The Anthropology of Humor - Responding to Everyday Racist Comments and Jokes

In the face of so much bigotry flying around on social media and in our daily lives, it's good practice to remind ourselves of the best practices out there when dealing with everyday racist comments and jokes.

How do anthropologists think about humor as a cultural trait?

According to Anthropologist Robert Lynch, a joke...is like a little brain scan: When we laugh, we reveal what's inside us. In an interview for NPR, Lynch is described as saying: When you and I laugh at the same joke, we signal to each other that we share the same values, the same beliefs. This may be why people all over the world want friends and romantic partners who share their sense of humor. His research on humor can be found here and here.

What are some simple practices we can follow when responding to racist humor?

Emma Thomson and Anne Pederson, Psychologists at Murdoch University, advocate that one simply disagree with a racist statement or to not laugh at a racist joke (acknowledging the importance of personal safety in the face of anger when doing so).

The Southern Poverty Law Centre is a rich resource for those wanting to know how to respond to everyday bigotry. In Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry, the authors include a diversity of response scenarios, including responses depending on the relationship between the oneself and the individual/structure. From siblings and joking in-laws, to real estate bigotry, unwanted emails as well as one's own personal bias. This is a gold mine.

At the end of this list - they advocate six steps:

1. Be ready
2. Identify the behaviour (call it out - not the person - the behaviour in order to receive a less confrontational response)
3. Appeal to principles (moral humanistic principals)
4. Set limits (for example, that you're unwilling to hear such jokes, etc.)
5. Find an ally/Be an ally (find solace in similarly-minded folks)
6. Be vigilant (making small steps)

Quick Links:

• An Anthropologist Walks Into A Bar And Asks, 'Why Is This Joke Funny?' - Shankar Vedentam, NPR (August 6, 2012)
• It's funny because we think it's true: laughter is augmented by implicit preferences - Robert Lynch (2010)
• Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry by The Southern Poverty Law Centre (January 25, 2015)
• Self-deception inhibits laughter - Robert Lynch and Robert Trivers (2012)
• What psychology says about how you should respond to racist behaviour - Thomson and Pederson (August 4, 2015)

Innovative Like Me: Best Practices for Writing Unbiased Job Ads

Below is a post @anthrolens blogger @JennLong3 wrote on LinkedIn. In this post, I write about diversity and bias in Canadian job ads.

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While drinking coffee this morning, I came across a job ad for an internship at a Toronto-based subsidiary of a FP500 Corporation.

In addition to one’s resume, cover letter, and copy of transcripts, the employer asked for:

1. An overview of projects the applicant had worked on in the past - be they work or school-related or a personal project;
2. Two in-depth case studies about any of these projects which highlight the process, insights or design principles, the output generated, challenged encountered; and,
3. A list of the top three books or articles with the biggest influence on their practice and a description of why they’re important to the applicant.

For such a tall order, the employer explained their wishes:

They wanted to understand ‘how the applicant worked’ because ‘the documentation process was just as important to the final product’. They also requested that applicants provide specific details about their methods and frameworks because they were interested in understanding the why and the how of their process.

As a Communications instructor for the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology – I saw myself mic drop and walk away from this glorious display of the importance of communication in technical fields. This sophisticated call for applicants helped prove the importance of many topics covered in my class including: project documentation, reading widely in one’s field, the importance of discipline-specific vocabulary, putting theory into practice, self-reflection during project work, tailoring documents to specific audiences…I could go on.

In the end however, the ad stated ‘feel free to use whatever format or length…’ to showcase the applicants work. That’s where I stopped.

I teach my students that there are prescribed methods of communication in Canadian workplaces; that is, whether they know it or not, workplace correspondence and documentation follows long-standing formats of technical and professional communication. To do otherwise slows down progress, creates confusion, and has the potential to ruin work relationships. In class, we learn about direct and indirect writing styles, best practices of professional communication, and more. I tell my students that in following these best practices, they will get more done and make a better career for themselves.

The brief overview request aside, how should we teach students to write case studies and describe their favorite book without returning to the genre of essay writing or book reports that they left behind in primary or secondary school? Do the employers think their applicants will have sufficient expertise to write a business case study? If so, what are the implications of sharing such intellectual property during a job search process?

Perhaps this open-ended request is a symptom of the creative industry, that is, that they want to see what applicants can come up with; yet, there remain standards for communication in all workplaces that the intern will have to follow. Will they end up with a creative soul who can't interact professionally with a client? In a more practical sense, do they want to read thousands of book reports? (Obvious answer: No, you don't) As someone who has faced stacks of essays and literature reviews, it was those well organized, efficiently written (length requirements be damned) submissions which caught my eye and won out.

As a social science scholar teaching in STEM, I’m often struck by the ‘isms’ of Canadian workplace culture that bubble to the surface in everyday practice. In this case, I imagine that such a job ad would locate an applicant whose creative expression matched the recruiter's and whose well-loved book list matched their own. It begs the question: Is this the best way to source an applicant? In a word, no. Innovation – a word sprinkled throughout the ad – does not come from sycophantic following but productive conflict, i.e. difference in thought, in life experience, in world view. Written as such, this ad reflects the implicit bias found in the Canadian hiring process (see Ottawa Citizen, the Star) where employers hire similar and like-minded employees - and so the inequitable hiring and promotion cycle continues.

If you want an applicant who knows about the design process – why not have a quiz to test their individual knowledge? If you want to see creativity in practice, why not have a second stage where culled applicants respond to a past company project filled with real world issues. This would allow them to respond to situations from the brainstorming to production phase. Along the way, ask them to reflect on why they made the decisions they did, and how they would deploy their methods. Otherwise, include a template of a case study to level the playing field (and limit the page count). If you want different thinking, why limit creative knowledge to books and articles – a genre biased toward a particular readership? Instead, suggest potential interns submit a photo and write 250 words as to how this photo inspires their perspective on innovation or design practice.

In the end, I advocate the same thing to employers as I do to my students. Write reflectively, in a manner that considers the audience’s needs and which follows best practices of workplace communication. To do less, creates unproductive communication and has the potential to stymie innovative work processes.

Solutionism - The Role of Technology in Solving SocioTechnical Problems

It all began, over a year ago (June 2016), with what author Ethan Zuckerman described as hate-linking. Through this practice, Zuckerman stumbled upon and read an article by Shane Snow who is the co-founder of a content-marketing platform. Briefly, in his article, Snow advocates for change in US prison systems - to lessen the financial burden and remove instances of violence - by locking everyone in a room...indefinitely and by feeding them the Silicon Valley version of Ensure. The role of technology - a crucial point to Zuckerman's response - in this prison life would be to give all those incarcerated access to VR (virtual reality) equipment and video games to socialize and learn. Snow's thought is that with less contact, there will be less violence and deaths.

In his lengthy response, The Perils of Using Technology to Solve Other People's Problems for the Atlantic, Zuckerman systematically pokes holes in Snow's proposed solutions to the US prison system (as a design developed out of context and without input from those living and working in such a system) and questions the role of technology as the prolific savior in sociotechnical issues.

As an engineering instructor at MIT, Zuckerman is interested in finding ways to: disrupt better, challenge knowledgeably, and engaging (or codesigning) new and better technology alongside the intended or target audience. Zuckerman drives home what he sees as an issue in (most) engineering design processes where many of the technologies we benefit from, weren’t designed for their ultimate beneficiaries, but were simply designed well and adopted widely.

Zuckerman draws attention to Evgeny Morozov's critique of “solutionism” which Morozov describes as the act of focusing on problems that (only) have “nice and clean technological solution at our disposal.” The problem with the solutionist critique, Zuckerman argues, is that it tends to remove technological innovation from the problem-solver’s toolkit. He advocates that robust solutions to social problems must incorporate technology as one of many levers toward social change.

Zuckerman mentions the work of Genevieve Bell at intel to briefly mention the role of ethnography and ethnographers in collecting important user information in the design process. He writes:
Understanding the wants and needs of users is important when you’re designing technologies for people much like yourself, but it’s utterly critical when designing for people with different backgrounds, experiences, wants, and needs.

Although an older article, Zuckerman's response to Snow's design situates anthropological and ethnographic analysis into the heart of the design process, where the heart does not represent the centre of a process, but the life blood of design and innovation. It's here that the expert - that is the user or client or target audience - and their knowledge is paramount.

Quick Links: 

Perils of Using Technology to Solve Other People's Problems: What will it take to design socio-technical systems that actually work? Ethan Zuckerman in the Atlantic (June 23, 2016)

How Soylent and Oculus Could Fix The Prison System (A Thought Experiment) - note, this has been revised due to feedback from the wider community - Shane Snow (Sept 23, 2015) 

For more links about technology on AnthroEverywhere!

Isuma TV - Indigenous Media collective (Sept 4 2017)

Anthropology Podcasting (Aug 24 2017)

Remembering & Memories: there's an app for that... (Jul 17 2017)

The Relationship between Social Justice & Anthropology

2017 on a whole has been a deadly year. This post was spurred by the terrorist attacks that we've seen in Western media but on a whole, many people - directly involved in conflict or not - have lost their lives or have been hurt by those labelled as terrorists. For a list of global terrorist incidents (which include those incidents not featured in North American media), you can follow this link.

The relationship between social justice and anthropology has been a topic of scholarly discussion and division within the anthropological community.

As scientists, anthropologists of the past were told to remain as neutral observers in the belief that their presence, if minimized, would not affect the goings-on around them. Yet, anthropologists have long since realized that their presence in the field and with their interlocutors impacts their work. Anthropologists themselves are instruments by which data are collected; as such, we necessarily influence and affect our surroundings and our research.

In addition to this scientific perspective, many anthropologists have been involved with issues of social justice and universal human rights as these topics were and are quite often the fodder for anthropological investigation (i.e. what sparked our research questions and interest). For example, in Deeb and Winegar's dissection of the outcome of the American Anthropological Association vote to boycott Israeli institutions on Savage Minds, they write:

Many anthropologists think that their discipline champions (or should champion) the voices and perspectives of the marginalized, yet some of its practitioners have colluded with colonial and state power. Anthropology has become a heavily feminized discipline since the second wave feminist movement and attracts many non-elite scholars, yet it remains largely white, like academia in general. Anthropology is the most resolutely international of the social sciences in its breadth of research sites and privileging of fieldwork done “elsewhere,” yet anthropologists based in the U.S. mainly cite their colleagues working in U.S. institutions. And anthropologists frequently identify as politically left leaning and critical of capitalism, yet continue to work in increasingly corporatized university environments.

Important themes in this discussion are anthropologists and their role in activism. In a recent discussion, Haley Bryant and Emily Cain provide an Introduction to “Ethnographer as Activist” where they "grapple with ethnography and advocacy in the field". In this piece, the authors discuss ethnography and activism through four lenses: audience, communication, visibility, and care.

When thinking about anthropology being everywhere in the context of recent global events and the increase of media coverage about terror and terrorism in North America and the world, it is at this point that the relationship between social justice, resistance, and the impact of anthropologists in everyday life is a very important discussion to continue.

Quick Links:

• Anthro Everywhere! Follow this link to see a list of other posts on activism
• Bryant and Cain Ethnographer as Activist (Feb 17, 2017)
• Deeb and Winegar's Why Anthropologists Failed to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions (Jan. 4, 2017)
• PoLAR On a New Anthropology of Resistance and Social Justice (Jan 23, 2017)
• Wikipedia List of Terrorist Incidents in 2017 (updating throughout year)

More on racist mascots

In my house, we are already two months into baseball season -- which also means the resurgence of critical blogs, news articles and discussions about racist mascots. We posted last year about Racist Mascots (11 April 2016), and this post adds to that earlier and ongoing discussion.

Native Mascots Perpetuate Racism Against Indigenous People

Last April as the Toronto Blue Jays battled through the American League Championship Series, Cleveland's team arrived in Toronto for Game 3 of the series amidst a legal challenge to ban the use of that team's racist mascot and name. Where many of the Cleveland fans interviewed by Canadian media feel that "the team's nickname and logo are not offensive and should not be changed," well-known Indigenous architect, activist, and officer of the Order of Canada Douglas Cardinal filed an injunction against the team's name and mascot as offensive and discriminatory. Douglas argued

that the logo reflects stereotypes and misunderstandings about indigenous cultures, lumping diverse groups of First Nations into one offensive, homogenous cartoon.
“It’s much deeper and more profound than a logo being offensive. It’s really an indicator of why that relationship (between First Nations peoples and society at large) is so flawed. Because there’s this lack of recognition of what the true conditions of native peoples have been over the last 500 years.”

The last-minute injunction was overturned by the Superior Court and Cleveland proceeded to wear their racism on their sleeves throughout the series.

The challenge to ban the broadcast of the name and mascot was successful, however, in raising this discussion again in mainstream media, and highlighting ways in which people in relative positions of power are already acknowledging the connections between this imagery and institutional racism against Indigenous peoples. For instance, much was made of how the long-time radio announcer for the Jays, Jerry Howarth, stopped calling Cleveland and Atlanta by their offensive team names since a 1992 letter from an Indigenous fan. This announcer has also made a concerted effort to stop using "terms such as tomahawk chop and powwow on the mound." Local teams with similarly offensive team names or mascots have also recently been called upon to change because of how these symbols perpetuate racism in the everyday.

Indigenous artists are also using these kinds of moments to speak back to and challenge these sports symbols of institutional racism. See for instance, Artists Respond to Cleveland Team’s Racist Logo (Canadian Art) or Culturally Appropriate Chicago Blackhawks Logo by First Nations Artist Goes Viral (Indian Country Today).

In the classroom, these team names and symbols provide fruitful examples for discussing how banal imagery comes to support the status quo of institutionalized racism, as well as more general questions of representation, cultural change and the invention of tradition.

Quick links:

• Racist Mascots (11 April 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• Canadian activist seeking injunction against use of ‘Cleveland Indians’ name (16 October 2016, Toronto Star)
• Cleveland Indians Can Use Logo and Name in Toronto, Canadian Judge Says (17 October 2016, New York Times)
• Blue Jays' radio voice Jerry Howarth sticks to 1992 vow to not say 'Indians' (11 October 2016)
• Native Mascots Perpetuate Racism Against Indigenous People (4 March 2016, HuffPost Canada)
• Cleveland Fans Say Team's Name 'Honours' Indigenous Culture (17 October 2016, HuffPost Canada)
• HuffPost Canada Will Not Be Using Racist Sports Team Names (13 October 2016, HuffPost Canada)
•  Artists Respond to Cleveland Team’s Racist Logo (18 October 2016, Canadian Art)
• Culturally Appropriate Chicago Blackhawks Logo by First Nations Artist Goes Viral (18 Vovember 2015, Indian Country Today)

Indigenous fire management

Indigenous knowledge and practices are increasingly recognized and incorporated by non-Indigenous governments, businesses, and others into their own projects. While these engagements may often take the form of cultural appropriation or theft, we also see collaborations that generate benefits for all, produce new shared knowledge and opportunities, as well as new questions and tensions.

Prescribed Burn in High Park, Toronto, Canada

In the news recently we read about local governments in Australia and Toronto, Canada incorporating Indigenous fire-management into forestry management. Known in forestry management as "asset burns" or "prescribed burns," these selective and controlled burns of dried vegetation in savannah ecosystems help to reduce dry-season wildfires. In Australia, "Indigenous rangers are collaborating with Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife rangers in Nitmiluk National Park to manage its savanna burning program, in an Australian-first agreement." This collaboration helps park and Indigenous rangers protect cultural artefacts like rock art in these areas, as well as creating carbon credits.

Historically, in the area that is today the City of Toronto's High Park, "Indigenous groups maintained fires when hunting and clearing riparian areas. European settlers suppressed the fires from the 1870s to 2000 due to safety concerns as houses were built in closer proximity to the park." In recent years, prescribed burns have been reincorporated into the human-plant relationship in this park, opening up space for anthropological interrogations of these relationships.

Anthropologist Natasha Myers's current project with Ayelen Liberona, "Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds" explores the possibilities of decolonizing ecology in urban park sites like Toronto's High Park. They write

Fire is of course not just a “natural” force; people all over the world use fire to sculpt lands. Oak savannahs depend on people with knowledge of fire and the skills to care for the lands. Toronto’s remnant black oak savannahas, including those in High Park, are millennia in-the-making.  These lands are the traditional territories of the Wendat, the Haudenosaunee and Anishnaabe Nations. Toronto stands on the lands of the Mississauga’s of the Credit River. Indigenous peoples cared for this land with fire for millennia before colonization. Many thousands of Indigenous and Métis peoples live and move through this region today.
Oak savannahs do not survive without people. After years of settlers’ grazing sheep and lawn mowers, Toronto’s Urban Forestry team have brought back the fires in an effort to save the oak savannahs.  Here “nature” is valued more than the Indigenous cultures that gave this land its contours and significance. In this sense, restoration efforts participate in an ongoing colonial project that continues to enforce the dispossession of Indigenous peoples from their lands. Can we do ecology otherwise?

How do these examples of Indigenous ways of caring for the plant-people relationship suggest other ways for thinking about "nature" and "natural environments"? How might these examples contribute to or provoke classroom discussions about systemic inequality, epistemology, and decolonization?

Quick links and further reading:

• Appropriating Indigenous Knowledge: Biopiracy or Scientific Colonialism (14 March 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• Valuing Aboriginal cultural knowledge in Western science (2 June 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• Reviving food diversity through Indigenous knowledge (1 September 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• All About High Park’s Controlled Burns (2016)
• Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds project page
• High Park's Oak Savannahs
• Johnson, Jon. 2013. The Indigenous Environmental History of Toronto, “The Meeting Place”. In L. A. Sandberg, S. Bocking, & K. Cruikshank (Eds.), Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region (pp. 59–71). Ontario: Wilson Institute for Canadian History.
• Update 29 May 2017: A link to Myer's longer paper Becoming Sensor in Sentient Worlds: A More-than-natural History of a Black Oak Savannah via her academia.edu page

Islamophobia is Racism Syllabus

Adding to the impressive list of open access teaching resources, the Islamophobia is Racism Syllabus provides texts for "Teaching & Learning about anti-Muslim Racism in the United States."

The authors identify the following goals of their Syllabus:

1. Define anti-Muslim racism as an alternative to the concept of Islamophobia
2. Understand the relationship of race and religion to white supremacy through the racialized figure of the Muslim
3. Provide an intersectional and comparative analysis to anti-Muslim racism
4. Strategize ways to challenge anti-Muslim racism and resist white supremacy
5. The syllabus is organized by the following themes and topics, which move from broader framing issues to more specific examples. Later readings may benefit from the contextualization provided by earlier sections.  

Bringing into conversation a wide variety of interdisciplinary texts -- both scholarly and popular -- this syllabus interrogates the relationship between Islampohobia and Racism through the following sections:

I. Race, Empire and Islam
II. The Production and Reproduction of Anti-Muslim Racism
III. The Impact of Anti-Muslim Racism
IV. Policing, Security and Anti-Muslim Racism
V. Resisting Anti-Muslim Racism
VI. Further Reading and Resources

While this syllabus provides a valuable resource for teaching on these topics, what further reading suggestions would you like to add to this collection? Do you have additional ethnographic or anthropological texts you would like to propose? Or perhaps texts that interrogate this relationship in non-American contexts? If so, email (anthrolens@gmail.com) or tweet us (@anthrolens) with your suggestions and we'll add them here!

Quick links and further reading:

• Islamophobia is Racism Syllabus
• #BlackIslamSyllabus a Google Doc "curated by Dr. Kayla Renée Wheeler ....  The goal of this project is to provide teachers, professors, researchers, journalists, and people interested in learning more about Islam with resources on Black Muslims to promote a more inclusive approach to the study of Islam."
• additional Reading Lists, Syllabi, & Teaching Resources (anthro everywhere! page)

The Return of Support for Acquiring a Liberal Arts Degrees: An Anthropological Perspective

There have recently been a spate of news articles discussing the importance of liberal arts degrees and graduates' chance for success:

• Liberal arts degrees are here to stay (The Globe and Mail, March 13, 2017)
• Why liberal arts degrees are more valuable than you might think (The Globe and Mail, March 7, 2017)
• A Liberal Arts Degree Is More Important Than Ever (Forbes, November 16, 2016)
• Liberal arts education in the Age of Trump (The Washington Post, December 30, 2016)
• Revenge of the arts: Why a liberal arts education pays off (Maclean's, July 26, 2016)

In a recent article by Brock scholars, Norton and Martini (released 2017) argue that: "Canadian university students tend to endorse employment-related reasons for attending university ahead of other reasons such as personal satisfaction or intellectual growth." In their study, first- and fourth-year students placed "a greater emphasis on benefits related to career preparation and economic advancement than those associated with learning and self-improvement." However, when asked to evaluate the importance of a comprehensive list of degree-related benefits both groups of students endorsed the value of many of them, including those related to learning and self-improvement. When discussing why students might focus on so-called employment-related learning, the authors argue that "harsh economic realities and high unemployment rates for young adults, coupled with large increases in the perceived cost of a degree, may also underlie the fact that students endorse career-related benefits above all others" (Norton and Martini, 2017:10).

I read Norton and Martini's work as part of this larger discussion of the usefulness of liberal arts degrees of which anthropology finds itself included, if not closely related. 

As advocates for the use of anthropology and its lessons, literally everywhere, the requirement to prove the usefulness of anthropology as a discipline that makes students ready for the workplace seems ridiculous. But in thinking back to my own education, I was rarely told (if ever) about the skills that I gained through my degree (beyond critical thinking). While we're talking about an education that at the undergraduate level ended just over 15 years ago, neither my Masters or Doctoral training provided me with the ability to articulate these skills either. 

Follow this link to Simon Fraser's page on Skills in Anthropology which you might want to feature on your next resume and cover letter.

Quick links and further reading:

• Cole Norton and Tanya Martini. 2017. "Perceived Benefits of an Undergraduate Degree," The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. 8(1).
• Simon Fraser University's Skills in Anthropology
• More from anthro everywhere!:
• What are Anthropology jobs? (23 February 2017)
• VPhD career finder (5 December 2016)
• Articulating the Anthropological Toolkit to Non-Anthropologists (15 September 2016)
• Advice for Grad Students page

What's in a Word? The Importance of Recognizing the Etymology of Words

There have been a number of interesting posts lately about the 'unsavory' history of some everyday words and phrases in a growing discourse which argues that the use of slurs and unsavory language needs to be protected as one's right to freedom of speech.

In perusing social media of late, it's not hard to see how language has changed and the use of racialized, prejudiced, or derogatory language is becoming more common place (for example, see Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui's recent article in the National Observer entitled You know there’s a problem when you get 50,000 anti-Muslim emails in your inbox).

In a recent post, Adeshina Emmanuel explores the background of few phrases that don't typically show up in such reviews, including: No can do, uppity, long time no see, and peanut gallery.

Linguistic Anthropologist Sarah Shulist from MacEwan University has also recently pointed out the issue with arguing for the continued right to use these unsavory words by those in privilege. She argues that negative meanings are particularly potent and their meanings enhanced (read: prioritized, highlighted, understood, or run through conversations as an undercurrent) through their continued use (as slurs, through discussion or analysis...which she admits is what she's doing in her post) in discussion.

As for whether or not the use of slurs should continue under the guise of arguments defending free speech, she writes:

The loss of a few (or even a lot of) words from my repertoire doesn’t really hinder my communicative creativity all that much – it limits me verbally about to the same degree that not being allowed to hit people limits my range of acceptable arm motions. The fact that we strive for ideologies of maximal offensiveness allowed is yet another ugly feature of a structurally racist society.

Quick links and further reading:

• Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui's You know there’s a problem when you get 50,000 anti-Muslim emails in your inbox (10 March 2017, National Observer) 
• Common Words and Phrases That Have Seriously Racist Roots (attn.com)
• Sarah Shulist on Language Change, Racism, and White Ideologies
• more from anthro everywhere! on language

Opinion on an Op-Ed: Academic Underperformers Must be Called Out by Gerald Walton

A very interesting article came out in University Affairs for their February (2017) issue - An opinion piece which will surely provoke opinions. In it, Walton advocates for withholding annual raises, professional development allotments, and sabbatical from those faculty members who 'chronically under-perform'. In reading this opinion piece, one can see the fine line that Walton walks as he writes about the plausible negative responses to his comments throughout. Yet, it's not only this balanced approach which makes his argument convincing, in the opinion of this (JL) author, but also his attempt to describe what that measured response might look like (the so-called 'calling out', that is, rebuking, reprimanding, reaction by the faculty on under-performers). In his short piece he worries about the (mis)use of such evaluations and actions by so-called 'fiscal conservatives' on campus and has misgivings about incorporating neoliberal policies and practices into university business; however, to do nothing, writes Walton, is even worse.

This description of 'X issue' which will 'get worse' 'through 'inaction' seems to be a rather ubiquitous refrain spoken around the world in response to political leaders, rising global temperatures, and disasters around the world. Walton's article is one of the few I've read on this topic and its place in the most recent issue of University Affairs perhaps signals the first, baby step, toward action.

• Academic underperformers must be called out (2017, University Affairs)

Add it to the dictionary! Changing language, changing culture

This short article about Merriam-Webster's addition of 'genderqueer' to their dictionary is really useful for thinking about how language changes over time to describe our changing cultural worlds. According to the Hufftington Post, the dictionary's

commitment to adding new queer terms and language to the dictionary, and discussing them on social media, follows the evolution of culture.
“The set of terms relating to gender and sexuality that we’ve added in recent years is like any other; as established members of the language ― we have evidence of these terms in published, edited text from a variety of sources and over an extended period of time ― they meet our criteria for entry,” Emily Brewster, Merriam-Webster Associate Editor, told The Huffington Post. “We would be remiss not to define them.”

What does the emergence of new words tell us about our changing cultural world -- in this case about how we understand and express our gender and sexuality?

Quick links and further reading:

• Merriam-Webster Has Become A Hilarious, Shade-Throwing LGBTQ Ally 
• Other related posts on changing language and culture:
• The mutability of language (LOL!) (9 March 2016)
• How gender changes our jobs (24 October 2016)
• A historical view of a long heated debate: what could be more menacing than the singular "they"? (8 September 2016)
• Avoiding gendered bias... for instructors (25 May 2016)
• Indigenous languages and gender (10 March 2016)
• How does language shape our worldview? (17 October 2016)

Where to find Alternative News Sources

Check out Simon Fraser Universities Alternative News Sources page.

As described at the top of the page:

For the purposes of this guide, "alternative" means that which does not represent society's mainstream or dominant ideology.  However, some alternative media sources are widely read and could be considered mainstream. Both progressive and conservative resources are included, as both are arguably excluded from the mainstream media.

Reasons for seeking out alternative sources?

1. To gain a holistic understanding of a particular event or happening. In theory, this understanding should guide you to a more representative perspective through its multiplicity
2. To question the Western perspective that holds priority in academic and media due to our Canadian geographic and historical location.

Happy Alt reading!

Hallowe'en & Racism

LSPIRG's (Wilfred Laurier University)
I am Not a Costume campaign

Boo!

Hallowe'en is a rich holiday for anthropologists to dig into for how it brings together many different social phenomena such as ritual and liminality, layers upon layers of changing tradition, and social justice in questions of cultural appropriation and racism in costuming.

Every year in recent memory, my social media feeds have been chock-full of snappy posts and often well-considered reactions to racist Hallowe'en costumes. While black-face still seems to be a good idea to some (it's not), other groups and cultures also frequently turn up in costume shops and Hallowe'en social events (also not a good idea).

These racist costumes -- like the ongoing use of racist mascots and team names -- have become important public sites for discussion around racism in the everyday, and how these common aggressions are actually part of larger systemic issues. For instance, this year in Canada, costumes parodying Indigenous people have been subject to criticism through public campaigns like this one in Regina, where 'warning labels' were attached to these costumes in a popular seasonal costume store:

In case you can't read the fine print, this warning label indicated that "The items contained in this package are offensive and promote the sexualisation of Indigenous women and peoples. Please avoid contact with these dangerous materials. 
There are well-over 4000 missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada. An inquiry is being pursued to address this issue. It takes everyone in Canada to fight against sexualised violence. That starts with outfits of this nature."

In the classroom, examining something that may seem frivolous -- such as
Hallowe'en costumes -- can help us to make sense of the much deeper and complex connections between these banal practices and systems of social inequality that are built on institutional racism and colonialism. How are these costumes connected to the broader social and political issues that are daily making headlines at the moment, such as MMIW in Canada, and the North Dakota Access Pipeline in the US? How do these costumes help to shed light on the ongoing processes of systemic violence against Indigenous peoples in North America by our governments and settler-Canadians/ Americans? What are the guidelines for choosing a costume that isn't racist?

Quick links and further reading:

• Google search on "racist Halloween costumes" because there is actually just so much great content being written on these issues on the web.
• Google search on the "my culture is not a costume" campaigns, such as LSPIRG's (Wilfred Laurier University) 'I am Not a Costume' campaign, and the 2011 Ohio University 'We're a Culture, Not a Costume' campaign
• The relevANTH Guide to Choosing a Culturally Sensitive Halloween Costume (2016, relevANTH)
• Racist Halloween Costumes Get Temporary Warning Labels In Regina Store (2016, Huffington Post)
• Native Americans Try On "Indian" Halloween Costumes (2015, BuzzfeedYellow video, 2 minutes 30 seconds)
• Native Women's Association of Canada and their site on MMIW
• Related past anthro everywhere! posts: 
• The dos & don'ts of Cultural Appropriation (13 June 2016)
• Racist Mascots (11 April 2016)
• Anthropoliteia's #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus (5 September 2016)
• How To Support Blacademics & Be an Ally (8 July 2016)

How gender changes our jobs

One of the things I love about teaching anthropology is thinking about and showing how -- through everyday experiences -- broad processes shape local lives.

I think that these connections come out very clearly in this piece from The Atlantic, "What Programming's Past Reveals About Today's Gender-Pay Gap" (2016). The hook of the piece is that computer programming, which is now a male-dominated field, actually began as a career considered particularly suited to women. So, what happened?

The answer comes down in a very real way to how our

Margaret Hamilton, Programmer for NASA (1969)

conceptions of “expertise” are inseparable from gender. As Judy Wajcman, a sociology professor at the London School of Economics, has argued, “The classification of women’s jobs as unskilled and men’s jobs as skilled frequently bears little relation to the actual amount of training or ability required for them. Skill definitions are saturated with gender bias.” Gender stereotypes pervade definitions of competence and status, contrasting work that requires brain or brawn; mathematical or verbal ability; individualism or cooperation. When an occupation undergoes a shift in gender composition, the description of the job often morphs to better align with the gender of the incoming hires—such as when programming went from being understood as clerical work suitable for women to a job that demands advanced mathematical facility. When women replaced men as typists, it went from a job that was seen as requiring physical stamina to one that needed a woman’s dexterity. In providing profiles not only the male-dominated field of programming, but the female-dominated field of teaching, this piece underscores how our perceptions of different careers, their power, prestige, and the paycheck that goes along with them is deeply coloured by our culturally-informed ideas of gender.

Dr. Christine Darden. Courtesy NASA

This piece is also interesting to use to think about how structure and actions based on socially constructed qualities associated (even unconsciously) with gender and race have helped to shape certain fields, and to keep individuals out of working in certain fields, e.g. women and people of colour in STEM.

Quick links & further reading:

• "What Programming's Past Reveals About Today's Gender-Pay Gap" (The Atlantic, 2016)
• How does language shape our worldview? (17 October 2016) and other anthro everywhere! posts on language
• "Margaret Hamilton, the Engineer Who Took the Apollo to the Moon" (Medium, 2014)
• "Meet the Black Female Mathematicians Who Helped America Win the Space Race" (Observer, 2016)
• "What's Up with Chicks in Science?" Neil Degrasse Tyson responds to an old white dude about minorities (African-Americans and Women) in Science (YouTube, 3.30 minutes)
• "Alabama scientist, one of nation's few black female physicists, breaks ground in cancer research" (AL.com, 2016)

Acknowledging Indigenous Territory at Universities

Every year in recent memory, the opening of the annual Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) conference begins with an acknowledgement that the meetings are taking place on Indigenous territory. In the context of Canadian anthropology, which has a long (and fraught) tradition with studying Indigenous peoples, this ritual acknowledgement speaks to both the debates about decolonizing anthropology in Canada and more generally, as well as the ongoing work of truth and reconcilation.

However, as the ever-insightful âpihtawikosisân blog's Chelsea Vowel points out, territorial acknowledgement has become increasingly common as a policy across Canadian universities, with the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) itself releasing a Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory.

It is interesting that âpihtawikosisân's post about thinking Beyond territorial acknowledgments (23 September 2016) is set against headlines about the royal visit by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (a.k.a Will and Kate) to British Columbia. While many of these headlines have focused on the popularity of the young royals among (settler-) Canadians, and strengthening ties across the Commonwealth, some have focused on the decision of some Indigenous leaders and groups not to attend a planned 'reconciliation ceremony' at the BC legislative assembly (see for example these articles from HuffPost British Columbia and Vice Canada).

In this context, âpihtawikosisân's post offers valuable critical insights and analysis into the purpose and practice of territorial acknowledgement rituals. She writes,

When I think about territorial acknowledgments, a few things come to mind that I’d like to explore. First, what is the purpose of these acknowledgments? Both what those making the territorial acknowledgments say they intend, as well as what Indigenous peoples think may be the purpose. Second, what can we learn about the way these acknowledgments are delivered? Are there best practices? Third, in what spaces do these acknowledgements happen and more importantly, where are they not found? Finally, what can exist beyond territorial acknowledgements?

How can we move beyond just acknowledging territory (even when these acknowledgments can act as "sites of potential disruption, they can be transformative acts that to some extent undo Indigenous erasure") toward "asking hard questions about what needs to be done once we’re ‘aware of Indigenous presence’"?

Quick links:

• Beyond territorial acknowledgments (âpihtawikosisân, 2016)
• Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) itself releasing a Guide to Acknowledging Traditional Territory
• What does it mean to decolonize anthropology in Canada? (Decolonizing Anthropology series, Savage Minds, 2016)
• Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) 
• CASCA Dossier: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 2015
• Royal visit & reconciliation links:
• Canada’s Colonial History Thrust Into the Spotlight During the Royals Visit to BC (Vice, 2016)
• Royal Visit 2016: B.C. Chiefs Refuse To Attend Reconciliation Event With Will And Kate (HuffPost, 2016)
• Prince William and Kate in Canada: Why their royal visit is more than just the photo ops (CBC, 2016)
• More anthro everywhere! posts on Indigenous peoples and issues

Undergraduate-Paper-Grading-Ophobia

At times, student writing activities and assignments seem like more of a chore for instructors than the students (although I hear them complain too).

In a recent article by John Warner entitled Why can't my new employees write? for Inside Higher Ed, Warner writes about the importance of 'choice' in student writing. I've cut and paste the end of the article (spoiler alert) here but encourage you to read the whole piece available here:

Writing is balancing, making choices while considering audience, purpose, occasion. The rhetorical situation has been at the core of writing instruction forever, and yet much of the writing we ask developing writers to do keeps them from fully wrestling with those choices because we strap on the training wheels and never take them off. 

For me, the key to changing this is to make writing more engaging in every sense of the word, to require students to make meaning about subjects that are meaningful to them, to create stakes that go beyond assessments that mostly measure how good students are at passing an assessment.  

What we do should reflect what we value. If we value writers who can communicate, we should be doing things very differently. 

This post fits nicely with the previous post about making students into public intellectuals. If the act of assigning writing projects to 250 students or more frightens you (hence the title of this post), you have a choice too. Follow up on Rob Borofsky's Community Action Project which sees students from around North America writing Op Eds about contemporary issues in Anthropology. 

Fisher v. "Race"-based Admissions

The legal case of Abigail N. Fisher may be an interesting case study to get students thinking about the role of "race" (in quotations here in order to problematize the use of this term as a biological or genetic instead of social construction) in university admissions.

This case opens up the floor to many discussions including: definitions of diversity, "race", the 14th Amendment, ideas of access and systemic inequality, among others. 

There are a number of different perspectives that could be used to tease out the importance of social location and intersectionality in biological, sociocultural or legal anthropology classrooms: 

• How Fisher v. University of Texas Impacts Race-Based Admissions (Campus Answers, 2016)
• The Supreme Court dives into a dispute over what diversity means (The Economist, 2015)
• The Diversity Research-To-Practice Gap: Backlash to Fisher Case (Racism Review, 2016)
• Asian Americans and the Future of Affirmative Action (The Atlantic, 2016)

Advice for Grad Students

With the new academic year now underway, anthro everywhere! is happy to finally launch a page that we've been putting together for some time: Advice for Grad Students.

The idea for this page began with an eye to helping students start to think about important issues that may not already be covered in graduate program curricula. That's why we've chosen to focus here on:

• Job Market: Realities & Opportunities including acknowledging the realities of Precarity in the University Labour Market, Career Coaching & Advice, Networking & Interviewing for Jobs, and Writing Resumes and (versus) CVs
• Professional Development Strategies in the context of your studies and beyond/ alongside your studies
• Writing Tips for getting through the dissertation, but also advice on writing Peer Reviews and Comps
• and links for resources connected to Grad Student Wellness

Although this is by no means an exhaustive guide, we hope that current and potential grad students -- as well as faculty and grad program advisors -- will find the resources collected here helpful. Grad students and faculty may also be interested in perusing the collection of career trajectories that anthropologists have pursued in applied contexts: Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university.

Have a resource for grad students that would benefit this list? Contact us via email (anthrolens at gmail.com) or tweet us @anthrolens.

Reviving food diversity through Indigenous knowledge

This NPR piece -- How Native American Tribes Saved A Giant, Ancient Squash From Oblivion -- offers an interesting example for thinking about the everyday impacts of colonization through changing eating habits and the cultivation of food. For many of the indigenous peoples in this story, the revival of 'lost' ancient foods like the giant Gete Okosman squash also represents cultural healing and revival in their communities.

The seed library maintained by the Jijak Foundation contains dozens of native varieties of corn, beans, tobacco, watermelon and ancient squash.  |  Rebecca Williams/Michigan Radio

Through the creation of a native seed library, the Jijak Foundation in Michigan is sharing the oral history of the seeds, reviving these 'lost' foods, and traditional farming techniques.

The emotional toll of masculinity

This personal essay published in the Washington Post's Parenting section, provides a lot of insight into the powerful norms and ideals of masculinity in (North) American society. In "The part I was not prepared for as a Stay at Home Dad" (June 2016), Billy Doidge Kilgore frankly discusses the emotional toll of his choice to become a stay-at-home dad while his wife took on the role of breadwinner for their household.

The emotional toll Kilgore refers to isn't the drain of taking care of a newborn child, but dealing with "the larger, often more subtle, cultural forces. These forces, gender roles, define a man’s worth not by their efforts within their families but by their productivity outside the home."

Instructors may find Kilgore's essay useful for classroom discussions of gender as something learned, and the power of cultural constructions in our everyday lives. He writes:

Despite the fact I am prioritizing my family’s needs and enduring the grueling work of childcare, this is not enough. In my mental fog, my notions of identity turn on their head. I am confused by the strange reality of performing demanding and difficult work, work I love, yet feeling inferior and unproductive. I find myself full of gnawing doubt and fear and insecurity.
No one confronted me directly about my decision to leave my job and care for my son, but they did not have to because the subtle contempt woven into questions, comments, assumptions, and body language did most of the work to undermine my self worth. I feel naive for thinking it possible to move against the rigid gender roles still entrenched in modern America.

The piece drives home how gender is such a powerful construct as he describes his internal, affective struggle to reconcile his choice to become the primary caregiver in his family with idea(l)s of what it means to be a man that he has internalized throughout his life -- even as he disagrees with these rigid norms on an intellectual level.

Further reading:

• For connections to toxic masculinity see our post on Mass Violence and Teachable Moments (13 June 2016)
• For additional posts on transgressing traditional Western gender norms see our posts: Third Gender - 'Two Spirit' (26 February 2016), Feb 29th: Catching a Husband (29 February 2016), An anthropologist walks into... a gym (5 July 2016)