This Anthro Life

in this episode, Adam and guest host Leslie Walker talk with visual anthropologist and film producer Chris Chan, producer of the 100 Years of Beauty series on YouTube. If you haven't seen this series (or some of the spinoffs from companies like Vogue and Allure, definitely take a few minutes to enjoy). As an ethnographer, he also makes a wonderful behind-the-scenes series that documents the research he and his team does for each country called Chanthropology. We cover  the development of the 100 YOB series,  vernacular media - the kind of content that people become inspired by, and then in turn, make their own versions of.  we dig into Chanthropology, Chris' behind the scenes ethnographic videos on why the producers and makeup artists make the aesthetic choices that they do.  how to think about beauty and aesthetics as political, not merely as passive consumerism. and yes, at some point in the episode, Chris mentions the Human Centipede. But for the reasons you'd think. It's amazing. (his comment, not the film)This Anthro Life is produced and (lightly) edited by Adam Gamwell. I'm a small team of 1, so if you get something out of this show please consider supporting TAL on Patreon and helping make it happen. Even $5 a month makes a huge difference and me and our thousands of listeners are so grateful :). If you've read this far I'll be looking for production help soon! Transcription correction, content editing, social media and marketing - so if you've got some experience or want to learn the trade and want to help out, drop me a line at thisanthrolife@gmail.com. Chris is Director of Content at Cut.com100 Years of Beauty and the Beast of YouTube with Chris ChanEpisode 129--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

At long last we are back! In this episode host Adam Gamwell talks with Design Researcher and Strategist Amy Santee. This is one of these conversations that's a few years in the making. Adam has been following Amy's work for a while now both on her blog anthropologizing.com where she writes about anthropology in industry, design and business, on LinkedIn and other social media sites as well as at conferences sharing the good work of doing anthropology in industry. Adam and Amy discuss what Design Research is and how it works, how it aligns and differs from traditional anthropology and ethnography, and how tactics and methods can be applied both in industry or academia. Amy Santee is a design research and strategy consultant who helps teams build products, services and brands through an understanding of people, context and experience. Trained as an anthropologist, Amy uses a human-centered lens to make sense of complex problem spaces and create value for others. She has worked primarily in digital product design, innovation and strategy, in areas such as ecommerce, entertainment, retail, home improvement, health care, enterprise software, and consumer tech. Amy is active in the applied anthropology community and blogs about design, business, organizational culture and careers at anthropologizing.com. She also provides career advising services and presentations to groups on these topics. You can learn more about her on LinkedIn or visit her website, amysantee.com.Transcript of the episode hereAs always, your reviews and support mean the world to us and help the show continue. Please help sponsor the show with a monthly or onetime donation on Anchor or Patreon.Episode 128--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this special interview, TAL's Ryan Collins talks with scholar, activist and artist Jason de Leon about the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border. In addition to these roles, de Leon is a MacArthur Fellow and National Geographic Explorer. He uses his platforms to create public dialogue, exhibitions, and media about undocumented migration, the human costs of the US immigration policy known as 'deterrence through force.' This very human conversation reveals the emotional toll, and sometimes trauma, that comes with precarious work on the border with undocumented migrants, smugglers, shady legality and deadly terrain as well as deep questions and reflections about privilege, position, and power. Full Transcript of the episode hereCheckout some of Jason's projectshttp://www.hostileterrain94.com/http://undocumentedmigrationproject.com/MacArthur Fellow VideoEpisode 127--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this episode Adam Gamwell talks with Alex Limpaecher and LaiYee Ho, co-Founders of Delve. While Delve is a qualitative research suite, to help code transcripts, find insight, and pull actionable insights from data, the conversation takes focus on the subject of research. Specifically, the driving question is: how can qualitative and quantitative data work together? Here, academic and industry methodologies with anthropology are put into conversation leading to insights and actionable steps from social data. Transcript for the episode: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/delve/From the Delve Site:Delve is an online tool that helps you code and analyze transcripts from in-depth interviews or focus groups. Make your research process structured and transparent by creating a coding structure that evolves into your final insights.Delve is more streamlined than coding with spreadsheets and documents, and more intuitive than traditional CAQDAS software.Delve tool: https://delvetool.com/Episode 126--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

For this episode, we're doing something a little different. I'll be your guest. I got interviewed by the wonderful Sarah Dunigan on her podcast Anthro Dish, a weekly podcast about food identity and culture about design anthropology and some of the research I did on quinoa production and conservation in Peru for my PhD. I'll let Sarah intro the episode and run it unedited on my end. Just wanted to drop in and let you know we're here and in the spirit of helping our fellow anthro podcasters cross promote and get their good work out there. Sign up for our NEW Weekly Newsletter here, Check out Sarah's podcast Anthro Dish and the episode page from our conversation on Quinoa Production and Design Anthropology--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this episode, Adam and Aneil reflect on Aneil’s fieldwork in climate finance. Climate finance is an area of finance focused on mobilizing investment for climate change solutions, namely infrastructure that is sustainable. Aneil’s research is centered on the growth of the green bond market within climate finance. Green bonds are debt instruments that finance infrastructure deemed sustainable by the climate finance community, such as public transit, green building, renewable energy, and water infrastructure (Tripathy 2017).We analyze some snippets of interviews with climate finance practitioners and reflect on why notions of sacrifice appear so prominent in how they approach finance. It is unexpected, provocative, and humanizing. Max Weber Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant EthicDefinition of Finance from Mirriam Webster DictionaryFor more on Sacrifice: Marcel Mauss and Hubert Spencer On SacrificeThis Anthro Life: Making Sense of Finance: Boundaries, Institutions, and power and Caitlin Zaloom--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Storyslamming Anthropology Series, Story 2. Written and Performed by Taylor GenoveseIn recent years, the terms Public and Anthropology have been paired with more frequency. Yet, what this seemingly suspect partnership is, how it could function, and what goals it could have are still in relative formation. Today, public anthropology might mean several different things ranging from jargony lectures that are “open to the public”, digital media (like blogs, videos, or podcasts) that are generally accessible online, or presentations given to an informant public on work produced by a researcher. Large voids remain. We ask, then, why not turn to already publicly oriented writing for inspiration? What if “Guns, Germs and Steel” (Diamond 1999), “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, (Harai 2015) or “Freakonomics” (Levitt and Dubner 2009) were written by anthropologists? What if we told you that once upon a time, they were? When Margaret Mead wrote “Coming of Age in Samoa” in 1928, anthropologists and non-anthropologists alike flocked to her work because of its accessibility - and felt topical relevance. Could such an achievement be attainable today? While some scholars might reject an approach based on “popular” writing, we argue that the enormous success of the above books (as well as the podcasts, YouTube videos and Netflix series based on them) demonstrates a general interest in theories of humankind, what it means to be human in the contemporary world, and throughout history. We ask why have anthropologists not followed suit? Despite the massive amount of scholarship published each year by anthropologists, none seem to crack that elusive space between rigorous research and “pop-science.” While there are trade offs between academic complexity and writing for a lay audience, the theme of the 2017 American Anthropological Association conference, "Anthropology Matters!" speaks to our need to talk across (and storytell) different worlds. Our goal with this experimental panel was to invoke the public spirit of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits and others to speak to 21st century concerns from a comparative perspective in clear language. We picked papers that revealed juxtapositions, seemingly counter- or non- intuitive links between subjects, objects, ideas, emotions, practices, or traditions that we felt can intrigue, educate, and delight participants. The goal of this series of to expand our genres of sharing ethnographic and anthropological insight. We hope you enjoy! Story 1: #MeToo: Stories in the Age of Survivorship by Emma Backe--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to This Anthro Life x EPIC 2019. This is the first episode in our 2019 collaboration with the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community or EPIC. EPIC is a professional organization that brings together ethnographers and social science practitioners across fields like user experience research and design, marketing, computer science, academia, and more. This year’s conference theme is agency, which is fascinating given the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, voice recognition software and platforms like Alexa or Hey Google, and controversies over privacy and sale of people’s personal data. Today host Adam Gamwell and guest host Matt Artz virtually sit down with the EPIC conference chairs Julia Haines and Lisa Di Carlo.Julia conducts research at the intersection of technology, innovation, and human practices. She is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google where she leads UX research for a team of over 400 designers and engineers, bringing an inclusive, human-centered perspective to the project. She is a co-founder of the Responsible AI License (RAIL) initiative and an inaugural member of the ACM’s Future of Computing Academy. Lisa is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Sociology Department at Brown University. She teaches courses on design anthropology, applied qualitative research methods and research ethics. The common threads throughout her research are migration and displacement, .from labor migration, to religious conversion as migration and displacement, to social innovation through the migration of ideas. When not preparing a massive conference, she conducts ethnographic research primarily in the Mediterranean area, most frequently in Turkey and Turkish diaspora communities. We have a wide ranging conversation that covers questions such as  what agency looks like in industry and classrooms,  what responsibilities corporations have to the agency of users,  how we can make computing more equitable,  the pace of research in academia and industry,  how students and other professionals looking to move into industry ethnography and research can get a leg up. As always, we want to hear from you! Drop us a voice message on Anchor or a message on Twitter @thisanthrolife or email at thisanthrolife@gmail.com. If you get some value out of listening to the show, please consider supporting us at Patreon.com/thisanthrolife or on Anchor.fm with a dollar or a few bucks a month, whatever you can afford. Your support makes this show possible. Thank you!--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Adam sits down (in a cafe, so this is live, people) with Jay Hasbrouck, Founder and Principal of Filament Insight and Innovation and author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset, a how-to guide for anyone looking to better understand and apply many of the methods ethnographers learn to their own businesses and practices. We talk through some of the techniques Jay covers in his book as well as talk candidly about the world of consulting and client relationships. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Adam and Andrea continue the conversation with Julie Lesnik, author of Edible Insects and Human Evolution, but this time they’re going prehistoric. Oh, and they’re talking about gorillas and chimpanzees too. Learn how to fish for termites, why we wish we had more baskets, and why any of those things matter to understanding human evolution. Edible Insects, part 3Check out discussion questions here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/insects/More about Julie:https://www.entomoanthro.org/about-julie.htmlhttps://www.octopusandape.com/--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message