“It’s phenomenal that Denisovan ancestry made it all the way to South America,” says John Lindo, a co-corresponding author of the paper and an anthropologist at Emory who specializes in ancient DNA analysis, “The admixture must have occurred a long time before, perhaps 40,000 years ago.”

Lindo also states the fact that the Denisovan lineage persisted and its genetic signal made it into an ancient individual from Uruguay that is only 1,500 years old suggests that it was a large admixture event between a population of humans and Denisovans.

Read the full article here!

This week, the Society for Cultural Anthropology’s Fieldsights Blog won the 2021 New Directions Award, presented by the General Anthropological Division, a sub-section of the American Anthropological Association. Scott Schnur, a doctoral candidate in the Emory Anthropology Department, is a member of the graduate student collective who helps edit and write for the blog as part of SCA’s Contributing Editors program. Schnur has been a contributing editor since 2018, and in 2021 became the section editor for Member Voices, a section of Fieldsights.”I became interested in working with Fieldsights because of their commitment to open-access publication and the public-facing nature of the work. The site is a great forum for experimental writing and multi-media pieces which are engaging with important issues in the discipline and pushing it new directions,” he said. “Congratulations to everyone in the program and the editorial board!”  Fieldsights has been published since 2012 and has a global readership. 

Focusing on pastoralism, this article reflects on five diverse cases across Africa, Asia and Europe and asks: how have COVID-19 disease control measures affected mobility and production practices, marketing opportunities, land control, labour relations, local community support and socio-political relations with the state and other settled agrarian or urban populations? In response to the lockdown measures, the article explores what innovations have emerged to secure livelihoods, through new forms of social solidarity and ‘moral economy’. The cases examine how impacts and responses have been differentiated by class, age, wealth and ethnicity, and explore the implications for socio-economic processes and political change in pastoral settings.

The article is availabe online, full list of the authors and publication details: Simula, Giulia, Bum, Tsering, Farinella, Domenica, Maru, Natasha, Mohamed, Tahira S., Taye, Masresha, Tsering, Palden. 2020. COVID-19 and Pastoralism: Reflections from Three Continents. The Journal of Peasant Studies 48(1): 48-72.

President Fenves of Emory University recognizes Indigenous Peoples’ Day:

Dear members of the Emory community,

On October 12, we will join communities throughout the nation to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day and honor the resilience, history, traditions, and cultures of Indigenous and Native American peoples. 

Emory’s recognition includes consideration of the first inhabitants of the land that our campus now calls home — a land whose history can be traced to the Muscogee Creek Nation. As the Muscogee Creek community continues to confront systemic racism, and as our university acknowledges its own difficult histories, we believe it is important to honor those faculty, staff, and students who create vibrant spaces of inclusion on our campus for Native and Indigenous voices. Their work is defining a new legacy at Emory — one that empowers those whose talents and gifts were overlooked and marginalized for generations.

We are proud that, for the first time at Emory, we are formally recognizing Indigenous Peoples’ Day and acknowledging its significance within our community and beyond.

In celebration of this observance, on Monday, October 12, at 4 p.m. (via Zoom) Professor of English Craig Womack (Creek) will chair a panel discussion entitled McGirt v. Oklahoma: Understanding the Implications of the Recent Supreme Court Decision Across Native America, which will explore the impact of the recent landmark decision regarding the Creek Nation for Oklahoma tribal nations and other parts of Indian Country.   

We encourage our community to spend time reflecting on our history and to consider ways to advance human rights and social justice at Emory and in the world. 

Sincerely, 

Gregory L.  Fenves
President 

When the Covid-19 pandemic shut down all in-person gatherings this Spring, the Experimental Ethnography at Emory Working Group decided to host a short series of virtual public talks by artists whose work incorporates social inquiry and ethnographic research. The group has been running workshops, showcases, and discussion groups on campus since Spring 2019, with generous support from the Bill & Carol Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. This semester, the group used funds to support artists who had lost income due to Covid-19 cancellations.

On April 10, Chicago-based video and performance artist Cherrie Yu shared recent video works that employ ethnographic methods, collaboration, and literary conventions, such as juxtaposition and translation, to explore the relationships between labor and personhood. On May 1, Atlanta-based designer Carley Rickles spoke about her approach to fieldwork in urban built environments and her concepts of “alternative” and “residual” public space. Over 30 people tuned in to each Zoom talk from places as far as India, Italy, Turkey, and California.

Graduate student Sasha Tycko worked as the organizer and moderator for these two Spring events.