From work with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt in Bolivia to excavation at a UNESCO heritage site in Haiti, graduate students returned from many exotic and productive trips abroad this summer. Check out some of these adventures...
Jessica Kali Rubaii – 2010 cohort – cultural track
This summer I attended an International Relations conference in Barcelona, where ethnographic fieldwork was discussed widely as a major component of IR research. It was alarming to see how extractive ethnographic practice can be when divorced from the major anti-colonial lessons the field of anthropology has learned over time. I am encouraged to think critically about the benefits and major pitfalls of ethnography's increasing popularity as a research method. The conference renewed my respect for the discipline of anthropology, which I often question for being insecure and insular even as I respect the self-awareness with which anthropologists conduct their research. I am inspired to be more engaged in interdisciplinary conversations-- they often open broader, more significant spaces for social justice to take priority in our work.
Chester Liwosz – 2012 cohort – archaeological track
I began my summer with an excursion to the Little Lake area of the Mojave desert. This continued an ongoing research project on Native Californian rock art. Following, I joined up with the Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii in Oahu to assist with petroglyph projects. I have been working alongside scholars, US Army civilian personnel, and people of Native Hawaiian heritage to develop public reports on recent petroglyph finds. These will be presented to the public soon at the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology conference.
Danielle Dadiego – 2015 cohort- archaeology track
This summer I worked with Cameron Monroe at the UNESCO World Heritage site, Sans-Souci Palace, in Milot Haiti. I acted as the in-field lab director and analyzed over 12,000 artifacts during the length of excavations at the 18th century palace. Afterwards I spent three weeks in Oaxaca, Mexico studying Spanish in an immersive language program. At the end of the summer I worked on a GSR that entailed chemical composition analysis of French tin-enameled ceramics by using Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry. All of these activities have given me a linguistic and methodological foundation for my dissertation work.
Darcey Evans – 2015 cohort – cultural track
In August, over 5000 people arrived in Campbell River, British Columbia for a week-long celebration known as Tribal Journeys 2017: Standing Together. Citizens from over 80 Indigenous nations from across the U.S. and Canada gathered to dance, sing, eat, camp, share stories, offer gifts, sell crafts, and more often than not, laugh. I helped to prepare and serve food throughout the week. I worked mostly with a team of female elders, and laughter, sweat, and sometimes tears abounded through an energetic kitchen. Although the gathering comprised only a small part of my summer, it greatly helped to illuminate how the U.S.-Canada border disrupts Indigenous territories and the networks of kinship and solidarity that precede the political border.
Monica Mikhail – 2015 cohort – cultural track
This summer I explored the expansive network of social services instituted by the Coptic Orthodox Church of Egypt in Bolivia. Much of my time was spent conducting participant observation in daycare centers, medical clinics and other sites where many local Bolivian peoples intentionally seek alternative sources of care. By tracing the different groups of people and resources that sustain these services, I am gaining greater insight into how this form of faith-based care navigates local geopolitics and allows for greater political and economic participation of local Bolivian communities.
