PSU Anthropology Department

First Rites: Innovative Undergraduate Research in Anthropology

Abstract: Undergraduate students are an increasingly important element in the production of anthropological knowledge. In its best form, undergraduate research can be seen as an apprenticeship, wherein the novitiate is granted a partnership and some degree of agency in pushing the boundaries of and crossing into new frontiers of shared knowledge. Collaboration with undergraduate students in research is one of the important ways we can facilitate innovation within our discipline. Their research breaks down classroom/research boundaries, focuses on the importance of experiential learning, and exploits the naiveté and vigor of students not yet indoctrinated into paradigmatic complacency. Undergraduate students can be agents and partners in reshaping the landscape of anthropology. The importance of undergraduate research and scholarly activity is underscored both in financial support by federal-level agencies, such as the National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Institutes of Health, and the growing number of faculty-student collaborations in anthropology departments across the globe. Through their engagement, undergraduate students challenge current boundaries and present their findings in the inter-disciplinary medium of visual posters to enrich anthropological inquiry into the human experience.

Students are especially encouraged to present on topics that link to this year’s theme of “Anthropology Matters!” for describing the past, exploring the present, predicting the future, and navigating the processes of being and becoming human.

This session is generously sponsored by the Society for Visual Anthropology. Students are encouraged to highlight both their work and their visual acumen via research posters of their projects. The SVA will evaluate all entries in this session and recognize exemplary posters – that is, those that maximize the possibilities of the format – with a prize.

Interested students must

(1) Become a student member of the AAA, if they are not already.

(2) Register for the conference

http://www.americananthro.org/AttendEvents/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=1697&navItemNumber=69.

(3) Contact me at drotman@nd.edu with an expression of interest. I will add the student to our participant roster and the online registration system will send her/him/them a link for uploading their abstract, etc.

The deadline for submission is Friday, April 14 at 5 pm. Please have your students contact me well in advance of the deadline so they have time to complete all necessary steps before closing.