Within both internal and external structures, we identify three dimensions: knowledge, meaning, and praxis. Our typology of structures for action is designed to stimulate further research and to be useful for environmental groups, as well as …

Expanding Access To Hiv Testing In Northern Minas Gerais, Brazil, Julia Elinor Roberts, Kimberly Marie Jones, Luçandra Ramos Espirito Santos Espirito Santos, Mauro Jose Guedes Roque, Marise Fagundes Silveira, Amaro Sérgio Marques

Southern Anthropologist

[2009 Undergraduate Prize Winner]

Brazil serves as a potent example of a nation striving to meet the public healthcare needs of a complex and diverse society. To evaluate how a public hospital in Montes Claros, Brazil has attempted to reconcile HIV/AIDS outcome gaps, this study examined aspects of the demographic profi les of public health clients receiving HIV exams in the largest city in Northern Minas Gerais at two respective sites. Age, sex, and residential neighborhood for clients tested for HIV during an eight month period in 2007-2008 at HUCF and CTA were statistically compared. In comparison to CTA, the …

Manufacturing Citizens: National Language Policy In Belize, Shelly Tarkinton

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

The Goat That Makes Us Human, Marjorie Snipes

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Rude Awakenings: Students' Formative Experiences Of Race, Matthew J. Richard

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Subjective Interview With A Prol And A Systems-Theoretic Synthesis Of Baer And Blanchard, John D. Studstill

Southern Anthropologist

"Exploitation in Academe"

Not Just A Game: High School Football And Social Stratification In The Rural South, Amanda L. Meadows

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Among The Savage Anthros: Reflections On The S.A.S. Oral History Project, Michael V. Angrosino

Southern Anthropologist

Paper presented at the annual meeting 1997

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.