Category: Research

Anthropology PhD Student Sasha Tycko unveils her exhibition of photographs, “Ways of the Atlanta Forest” to the public.

The Anthropology department just celebrated the opening of “Ways of the Atlanta Forest,” an exhibition of photographs by one of our PhD candidates, Sasha Tycko (C’19). The exhibition is based on Tycko’s dissertation research, which focuses on the life of the “Atlanta forest,” the site of intense conflict over the City of Atlanta’s plan to build a police training complex known as “Cop City.” Over two years, Tycko lived and worked in the forest, using a range of media, including analogue photography, to explore how the abandoned forest landscape—formerly the site of a city prison farm and a slave plantation—motivates new articulations of history, nature, and ethics. Working with the visual language of landscape photography, Tycko’s photographs cast the landscape as a layered repository of history and imagination.

This exhibition inaugurates the Department of Anthropology’s new exhibition space, which is meant to foster dialogue across campus and stimulate debate about what might constitute an engaged anthropology.

There will be a public discussion about “Ways of the Atlanta Forest” between Sasha Tycko and Jason Francisco (Film & Media, Visual Arts) on March 19th, from 1:00pm – 2:30pm in Anthropology building room 206. All photographs are gelatin silver prints handmade by Tycko in Emory’s chemical darkroom.

Sasha Tycko also recently published an essay based on her dissertation research, “Not One Tree,” in n+1 magazine.

Anthropology Graduate Katy Lindquist (C’18) receives Klarman Fellowship in the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University!

Katy Lindquist, Anthropology graduate, received a 3-year Postdoctoral Associate position in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University starting fall following her PhD completion here at Emory University in the Department of Anthropology. The Klarman Fellowship in the College of Arts & Sciences provide postdoctoral opportunities to early-career scholars conducting researching in any discipline. Recipients may conduct research in any discipline and are offered independence and enabled to devote themselves to innovative research without being constrained to specific outcomes or teaching responsibilities.

Katy Lindquist is featured on Cornell University’s website under the Current Fellows. Congratulations Katy!

Congratulations to Dr. Peggy Barlett for receiving AASHE Lifetime Achievement Award

On December 7th, Dr. Peggy F. Barlett, Goodrich C. White Professor Emerita of Anthropology, received the AASHE Lifetime Achievement Award for her dedication to sustainability in higher education. Dr. Barlett was instrumental in the founding of Emory’s Piedmont Project, training over 640 faculty members from 350+ institutions, and catalyzing a widespread adoption of sustainability-focused curriculum across these institutions. 

Her impact extends beyond academia, shaping Emory’s sustainable food initiatives and achieving significant milestones in campus dining sustainability. As a respected author and leader in sustainable education, Dr. Barlett’s contributions span many influential publications and articles.

Read more about Dr. Barlett’s work here.

Emory Anthropology Professor Debra Vidali wins international ethnographic poetry contest.

Emory University anthropologist, Professor Debra Vidali is awarded first place in the 2023 Ethnographic Poetry Competition of the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Humanistic Anthropology. Vidali, a sociocultural anthropologist whose work centers on experimental ethnography and ethnographic theater, won for a set of two experimental poems, “Two Row Repair II” and “Two Row Repair III.” The titles refer to the Two Row Wampum belt that encodes the first treaty between Europeans and Haudenosaunee, or the Iroquois Confederacy. The judges praised the connections, saying Vidali’s work “not only speaks about, but embodies, decolonial praxis in a historically anchored way.” Vidali accepted the award in person and read the poetry last month at the Society for Humanistic Anthropology’s annual award ceremony in Toronto.

She says she was motivated to write the poems after a 2022 research journey to find the original location where the Two Row agreement occurred in 1613 between Dutch and Mohawk, near the port of present-day Albany, New York. “The Two Row Wampum is a foundational treaty extending into the present. It conveys expected relations between Haudenosaunee and people of European descent to co-exist in peace, respect and friendship, and in common stewardship for all orders of life, including rivers, plants, animals and earth itself,” Vidali says.

“As a non-Indigenous person who was born and raised on Haudenosaunee lands, and whose ancestors go back to Dutch settlers in the Hudson Valley in the 1630s, I strive to honor this treaty and to communicate to others about it,” she adds. “With the set of poems, I activate and inscribe a journey of ancestral reckoning using the unique affordances of experimental ethnographic writing. It was a deep honor to receive the award, and to have it conferred on Haudenosaunee lands in Tkaronto (Toronto).”

Read the full article here!

Relational Accountability and Place-Based Learning: Emory Students Participate in 31st Annual Ocmulgee Indigenous Celebration.

Traveling from Emory to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park for a special place-based and community-engaged learning experience, a first-time interdisciplinary cohort of thirty-five faculty and students from Dr. Debra Vidali’s Anthropology 190–Land, Life, and Place, Dr. Loren Michael Mortimer’s History 285–Introduction to Native American History, Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk’s Music 460RW–North American Indigenous Music and Modernity, and Emory’s Native American Student Association participated in a vibrant celebration of Southeastern Native American cultures and heritage. This marks the first time Emory University organized an official trip to the Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park.

This celebration represents a collaboration with the Muscogee Nation and the Ocmulgee Mounds Association to enact Mvskoke sovereignty and educate visitors about the Indigenous presence on the land. Emory students experienced a diverse array of activities that showcased the rich heritage of the region’s Indigenous peoples. Traditional cultural crafts, captivating storytelling sessions, and educational programs provided students with meaningful connections to the living histories and thriving communities of diverse southeastern Native American people.

Read the full blog post here!

Emory Anthropology Alumnae Joanna Davidson ’07 and Dinah Hannaford ’14 edit volume publication, Opting Out: Women Messing with Marriage around the World.

Emory Anthropology alumnae Joanna Davidson ’07 and Dinah Hannaford ’14 joined forces to publish an edited volume, Opting Out: Women Messing with Marriage around the World (Rutgers University Press 2022). The book gathers ethnographic accounts of women moving away from conventional marital arrangements in countries all over the world. From Brazil to Botswana, the contributors examine the conditions that make this widespread – although locally variable – phenomenon possible and consider what the implications of opting out might be, both for marriage itself and for the anthropological study of it.

PhD Student Will Boose has First Peer-reviewed Article Published in Top Social Sciences and Humanities Journal, Histórica.

“Will Boose‘s article offers an ambitious, though still fragmented, history of motorcycle taxis in Peru. It offers three central arguments. First, it highlights that motorcycle taxi drivers have played a fundamental role in the production of urban space. Second, it argues that state, elite, and popular discourses about “informality” and the “modern city” stigmatize motorcycle taxi drivers in ways that are classist and racialized, targeting them for strict policing. Finally, it suggests that if we think with motorcycle taxi drivers and the materiality of motorcycle taxis, we can reveal the contradictions inherent to the “formal”-“informal”, and “modern”-“non-modern” binaries and thus more lucidly analyze urban space and relations.”

Histórica, based in Peru, is aimed at researchers and a specialized public and publishes works evaluated by peers that constitute an original contribution to the knowledge of Peruvian, Andean, and Amazonian history, as well as Latin American history and global history directly related to the history of the Andean region. In addition to works on history and ethnohistory, the journal includes works on art history, historical anthropology, historical linguistics, historical geography, historical demography, memory studies, and every other discipline, subdiscipline, and field of study in the Humanities and Sciences.

Check out the article here!

Dr. Elizabeth Lonsdorf Elected as a 2023 Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society.

Dr. Elizabeth Lonsdorf has been elected as a 2023 Fellow of the Animal Behavior Society. The Animal Behavior Society (ABS) is a non-partisan, non-profit, professional organization dedicated to promoting and advancing the scientific study of animal behavior, and to creating an inclusive scientific environment that supports a diverse membership. Fellows are members who have engaged in research in animal behavior for at least ten years and who in the opinion of the elected officers and current Fellows of the society have made distinguished contributions to the field.

Congratulations Dr. Lonsdorf!

Emory Anthropology senior Gracie Wilson wins Lambda Alpha Senior Scholarship

Anthropology BA graduate Gracie Wilson (Ox’21, C’23) is the national first place recipient of the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society Senior Scholarship, including $5,000 to help fund her graduate study in anthropology. Each Lambda Alpha chapter may put forward one nominee for the senior scholarship each year. Nominees must be Anthropology majors, Lambda Alpha members, and plan to attend graduate school in Anthropology. The last time Emory’s chapter nominee was selected as the national winner was in 2002.

Gracie was selected as the nominee for Emory’s Lambda Alpha chapter (Beta of Georgia) based on her excellence and leadership in anthropology research. Her senior honors thesis, “The Culture of College Mental Health”, supervised by Oxford professor Alicia DeNicola and ECAS professor Chikako Ozawa-de Silva, began as a research project at Emory’s Oxford College with the goal of better understanding student mental health from an ethnographic approach. The project expanded as Gracie led a team of fellow undergraduate students, and continued across Emory’s two campuses once Gracie transitioned to Emory College and joined the honors program. The team’s findings provide insight into student mental health cultures and how student mental health is created through a series of shared values, narratives, and identities. The work has been presented at the Georgia Undergraduate Research Conference at Valdosta State University and is currently being developed for publication.  

As a graduate student at the University of Chicago pursuing a PhD in Comparative Human Development, Gracie will continue to use anthropological inquiry to explore the ways in which we understand and support college students as they navigate disability, illness, and managed care across educational settings. She is also passionate about the ways anthropology can collaborate with other disciplines– namely with social work, counseling, and the clinical space.

Gracie graduated from Emory this May with Highest Honors in Anthropology, with a concentration in Power, Identity, and Social Justice.

Anthropology Student Awards 2023

2023 Undergraduate Student Awards

The Anthropology Department is pleased to announce our 2023 student award winners! For award descriptions and past winners, visit our Departmental Awards webpage. We are so proud of our many impressive students!

Outstanding Senior Award: Hunter Akridge, Rachel Broun

Outstanding Junior Award: Elizabeth Whiteside

Marjorie Shostak Award for Excellence and Humanity in Ethnography:

  • Pamela Beniwal  for her honors thesis “The Effect of Commercialization, Militarization, and Stigmatization of the Breast Cancer Awareness Movement on Breast Cancer Patients”, advised by Mel Konner.
  • Audrey Lu for her ANT 372W class project “The Lives of Charting: An Emergency Room Scribe’s Perspective (ANT 372W project)”, advised by Anna Grimshaw.
  • Alvaro Perez Daisson for his honors thesis “Race-related Health Disparities in Cuba in the Context of COVID-19”, advised by Mel Konner and Kristin Phillips.
  • Christopher Zeuthen for his honors thesis “Veteran Perspectives on Moral Injury”, advised by Mel Konner.

Photo from left to right: Professor Robert Paul, Christopher Zeuthen, Professor Melvin Konner, Audrey Lu, Alvaro Perez Daisson, and Pamela Beniwal.

Trevor E. Stokol Scholarship for Undergraduate Research:

  • 1st Place: Eric Li
  • Maddie Hasson
  • Raya Islam (not pictured)

2023 Graduate Student Awards

The George Armelagos Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student: AJ Jones, Caroline Owens

Delores P. Aldridge Award: Adrian Cato