A look back at anthropology everywhere in 2017!

As 2017 comes rapidly to a close, here's our annual round-up of some of our favourite posts and content published this year.

Thanks to everyone who has read our over 90 new posts, and checked out our growing list of dedicated pages on things like Advice for Grad Students, our expanding list of links to how people are Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university, and our newly renamed Special Series: Ethnography & ... which now features reflections and insights from blogger Jennifer Long's new pedagogical research in post-secondary education.

Looking back, here are 10 of our own favourite posts from 2017 loosely organized around some key themes...

On ethnography and fieldwork:

• Teaching ethnography (26 January 2017)
• Fieldwork: preparing for the good, bad, and the ugly (16 March 2017)
• Promoting publications behind paywalls... or anthro everywhere! in Anthropologica (15 May 2017)

Engaging anthropology through social media:

• Blogging for research (9 January 2017)
• Why We Post: Anthropologists take on Social Media (26 June 2017)
• Anthropology Podcasting (24 August 2017)
• Fake News: Questions and Resources for Back to Class and All Year Round (7 September 2017)

And to round it out, some of our favourite topical posts from 2017:

• Special Friday Edition: The Dutch Election, Domino Effects and Wilders' Patriotic Spring (17 March 2017)
• What's in a Word? The Importance of Recognizing the Etymology of Words (27 March 2017)
• #Canada150, Indigenous nations 13,000... (3 July 2017)

Thanks for reading this year! We'll be back in 2018 with more resources, more research, and more anthropology everywhere!

What were your favourite posts from 2017? Tweet us @anthrolens

Got ideas for posts you'd like to see (or see more of) in 2018? Send us an email anthrolens@gmail.com

Race Reconciled - Review by Jason Antrosio

Bloggers Rhiannon Mosher and Jennifer Long wanted to point readers to an important blog post on Living Anthropologically called “Race is not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation” by Jason Antrosio.

In this article, Antrosio discusses a special issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and, deep in the post, the (mis) use of research in popular media and academic research articles. Antrosio writes:

As I searched relevant articles, I was shocked and disgusted to discover the materials from forensic anthropologists were not only suffering popular misinterpretation, but were also being misused in peer-reviewed academic journals. One of the only 2010 articles citing the forensic anthropology pieces from Race Reconciled is a diatribe by philosopher Neven Sesardic titled Race: A social destruction of a biological concept. Sesardic claims fuzzy-headed social scientists and philosophers have misunderstood the proper biological underpinnings of the race concept. Sesardic then uses the forensic anthropology articles to make his case. Sesardic calls Sauer a “bewildered and exasperated scientist” (2010:156) and goes on to approvingly quote Sauer’s 1992 article as supporting the idea of racial assignment. He similarly cherry-picks quotes from the 2009 articles to portray forensic anthropology as confirming traditional biological races.

What better way to end off the semester than to have students read this post and discuss how scientific research is interpreted in the media. Happy end of semester everyone!

Antrosio has updated both posts recently and they're definitely worth a read.

Quick Links

• Antrosio, Jason, 2011. “Race Reconciled: Race isn’t skin color, biology, or genetics.” Living Anthropologically website, https://www.livinganthropologically.com/biological-anthropology/race-reconciled-debunks-race/. First posted 5 June 2011. Last updated 26 October 2017.

Studying People We Don't (Necessarily) Like - Bangstad

Sindre Bangstad wrote (2017) Doing Fieldwork among People We Don’t (Necessarily) Like for Anthropology News' Anthropological Publics, Public Anthropology section. Bengstad writes,

Marcus Banks and Andre Gingrich have suggested that we as anthropologists tend to investigate topics and work with individuals and groups whom we are able to sympathize with. And relatively few anthropologists (though there certainly are some exceptions; if we are honest about anthropology’s checkered past, we should also realize that we have what Didier Fassin has aptly described as a “dual legacy” to contend with here) tend to sympathize with populist right-wingers. In line with this, Joel Robbins has argued that anthropologists since the 1980s have replaced the proverbial “savage slot” with the “suffering slot.”

Anthropologists, in other words, have tended to study those people who in some way or other can be said to “suffer.” When we speak of “suffering,” images of white male populist right-wing sympathizers are perhaps not the first images that cross our anthropological minds though some of them both feel and are marginalized and suffering.

Bangstad ends using Nitzan Shoshan's work which points to anthropologists historical interests in the seemingly abnormal and occult (in addition to the marginal).

Check out his post by following the link the in Quick Links to read more.

Quick Links:

• Doing Fieldwork among People We Don’t (Necessarily) Like by Sindre Bangstad Anthropological Publics, Public Anthropology (Aug 28, 2017)

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)

Resources for Anti-Racist Pedagogy

As a scholar who "grew up" in anthropology decades after the crisis of representation debates emerged, I am well aware of the colonizing power dynamics in our discipline's past, and how these power relations continue to reverberate through our work today. But, what does it look like to address these kinds of questions in the everyday of our classrooms?

In 2013 I took a teaching course offered through my university's Teaching Commons. It was free for students to complete and was specifically directed at Teaching Assistants, who do the bulk of small-classroom teaching and assessment for larger lectures at my university. It was a really valuable experience, and I learned a lot about things like pedagogy in general and creating and evaluating assessment tools.

During this semester and since, one of the questions that I have kept coming back to has been how to create inclusive classroom spaces for all of my students.

How do I strike the right balance for inclusivisty in my teaching between my intersectional privileges, the diverse identities and experiences of my students, and the course content? 

As anthropologists, we may be used to critiquing the complexities and nuances of power relations and underlying structures in the context of our research -- but are we examining or accounting for our own positionality in the classroom, vis-à-vis our students, our topics, our pedagogical choices...?

Hopefully, yes -- even if it demands an ongoing process of growth, including missteps and teachable moments for ourselves and our students. I'm sure we can all think of a few of these missteps, and what we've learned from them.

It's with these questions and issues in mind that we share some new resources for anti-racist pedagogy, and point up a few more of these kinds of discussions from previous posts and pages:

There Is No Apolitical Classroom: Resources for Teaching in These Times (2017, National Council of Teachers of English)

• This page contains a wealth of resources on anti-racist pedagogy. These resources are not intended for university-level educators, but offer important points for reflection, strategies, and approaches for thinking about race/ racism and other forms of discrimination in the classroom grouped under headings like: Resources for Working with White Students, Resources for Understanding White Supremacy, Resources for Understanding Bias, and additional articles.

Inquiry into Practice: Reaching Every Student Through Inclusive Curriculum (2011, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto)

• This edited volume includes discussions of research into a variety of classroom issues, especially in the Canadian context. Again, these chapters are not directed at university-level educators, but are written by academics specializing in education. The end of the document also includes an annotated reading list of further resources that "have been selected for their relevance on issues of inclusion in the Canadian context, their focus on classroom practice and strategies, or their ability to raise awareness of individuals or groups in society" (2011, 124). Resources include texts as well as multi-media sources.

From anthro everywhere! here are a few relevant posts and pages for thinking about anti-racist pedagogy, collegiality, and the role/ perspective of anthropology:

• How To Support Blacademics & Be an Ally (8 July 2016) links to Ellie Adekur's How To Support Blacademics: For Non-Black Faculty and Grad Students Teaching Black Faces in White Spaces.
• Teaching Resource: Social Inequality and Teaching in the Academy (25 May 2017)
• Syllabi resources for challenging systemic racism, colonization, and more (14 August 2017)
• The Relationship between Social Justice & Anthropology (19 June 2017)
• Anthropology against white​ supremacy (13 April 2017)
• Building Vocabularies for Everyday Discussions about "Race", racism, and Inclusion/exclusion (10 April 2017)
• How a Teacher's Race Affects their Ability to Teach about Race (11 August 2016)
• Our Reading Lists, Syllabi, & Teaching Resources page for more links to publicly available syllabi centred around contemporary events and topics like racism, Islamophobia, disability, and decolonizing anthropology

#Canada150, Indigenous nations 13,000...

If you live in Canada, you will know that the country has just celebrated its sesquicentennial. You might have even learned the word "sesquicentennial" recently to describe what is the otherwise inescapable Canada 150.

JustUs! Coffee in Wolfville, Nova Scotia:
Canada 150; Mi Kmaki 13000

As anthropologists who have studied and taught about nationalism, it has been an interesting year, especially as the celebrations of a settler-society increasingly rub up against demands for the recognition of Indigenous peoples as founders of what is today "Canada," or as other Indigenous people publicly reject this nation-state as illegitimate (as Audra Simpson has so engagingly discussed in her work and life as Kahnawà:ke Mohawk).

As many scholars have discussed, in our national mythology, Canadians learn about Indigenous peoples are part of our foundation, our national past, rather than our national present.

The discussions that have emerged around what it means to be Canadian (or what it should mean...) have been fascinating to follow, and raise many important questions for public and ongoing discussion.

Canadian news outlets, for example, recently reported on the billboard message of Just Us! Coffee Roasters in Grand Pré, N.S. (shown right) where the owners of the coffee shop signaled "a reminder of how long this land has been inhabited: "Canada 150. Mi'kma'ki 13,000."

A local newspaper followed up with the owner who stated that the purpose of the message “[w]as meant as, we need to recognize multiple communities in our country and some of them get under-represented, I think,” he said. The Chronicle Herald went on to state that Grand-Pré is (...) located among three Mi’kmaq First Nation communities — Glooscap, Annapolis Valley and Bear River — in the Annapolis Valley. Just Us consults with them for partnerships, and recently began accepting status cards.

There are other settler initiatives that seek to educate other settlers. If one visits http://native-land.ca/ they can find an interactive map that is meant to be used as a resource to help North Americans learn more about their local history. Once there, you can search your address, or add territories to map below and click on polygons to learn more about the past histories and present narratives of where you live and work. On the 'about' page, you can read about why the author has created this resource:

"I'm Victor. I am a settler, born in traditional Katzie territory and raised in the Okanagan. I am concerned about many of the issues raised by using maps and colonial ways of thinking when it comes to maps. For instance, who has the right to define where a particular territory ends, and another begins? Who should I speak to about such matters?
There are over 630 different First Nations in Canada and I am not sure of the right process to map territories, languages, and treaties respectfully - and I'm not even sure if it is possible to do respectfully.
I feel that maps are inherently colonial, in that they delegate power according to imposed borders that don't really exist in many nations throughout history. They were rarely created in good faith, and are often used in wrong ways. I am open to criticism about this project and I welcome suggestions and changes."

In teasing apart the celebrations, the news coverage (both positive and detracting), and dialogue (both positive and negative) surrounding the Canada 150 celebration by Ottawa (our federal government) and Canadians (settlers and non-settlers alike), we wanted to highlight and recognize the opportunities for learning more.

In taking a holistic perspective from an anthropological toolkit, we can ask ourselves:

1. Who is telling the story of this celebration? Why are they telling it in this way? 
2. Whose voices may have been muted or not well listened to in this telling? 
3. What other perspective or realities exist of this event (and those leading up to it)? 

In speaking about this 150 celebration in terms of varying perspectives, one gains the sense that the national celebration that Ottawa is supporting is just one version, one rendition, of a multi-faceted history.

To end this post, the bloggers (writing under 'anthro everywhere!' for the first time) would like to leave those interested with a few links to gain different perspectives:

1. Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler (statement here)
2. Anishinabek Nation Statement on Canada 150 (statement here)
3. UNsettling 150: A Call to Action (link here)
4. UNsettling Canada150 Webinar: Ellen Gabriel, Russ Diabo, Beatrice Hunter (link here)

The Scream, on the cover, The Subjugation of Truth, by Kent Monkman (from Pamela Palmater's article in Now Toronto):

Quick links:

• Anishinabek Nation Statement on Canada 150 (7 June, 2017, Anishinabek News)
• NAN releases statement on Canada 150 (1 July, 2017, Wawatay News)
• Unsettling 150: A call to action (5 May, 2017, Idle No More)
• Canada 150 is a celebration of Indigenous genocide (29 March, 2017, Now Toronto by Pamela Palmater) 
• ‘A horrible history’: Four Indigenous views on Canada 150 (1 July, 2017 CBC News by Dakshana Bascaramurty)
• Grand-Pre coffee house garners national attention with Canada 150 sign (14 June, 2017 The Chronicle Herald)
• Native Land (2017, Victor)

• Audra Simpson's work (2017, Columbia University in the City of New York webpage)
• Canada 150 Banners Defaced, Destroyed (23, June 2017, Daniel J. Rowe, the Eastern Door)
• It’s time to recognize First Nations as founders of Canada: Steward (13, June 2017 Gillian Stewart, The Star)
• What does Canada 150 mean for Indigenous communities? (March 16, 2017, The Current with Anna Maria Tremonti - Colonial 150 art)
• Canadian 150 art (2017, Kent Hehr)
• Racist Mascots (11 April 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• More on Racist Mascots (1 June 2017, anthro everywhere!)

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)

Applying an anthropological perspective in health

We recently came across this interesting article about "Teaching medical students to challenge ‘unscientific’ racial categories." Anthropologists and other critical social scientists have long known that even though race is a social construction, it can have very real impacts in people's lives -- including in accessing health and healthcare.

This article explores how medical students continue to be taught to use racial stereotypes based in biology as shortcuts for diagnosing and treating illness. It also follows the work of Dr. Brooke Cunningham, a physician and sociologist, who challenges these harmful practices in teaching medicine. For Dr. Cunningham and others, the point of these reforms is to push medical students and future health professionals to think critically about race, and how these social categories impact individual health through lived experiences and structures of inequality.

“It’s not that race is irrelevant to health, but it’s not relevant to health because of innate differences. It’s relevant because racism affects people’s health.”

Although medical students are often repeatedly told throughout their education that race should be approached critically and understood as a social not biological construct, what's telling are the reactions of students to Cunningham's lecture based on the authority of medicine over social science:

Students who attended her recent lecture on race said Cunningham’s medical degree gave her added credibility.
“I think if she was just a social scientist, I would be more skeptical of whatever perspective she would bring to the conversation,” said Mac Garrett, a first-year medical student.

These insights raise some important questions to consider in how anthropologists and other social scientists might consider communicating their findings in applied contexts. How might we think about how social science evidence and arguments are interpreted by those we wish to influence, in order to be more persuasive? In order to create social change in applied contexts -- like medical students' training -- should we draw more on the the authority of critical social scientists who also have the clout of a medical degree?

Quick links and further reading:

• Teaching medical students to challenge ‘unscientific’ racial categories (10 March 2016, Stat)
• You might want to check out our links to anthropologists working in the health professions on our Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university page

Anthropology against white​ supremacy

In this post from the AAA's Anthropology News, Luzilda Carrillo Arciniega offers "Six Ways Anthropologists Can Challenge White Supremacy" (27 March 2017).

1. Create purposeful students
2. Critique identity politics
3. Create brave spaces
4. Break the Silence
5. Push back against hierarchies
6. Remain politically engaged

While many of us as anthropologists consistently strive to be critical of identity politics, power inequalities and structures, I think it is really valuable to consider here the banal (but powerful!) work we already do addressed in points 3 and 4 -- as Jennifer wrote about earlier this week.

One of the things that anthropologists are known for is asking those "dumb" questions about things that are otherwise taken-for-granted and common sense and allowing ourselves to feel uncomfortable as we learn in new cultural moments and contexts. In our classrooms and beyond, it is important for us to make this space not only for ourselves, but for our students and interlocutors as Carillo argues: "Critical dialogue cannot occur unless individuals are open to being vulnerable. Creating a safe space should not be conflated with comfort, convenience, or personal satisfaction."

Quick links and further reading:

• Luzilda Carrillo Arciniega (on Twitter), "Six Ways Anthropologists Can Challenge White Supremacy" (27 March 2017, Anthropology News)
• Building Vocabularies for Everyday Discussions about "Race", racism, and Inclusion/exclusion (10 April 2017)
• More anthro everywhere! posts on race & racism and systemic inequality
• anthro everywhere!'s page of Reading Lists & Syllabi Resources including Anthropoliteia's #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus, the Black Disabled Woman Syllabus, and reading lists for Decolonizing Anthropology (and beyond!)

Science, objectivity, race, gender

Have you heard of Space + Anthropology? This group blog through Medium.com brings together commentaries on the intersections between tech, culture, space, sci-fi, art, and anthropology. We already blogged in a past post of reading lists and syllabi about Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein's fantastic Decolonising Science Reading List.

Other eye-catching pieces from Space + Anthropology include "Native Sci-fi Films and Trailers"
by William Lempert and Michael Oman-Reagan's "Anthropology in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”." But we want to highlight another piece by Prescod-Weinstein: "The Self-Construction of Black Women Physicists" based on a talk she gave at Yale’s Critical Histories, Activist Futures: “Decolonizing Science by Reconstructing Observers.”

Where the work of science is to continuously excavate the boundaries of what we do not know, it becomes clear that the relationship between the questions we ask and the axioms of scientist-construction has epistemic meaning for what we may come to know about physics.
To be Black means to have your capacity to have an insightful epistemic standpoint constantly questioned. ... This epistemic alienation serves a status quo where communities at the margins are excluded from discourse about what science is and whom it serves.

How might this piece by Prescod-Weinstein be useful in raising the complexities of and intersections between science, objectivity, race, and gender with our students? How do hegemonic cultural assumptions shape how knowledge is created, validated, and disseminated?

Quick links and further reading:

• Space + Anthropology blog
• Prescod-Weinstein's "The Self-Construction of Black Women Physicists"
• Prescod-Weinstein's Decolonising Science Reading List
• anthro everywhere's
• Reading Lists for Decolonizing Anthropology & Beyond (15 December 2016)
• How gender changes our jobs (24 October 2016)

Neanderthals, racism, science

This New York Times article offers an interesting discussion about how Western European scientific racism also played a significant role in how we classified and described Neanderthals.

"Neanderthals Were People, Too" (2017) asks us to think about how the same racial thinking that supported the brutalities of Western imperialism also filtered into our understanding of pre-history.

As long-form journalism, this would be an interesting piece to assign alongside anthropological classics on scientific and systemic racism, racial thinking, and colonialism as part of the history of anthropological thought. Alternatively, it might be a good discussion piece for thinking about epistemological questions, and how science is part of a deeply cultural worldview.

Reading Lists for Decolonizing Anthropology & Beyond

One of the ways that anthropologists and other scholars have responded to recent world events -- from the systemic issues underlying the Black Lives Matter movement and Standing Rock, to Brexit and the rise of Trump -- has been in the classroom. Here is a (by no means exhaustive) list of some of the great resources for building a syllabus and classroom discussions around some of these current events. You can also check out our new page that has collected together various posts already published on our blog about reading lists and syllabi.

• The Decolonizing Anthropology series via Savage Minds, reflecting and building on the work of Faye Harrison, is a good place to start thinking about what it means to decolonize anthropology.
• In response to the recent events at Standing Rock, an interdisciplinary syllabus was created by the NYC Stands for Standing Rock committee "a group of Indigenous scholars and activists, and settler/ POC supporters": Standing Rock Syllabus
• Less a syllabus than a resource, the Native Voices: Native Peoples' Concepts of Health and Illness (U.S. National Library of Medicine) is an exhibition that "explores diverse Native Peoples’ concepts of health and illness, past and present." The site provides things like video interviews with indigenous healers, leaders, and biomedical professionals, as well as other activities and suggested readings.
• We've already posted about Anthropoliteia's #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus. This ongoing project is anthropology-focused.
• There's also the interdisciplinary The Black Lives Canada Syllabus (#BlackLivesCDNSyllabus) Google Doc for those looking for a little more CanCon.
• This Decolonising Science Reading List has been put together by Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (#BlackandSTEM theoretical astro|physicist), where "You’ll find texts that range from personal testimony to Indigenous cosmology to anthropology, to history to sociology to education research. All are key to the process of decolonising science, which is a pedagogical, cultural, and intellectual set of interlocking structures, ideas, and practices."
• And lastly for this post, here is a Google Doc reading list of Ethnographic approaches to understanding Trump/Brexit/new rise of conservativism.

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)

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)

Anthropoliteia's #BlackLivesMatter Syllabus

Anthropoliteia (@anthropoliteia) is another great anthropology resource publishing in blog form, offering "critical perspectives on police, security, crime, law and punishment around the world."

One of their new projects is the Black Lives Matter Syllabus, "which will mobilize anthropological work as a pedagogical exercise addressing the confluence of race, policing and justice." First introduced on 30 August 2016, the project is an ongoing attempt to produce an anthropology-focused syllabus that doesn't "side-step the conversation" happening through and around #BLM. As an open project, the creators -- Dr. Sameena Mulla and the Anthropoliteia editors -- invite anthroplogists to contribute:

Circulate this call for resources and tools
Reflect on the matter and share your thoughts with us
Create and share any helpful resources
Speak openly and honestly with your students about current events
Support black students, staff, neighbors and colleagues

Further reading:

• anthro everywhere! posts on 'race & racism':
• How a Teacher's Race Affects their Ability to Teach about Race (11 August 2016)
• How To Support Blacademics & Be an Ally (8 July 2016)
• Black Disabled Woman Syllabus (19 May 2016)
• Why it's okay to say Black (13 April 2016)
• The growing #BlackLivesCDNSyllabus is available as a Google Doc. It is interdisciplinary with a focus on Canadian experiences through scholarship, literature and art.
• Candice Benbow's interdisciplinary Lemonade Syllabus

Census Data and the Social Construction of Race

Since Franz Boas, anthropologists have argued that race is not a biological but a social fact that varies across time and place. Using the US Census, Vox underscores this view, asserting that 220 years of census data proves race is a social construct (2016).

Surveying the changing racial categories used in the US census clearly demonstrates how something that many still take to be biological is actually something cultural. Rather than being fixed (based on biology and therefore unchanging) these are categories that rely on ideas of difference that are socially meaningful in a particular time and place, drawing on a range of signifiers (e.g. national origin, phenotype).

This piece is also interesting for how it underscores the census itself as a tool of power. Censuses (and census makers and takers) can create or support social categories of difference and the social inequality founded on these ideas of difference. In the classroom, we can use this article to think about how social ideas of difference, such as race, and how we/ our governments account for them have wider reaching effects.

US Census Categories for Asians in 1890 (Vox)

US Census Categories for Asians in 1940 (Vox)

US Census Categories for Asians in 2010 (Vox)

How a Teacher's Race Affects their Ability to Teach about Race

I met with someone from the Diversity and Equity Office at the University where I teach part-time yesterday. We've agreed to collaborate on a few classes for my upcoming course on Intercultural Competencies. In the meeting, my colleague asked me 'What do I not feel comfortable teaching?'

In this class, I introduce and discuss a LOT of uncomfortable topics including "race" (in quotation marks here to denote that this concept while very impactful is not based on genetic/biological but social constructs), ethnic identities, gender, sexuality, religion/us identities, structures of racism and oppression, Indigenous peoples relationships with the government, the Canadian structure of English-French-Nation language use, personal biases, whiteness, microaggressions...etc.

At first when I answered her, I listed only one or two of the above topics as being difficult to teach and noted that I included guest speakers where possible.

Throughout our meeting however I came back around to the question when I realized that I only feel truly comfortable (and had the right to speak) around the topic of whiteness, privilege, aspects of gender and sexuality, and microaggressions - and perhaps a few others - because I identify (and am identified by my students) as a majority member of the Canadian community. For all other topics, I am only capable of being able to speak from an outside perspective and thus, questions surface about representation and my right/ability/want/need to speak for others on their behalf.

An interesting article came out about how a teacher's "race" affects their ability to teach about "race". There are many interesting ideas including:

Mr. Lunt: In a strange way, that authority [as a faculty member at the front of the classroom] to assert facts makes the conversation more factual. It puts limits on what’s going to be accepted as evidence. I think it prompts our students to review their assumptions before they enter them into the conversation.

Ms. Ambikar: You may be right. That "authoritative tone" makes a huge difference. But it’s not equally available to all of us, is it? When I make assertions like the one you did, I am likely to be dismissed. For example, one day I quoted the civil-rights activist and legal scholar Michelle Alexander, whose work has shown that there are more black people in prison today than there were slaves in 1850. I was met with complete disbelief until I showed a video of her saying just that. I think the only facts that I am able to use are facts about India or from my own background. My facts are acceptable only if they relate to countries or cultures outside the United States. In all other contexts, not being white myself, even the facts I present are open to being questioned.

Mr. Lunt: Sadly, I have to agree. The authoritative tone matters, but I would be naïve if I pretended that much of my authority didn’t come from my perceived race. I mean, one stereotype of white men is of neutrality, rationality, factuality — the political "clothing" that every instructor needs when they talk about race.

A Short Resource Guide to Food, Race, and Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation has been almost a buzzword lately, giving us anthropologists a lot of popular culture fodder on the topic -- and perhaps more importantly, spurring critical discussion about issues of power, cultural difference, and respect in the public sphere.

While many of these discussions have focused on fashion, or the ongoing debate about racist mascots in sports, we are less likely to see how cultural appropriation is also an issue in relation to food. In this piece, Bitch magazine has put together "A Short Resource Guide to Food, Race, and Cultural Appropriation" (2016), which includes video, podcasts, and texts on the issue.

I suggest that you get a snack before reading through the links.

Quick links and further reading:

• A Short Resource Guide to Food, Race, and Cultural Appropriation (2016, Bitch)
• anthro everywhere!'s past posts on cultural appropriation
• Tracing the erased histories & diaspora traditions in Southern cooking (17 February 2016, anthro everywhere!)

How To Support Blacademics & Be an Ally

If you are working in academia, this post is for you.

Ellie Adekur has created this important resource on How To Support Blacademics: For Non-Black Faculty and Grad Students Teaching Black Faces in White Spaces.

Adekur is a is a PhD student in Human Geography at the University of Toronto, as well as human rights activist and social justice educator. This resource was posted today on Adekur's Facebook page in response to the latest instances of anti-Black violence witnessed across North America this week, and the need to address "anti-Black racism in classes, tutorials and office hours: professors and teaching assistants screening violent content, leaning on racist tropes, ignoring anti-Black comments, or singling out Black students to address problematic comments/opinions in the room."

This resource is not exhaustive, but it is a useful and important place for instructors to start rethinking their engagements in and outside of the classroom in relation to racism and social injustice. It contains simple, invaluable points or reminders about how to support our colleagues, students, and others in the university. As social scientists, especially as anthropologists, we already know these things intellectually, but for non-Black academics remember:

3. If you're not Black or racialized, don't pretend to be an expert. Don’t pretend to have all of the answers, or feel like you need to. Your empathy and allyship are constantly practiced, learned and always developing. 

You may also wish to check out this page of Links for Allies from White Ribbon.

UPDATE - 10 July 2016: Jennifer has also pointed out this article, "11 Common Ways White Folks Avoid Taking Responsibility for Racism in the US" (2016, Everyday Feminism), written by Robin DiAngelo. As a white educator who focuses on critical multicultural and social justice education, DiAngelo draws on her own observations as a white person facilitating anti-racism workshops with white Americans, and the outrage she frequently meets in trying to engage them in discussions of racism as systemic. Part of learning to engage as an ally requires that people with privilege (here, those who identify/ are identified as white) be willing to hear feedback on how their actions contribute to systemic violence. This might be a useful piece for students to reflect on in the classroom, perhaps as an exercise leading to a discussion about contemporary race and racism.

Quick links:

• Ellie Adekur's How To Support Blacademics: For Non-Black Faculty and Grad Students Teaching Black Faces in White Spaces (2016)
• Links for Allies from White Ribbon
• 11 Common Ways White Folks Avoid Taking Responsibility for Racism in the US (2016, Everyday Feminism)
• Via Facebook, MTV's Franchesca "Chescaleigh" Ramsey debunks 4 big myths about the #BlackLivesMatter movement that many students have probably encountered in just 4 minutes. (This easy, accessible piece also references law professor Patricia Leary's response to her students' complaints about her wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt earlier this year.)