Digital Commons Network^™

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, …

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.

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.

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Roma And Czechs: Mindful Of Difference, Matthew Richard

Southern Anthropologist

This essay applies theory and method developed over the past two decades by a number of cognitively- and psychologically-oriented social scientists to explore antipathy between Czechs and Roma in the present-day Czech Republic. It investigates how Czech understandings of personhood and otherness are variously organized, acquired, and practiced. Although ethnic hatred continues to be a problem in the Czech Republic, recent findings in psychological anthropology advise against assuming that it is reproduced wholesale from one generation to the next—nor even one instant to the next. The main source of data is the narratives of twenty-five young Czechs, who recall their …

Indigenous Politics, Sumak Kawsay, And Community Tourism: A Case Study From Amazonian Ecuador, Christopher Jarrett

Southern Anthropologist

This essay explores the relationship between visions of the ideal society that emerge from social movements and local, small-scale socio-economic and cultural projects that might contribute to achieving these ideals. It discusses the concept of sumak kawsay, a term meaning “living well” in the Kichwa language, which has been used in Ecuador to refer to a holistic concept of well-being involving economic, environmental, and social factors. Sumak kawsay originally emerged in the discourse of Ecuador’s indigenous movements, and the country has incorporated the concept, along with its Spanish-language version of buen vivir, into its most recent constitution in 2008. Buen …

Secondary Diaspora: Cape Verdean Immigration To The Southeastern United States, Jessica Lopes, Brandon Lundy

Southern Anthropologist

Diasporas are fluid cultural constructs that foster identity, community, and connections over time, distance, and social space. This study explores a derivative secondary diaspora to illustrate how and why diasporas are interesting social phenomena established out of complex socio-cultural, economic, and political conditions. Outside of the large Cape Verdean diaspora of New England, relatively little is known about other U.S. Cape Verdean communities. How do they maintain ties to both the primary diaspora in New England and their Cape Verdean homeland? This research examines second and third wave moves that push and pull individuals and families beyond established diasporic communities. …

Video Means "I See": Media And Anthropological Instruction, Margaret Williamson Huber

Southern Anthropologist

The essays in this collection demonstrate that visual media are a more than acceptable substitute for introducing students to ethnographic practice, either on their own or as a complement to face-to-face enquiry.

Stories And/Of Self: Using Digital Storytelling In The Anthropology Classroom, Aaron Thornburg

Southern Anthropologist

Digital storytelling is a computer-based media production process that holds significant pedagogical promise for college- and university-level courses in general and cultural anthropology courses in particular. Although digital storytelling is increasingly being used in third-level educational institutions, the advantages and potential problems of giving such assignments have yet to be fully considered in the scholarly literature. This article uses a case study approach to address the potential problems with and benefits of utilizing digital storytelling projects based on my experiences in teaching a “Media, Self, and Society” course at two universities in the 2010-11 academic year. Particular attention will be …

'What Will This Do For My Career?' Teaching Cultural Diversity To Design Students In A For-Profit Institution, Suellen R. Regonini

Southern Anthropologist

For-profit educational institutions are a growing force on the higher education landscape today. In order to improve the rigor of their four-year degrees, general education and other non-career-specific courses are being added to their curricula. The pedagogy at these schools generally privileges four-hour class blocks, the use of visual materials rather than standard texts, and hands-on practical application of skills, all of which can make teaching a traditional lecture-based class in the career school environment quite challenging. This article analyzes efforts by the author to combine personal experience teaching with web videos and visual blogging in courses at both traditional …

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Pop Culture Pedagogy: Television And Film As Simulated Ethnographic Data, Elizabeth Elliott Cooper

Southern Anthropologist

Anthropological theory often appears as the capstone course for undergraduate anthropology majors – the final barrier to the degree or perhaps even ‘becoming an anthropologist’. Despite its importance, however, this class is often underappreciated and its full potential left unrealized due to a lack of student engagement. The abstract language of original texts can be intimidating and difficult to apply to the complex realities of daily life. In addition, simply learning about theory does not prepare students to function as critical thinkers, much less future practitioners. This paper profiles a successful compromise: the use of popular television and film as …

Audiovisual Media As A Pedagogical Tool: A Brief Annotated Bibliography, Elizabeth Elliott Cooper, Max Stein

Southern Anthropologist

Media-based, pedagogical innovations are understudied and largely undocumented within anthropology and the social sciences more generally. While most instructors share the experience of showing films or employing YouTube clips as quick, contemporary examples, we rarely reflect critically on these techniques—much less publish our impressions. This bibliography mirrors the still tentative state of the literature and is neither exhaustive nor authoritative but intended instead as a starting point, profiling (1) examples of media-based pedagogy from the 1970s to the present, (2) critical assessments of the efficacy and impact of classroom media, (3) practical references outlining potential source material and relevant copyright …

Memory-Keepers: An Ethnographic Look At Female Agency Among Italian-Americans, Hannah Burgwyn

Southern Anthropologist

(2010 Undergraduate Prize Winner.) While doing ethnographic research in Bayonne New Jersey among my extended Italian-American family over the summer of 2008 I began to see how deeply memories were valued within Italian-American communities. From fall 2008 to fall 2009, I continued my research in Asheville and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, also with people of Italian ancestry. These interviews supported the idea that memory aids in the construction and maintenance of Italian-American identity and works as a defining feature of female agency within the community. While studying gender roles of Italian-American women it became apparent that an important aspect of …

Complete Issue, Journal Editors

Southern Anthropologist

No abstract provided.

Disrupted But Not Destroyed: Fictive-Kinship Networks Among Black Educators In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Daniella Ann Cook

Southern Anthropologist

Drawing on Adkins’ (1997) notion of reform as colonization and using ethnographic data from African American teachers in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, this article discusses how black educators’ fictive-kinship (Fordham 1996, Chatters, Taylor, and Jayadoky 1994, Stack 1976) networks have been altered in the changing landscape of reform. I argue that the importance of fictive-kinship relationships among educators and students was ignored in school-reform efforts in post-Katrina New Orleans. Post-Katrina school reforms disrupted, but did not destroy, these fictive-kinship networks. I discuss three themes: (1) fictive-kinship networks created before Katrina cultivated an environment centered on cooperation, collaboration, and solidarity, …

'I Know You!': Understanding Racial Experience And Racial Practice Within The Lumbee Indian Community, David S. Lowry

Southern Anthropologist

Over the past three centuries, academic and public discussions of race have been divided into two distinct spheres: an understanding of race as “blood” and, alternatively, an understanding of race as that which is defined by visualization of human phenotype. In contemporary anthropological and Native American research, scholars of Native America have been mostly concerned with communities that are defined by blood. These scholars have presumed that notions of blood (or “blood quantum”) ought to structure how we (as scholars) discuss Native American existence. These scholars have, subsequently, ignored the notion that Native American peoples still live in large numbers …

'You Have To Go North To Find The South': Situating Central Florida In The South For Birth Research, Erica Gibson

Southern Anthropologist

This paper reports on situating Central Florida as a part of the South for birth research among midwives, a physician, and their clients. A comparison is made between historical and modern beliefs about what is represented by Southern values and ideals, and how the women and birth practitioners in this study do or do not conform to those ideals.

A Chinese Case Study In Using Psychoanalysis For Ethnography, Maris Boyd Gillette

Southern Anthropologist

In this article I explore a surprising conversation that I had with a Chinese Muslim woman named Sheng Lanying. Her persistent tendency to see images of Mao that were no longer present led me to examine how personal, emotional meanings informed her experience of nation-building. After providing basic historical context about the Chinese revolution, I present the conversation between Sheng and me. Then I discuss how anthropologists can use, and have used, psychoanalysis for ethnography. I next apply the psychoanalytic approach that I find most useful to Sheng’s memories. I conclude with a discussion of what anthropologists can gain from …