Month: October 2017

Andrea Rissing wins AAA Culture and Agriculture essay prize

Andrea Rissing wins AAA Culture and Agriculture essay prize

Andrea Rissing (PhD candidate) won the 2017 Robert M. Netting Award, a graduate student paper prize awarded by the Culture and Agriculture section of the American Anthropological Association. The award recognizes original research related to agrarian systems from a holistic, social-scientific perspective. It provides a cash award of $750 and a consultation with the editors of the journal Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment with the goal of revising the paper for publication.

Her paper, “‘Profitability’ vs. ‘Making it’: The Agrarian Realms of Market and Community,” argues that the success of beginning farmers depends on more than just profitability. Drawing on her ethnographic fieldwork with farmers in Iowa, she shows how “making it” in farming within the first five years is contingent upon economic and social factors in the market realm and the community realm.

Congratulations to Andrea!

[Photo credit: Andrea Rissing. Assorted organic produce at the Mason City farmers market, Mason City, Iowa.]

Gabriela Sheets (PhD, 2017) receives the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Dissertation Award for her 2017 dissertation on “The Developmental Ecology of the Infant Gut Microbiome”.

Gabriela Sheets (PhD, 2017) receives the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Dissertation Award for her 2017 dissertation on “The Developmental Ecology of the Infant Gut Microbiome”.

Gabriela Sheets receives the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Dissertation Award for her 2017 dissertation on “The Developmental Ecology of the Infant Microbiome”.

The Committee describes Sheets’ work as “novel meshing of anthropology and biology to explore an emerging area of general interest,” and thought it was likely to “make important contributions well beyond the medical anthropology community.”  One member called it an “exemplar in where science should go.”

“Recognition begs reflection, and reflection begs gratitude. The beast that this dissertation was to become invited me on a marvelous journey through the lives, stories and biologies of many Salvadoran families, for which I am forever grateful. Before my observing eye, life spilled out. She sometimes clumsily, but always excitedly, tripped over herself to whisper her secrets and to weave her tales through the human body. Even under and around the long shadows of death where meaning was mute, her whispers sounded. Thank you Emory for the opportunity to research questions that excite me, always supported by frameworks rooted in our anthropological and biological heritage. I hope to make even a small difference with the tools and drive that you provided for me.” Gabriela Sheets

Alexa Dietrich (PhD, 2007) publishes article on Puerto Rico

Dietrich and her co-authors, Adriana María Garriga-López and Claudia Sofía Garriga-López, point out in the article that the state Puerto Rico is currenlty in after the recent hurricanes cannot be seen without taking into account the history of this US territory. They cite mismanagement such as “extractivism, monoculture, and poor waste management”, as well as the so called Jones Act as unnatural disaster that strike the island.

The authors offer a vision for the future: “What vulnerable communities need is an infrastructure of sustainable economic development and reliable everyday public services so their existing adaptive capacities can be strengthened and supported.”

Dietrich wrote her dissertation on “The Corporation Next Door: Pharmaceutical Companies in Community, Health and the Environment in Puerto Rico”.

Dr. Chio’s film “Peasant Family Happiness” is recognized at International Heritage Film Festival

Dr. Jenny Chio’s film “Peasant Family Happiness” was recognized with an honorable mention at Heritales: International Heritage Film Festival, which was held last weekend in Évora, Portugal. There will be a screening and a public talk on October 8th in Santa Fe, as part of the Museum of International Folk Art’s current exhibition “Quilts of Southwest China”. Additionally, Dr. Chio will be giving a closed seminar for museum docents to help expand their knowledge and familiarity with social and political conditions in ethnic minority regions of Southwest China.