American Anthropologist's "particular problem" with biological anthropology

"Singling out biological anthropologists as representing a “particular problem” reinforces the pervasive premise that sociocultural anthropology is normative anthropology, and the measure against which all other specialties are compared (and apparently fall short)."
http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2013/12/04/american-anthropologists-particular-problem-with-biological-anthropology/

Biological Anthropology at the AAA meeting!

I can't believe it's nearly time to head to the 2012 AAA meeting in San Francisco! The Biological Anthropology Section of AAA is organizing many sessions and activities at the meeting, including a few of particular interest to me: 

BIOCULTURAL INSIGHTS INTO LIFE HISTORY AND HUMAN SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
Chair: Michaela Howells

CROSSING SAFELY INTO TODDLERHOOD: AN ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON RISKS TO INFANT CARE
Chair: Sera Young

BRAINS IN THE WILD: THE CHALLENGES OF NEUROANTHROPOLOGY

Chair: Greg Downey

2012 W.W. HOWELLS BOOK AWARD: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, "Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding"

2012 BAS DISTINGUISHED LECTURE: Darna Dufour, "Anthropological Perspectives on Nutrition Transitions"  

Other sessions of interest to bio-folks include the following (can you tell which ones I'm super excited about and have you noticed the suspicious Marksist pattern?):

EVOLUTIONARY UNDERSTANDINGS OF CULTURAL PRACTICES
Thursday, November 15, 2012: 10:15 AM-12:00 PM
Chair:  Douglas M Jones

EVOLUTIONARY INSIGHTS INTO CHILDHOOD, PARENTING, AND COOPERATION
Thursday, November 15, 2012: 1:45 PM-3:30 PM
Organizer & Chair:  Lee Cronk

****BORDERING ON FACT: WHEN ANTHROPOLOGISTS HAVE TO TAKE SCIENCE TO TASK**** 
Thursday, November 15, 2012: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM
Organizers:  Clare L Boulanger; Chairs:  Chelsea Blackmore
Jonathan M Marks (University of North Carolina-Charlotte)
CURRENT ISSUES IN BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY
Thursday, November 15, 2012: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM
Chair:  Kristin Snopkowski

****INTEGRATING OUR SCIENCES:  CROSSING THE BORDERS OF THE DISCIPLINES****
Friday, November 16, 2012: 1:45 PM-3:30 PM
Organizers:  Alice B Kehoe; Chairs:  Leslea Hlusko
Participants:  Jonathan M Marks, Montgomery Slatkin, Carole L Crumley, Rasmus Nielsen, and John H Moore

A SUM GREATER THAN ITS PARTS: MULTI-DISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES ON LATER HUMAN EVOLUTION
Saturday, November 17, 2012: 1:45 PM-5:30 PM
Organizers & Chairs:  Jamie L Clark and Adam P Van Arsdale;
Discussants:  Milford H Wolpoff and Julien Riel-Salvatore

CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY AND ANTHROPOLOGY: CROSSING MULTIPLE BORDERS AND SCALES
Saturday, November 17, 2012: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM
Organizers:  Shirley J Fiske; Chairs: Carole L Crumley and Shirley J Fiske

CURRENT THEMES IN EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY: DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSITION, COOPERATION, AND CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
Saturday, November 17, 2012: 4:00 PM-5:45 PM
Organizers:  Eric A Smith; Chairs:  Adam H Boyette

Biological Anthropology sessions at AAA

There are some wonderful biological & evolutionary anthropology sessions on the schedule of the upcoming AAA meetings. It's not too late to join us in Montreal!

Thursday, November 17, 2011:


· 08:00-09:45: ATTACHMENTS, ALLIANCES, AND REPUTATIONS: TRACING COOPERATION THROUGH TIME, SPACE, AND THE LIFESPAN. Organizers: Adam H Boyette (Washington State University, Vancouver) and Shane J Macfarlan (Oregon State University)

· 08:00-11:45: BODY PARTS AND PARTS OF BODIES: THE TRACES OF VIOLENCE IN CULTURES IN CONFLICT. Organizers: Ryan P Harrod (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) and Debra L Martin (UNLV)

· 10:15-12:00: CALCULATING LEGACIES: INFORMED BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY. Organizers: Robin G Nelson (University of California, Riverside)

· 10:15-12:00: SCIENCE IN ANTHROPOLOGY: AN OPEN DISCUSSION Organizer: Peter Peregrine (Lawrence University)

· 13:45-17:30: RE-ENVISIONING CULTURE: CHALLENGING LEGACIES AND SHIFTING TIDEMARKS IN THE STUDY OF HUMAN DIVERSITY. Organizers: Amber Wutich (Arizona State University) and Daniel Hruschka (Arizona State University)


Friday, November 18, 2011:

· 08:00-11:45: THE SCARS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION. Organizers: Karen Rosenberg (University of Delaware) and Rachel Caspari (Central Michigan University)
· 16:00-17:45: NEW DIRECTIONS IN BIOARCHAEOLOGY

· 18:15-19:30: BAS BUSINESS MEETING

· 19:30-21:30: BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY SECTION DISTINGUISHED LECTURE; RECEPTION FOLLOWS


Saturday, November 19, 2011:

· 08:00-11:45: TRANSFORMING BIOCULTURAL AND ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES IN ANTHROPOLOGY: THE LEGACIES OF R BROOKE THOMAS. Organizers: Thomas L Leatherman (University of Massachusetts) and Lisa B Markowitz (University of Louisville)

· 10:15-12:00: DOWN TO EARTH: EXHUMATIONS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD: Organizers: Francisco Ferrandiz (SPANISH NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL) and Victoria D Sanford (Lehman College/CUNY)

· 16:00-17:45: NEW DIRECTIONS IN EVOLUTION, VARIATION AND GENETICS

· 16:00-17:45: TRACING CHILDHOOD: BIOARCHAEOLOGICALINVESTIGATIONS OF EARLY LIVES IN ANTIQUITY. Organizers: John J Crandall (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

· 18:15-20:15: Section Summit on the Changing Job Market and Student Training: Linking Anthropology Departments and Practice. Organizers: Keri Vacanti Brondo, Wendy Bartlo, and Mary Odell Butler


Sunday, November 20, 2011:

· 08:00-11:45:  TRACES OF VIOLENCE AND LEGACIES OF CONFLICT: COMBINING MATERIAL EVIDENCE AND NARRATIVE EXCHANGE FOR AN ANTHROPOLOGY OF VIOLENT ENCOUNTERS. Organizers: Rahul C Oka (University of Notre Dame) and Nerina Weiss (Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims).

AAA prizes for bioanthropology students!

Are you (or do you have) an undergraduate or graduate student in biological anthropology who will be presenting at the AAA meeting in Montreal? You are eligible to compete for the Biological Anthro Section (BAS) Student Prize! Please submit the your name, paper title, and session title to Dr. Katherine MacKinnon by November 15 (note: you may nominate your students yourself).

Student participation in the AAA is so important to maintain and grow the presence (and influence!) of biological anthropologists within the larger discipline of anthropology, so please enter and be recognized for your outstanding work!

Dr. Robin Nelson elected to AAA Biological Anthropology Section

Congratulations to colleague and friend Dr. Robin Nelson of the University of California Riverside for her recent election to the Executive Committee of the Biological Anthropology Section of the American Anthropological Association. Dr. Nelson will be filling the Member-at-Large position which is particularly involved in student awards and outreach. I can't imagine a better ambassador of biological anthropology scholarship to our newest members. The BAS will certainly benefit from Robin's energy!

AAA Biological Anthropology Section website

The Biological Anthropology Section of the AAA has a website that is frequently updated, and a recent compilation of blogs focusing on biological anthropology content. The BAS is very interested in increasing its general reach as well as its impact within the AAA via digital media so if you have any suggestions for additions to this list, please let me know and I will pass it along.

Biological Anthropology Section student paper prize winners!

Many congratulations to BAS student prize winner Allison Foley of Indiana University. Her paper DISABILITY AND DISEASE IN THE ANCIENT MIDWEST: A PALEOPATHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE MORTON SITE, IL took top BAS honors at the 2010 AAA meetings!
Foley, M.Sc. in Archaeology (University of Edinburgh, 2004), is a Future Faculty Teaching Fellow with an appointment as a Visiting Lecturer at Indiana University South Bend in Anthropology. She is enrolled in the Ph.D. Program in Biological Anthropology at Indiana University (Bloomington). The title of her dissertation is “Trauma in the Central Illinois River Valley: A Paleopathological Analysis of the Morton Site.”

Congratulations also to the Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically):
Allison Cantor, University of South Florida (poster)
MATERNAL DIET IN RURAL COSTA RICA: IDENTIFYING CULTURAL NORMS AND CHANGING TRENDS WITH IMPLICATIONS FOR THE DEVELOPMENTAL ORIGINS OF OBESITY-RELATED DISORDERS.

Carolyn Jost Robinson, Purdue University (paper, w/Melissa Remis)
SYNERGISTIC HUMAN-WILDLIFE RELATIONSHIPS IN A PROTECTED AREA: ECOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL ENTANGLEMENTS.

Mary Elisabeth Timm, University of Nevada Las Vegas (paper, w/Debra Martin and Jamie Vilos)
FISHING AND FARMING IN THE DESERT: AN ANALYSIS OF SACRO-ILIAC ENTHESES IN A BRONZE AGE (C. 2200-2000 BC) POPULATION

NY Times reports on the AAA LRP changes

Nicholas Wade reports in yesterday's NY Times on the still unresolved and still quite rancorous issues of the AAA Long Range Plan statement. The piece quotes AAA president Virginia Dominguez as saying "....the new statement could be modified if the board received any good suggestions for doing so." Apparently the statement the BAS sent to President Dominguez didn't contain any good suggestions.

The AAA responds

The AAA officers released a statement about the rewording of the mission.

Long-Range Plan


From the officers of the AAA to our membership:

Our AAA long-range plan needed updating in order to address the changing composition of the profession and the needs of the AAA membership. At its November 20 meeting in New Orleans, the Executive Board specified, concretized, and enlarged its operational roadmap for investing the Association’s resources towards a sustainable future. Section leadership was consulted prior to the New Orleans Annual Meeting, and the Executive Board acted. Then immediately after the highly attended 2010 AAA Meetings in New Orleans, some criticisms of the plan were circulated electronically that had not been sent our way prior to the Meetings. Among them were thoughtful responses from several quarters, many queries about hearsay, and some suggestions for improvement or change. These responses, however, were amped up by blog headline editors earlier this week: “Anthropology Without Science” and “No Science Please. We’re Anthropologists.” We believe that the source of the problem speaks to the power of symbols: we replaced the term “science” in the preface of this planning document by a more specific (and inclusive) list of research domains, while explicitly acknowledging that the Association’s central focus is to promote the production, circulation, and application of anthropological research findings. Each one of us (the four officers of the AAA) may add or comment on the issues separately, but collectively we care about letting the entire association see the document at hand. We know that comments will continue to come our way and we welcome them from our clearly engaged membership.

Virginia R. Dominguez, President
Leith Mullings, President-Elect
Debra L. Martin, Secretary
Edward Liebow, Treasurer

Interesting that they blame bloggers for "amping up" the response. Wonder if they noticed that a lot of the bloggers were some of their own? I think it's good that they are considering this as an example of the power of symbols, but wonder why this didn't occur to them sooner. Indeed, according to their own spokesperson a few days ago, the AAA wasn't prepared for the impact of that symbolism:
"Mr. Dozier, meanwhile, believes that this month's dispute has been rooted in miscommunication. "We wanted to choose language that described our purposes in more expansive ways," he says. No one realized, he says, how loaded the word "science" actually might be."

Biological Anthropology Section's statement to the AAA Executive Board

Many thanks to the executive board of the Biological Anthropology Section of the AAA for officially expressing the widely-shared concern about the new wording of the AAA Statement of Purpose.

Karen Strier, the new chair of the BAS, sent an email to the BAS membership to let us know of this statement and made some great, results-oriented suggestions to increase the profile of biological anthropology within AAA. With permission, I share the email here for BANDITs who do not belong to BAS:

Dear BAS Members,

I am writing as the new Chair of BAS, having just replaced Darna Dufour, who deserves recognition and appreciation for her service as BAS Chair these past two years. I had been expecting to slowly ease into the job at the close of the AAA meetings in New Orleans, but alas, the news about the AAA Executive Board's (EB) revisions to the Mission Statement hit my desk right after I returned from the meetings and, well, here we are.

Briefly, for those who haven't seen any of the emails or blogs, the concerns pertain to the revised rewording in the AAA's mission statement from the long range planning committee. The revision excludes the word "science," which we think sends the wrong message about anthropology in general and the place of biology in it, in particular. The revision also refocuses the emphasis from being about advancing "anthropology as the science that studies humankind..." to be about advancing "the public understanding of humankind.".

I am writing to assure you that the Executive Committee of the BAS is among the many representatives from many sections that are challenging these revisions. Our message to the President and EB of the AAA has been submitted, and a copy of it has been posted on the BAS website.

We are confident that the AAA statement will be re-evaluated and subsequently revised as a result of the objections it has generated. Therefore, I hope that you will all stand by BAS during this time. It is especially important that we have the strength of our membership numbers behind our voice right now.

This is also an opportune moment to encourage you to increase your participation in BAS and the overall presence of Biological Anthropologists in the AAA. Here are a few of the ways you can do this:

1. Nominate worthy books for the 2011 W.W. Howells Book Award.

Deadline is Feb 1, 2011; nominations should be sent to Sara Stinson: Sara.Stinson@qc.cuny.edu

2. Organize a session or volunteer a paper or poster presentation at the 2011 AAA meetings, which will be in Montreal. Deadlines for abstracts are in the early spring; watch for the call from AAA.

3. If you are a student or know an eligible student, consider entering in the 2011 BAS Student Prize competition when it is announced.

4. Vote in our upcoming BAS election. We are preparing a slate of amazing candidates for the 2011 elections.

5. Self-nominate, or tell someone else that you would like to be nominated, for future BAS positions and/or committees of the AAA. The more representation we have on the latter, the more we can shape the Association to represent ourselves.

6. Attend the 2011 AAA meetings. Our 2011 Distinguished Lecture will be given by Jonathan Marks.

7. Send any news you may have for publication in AnthroNews to the BAS Newsletter editor, Virginia Vitzthum: vitzthum@indiana.edu

8. Send any news or updates (e.g., field schools, summer programs, etc.) for the BAS website to our webmaster, Kate Pechenkina: pechenkina@yahoo.com

More information about BAS activities can be found at our website. We are in the process of updating the website, so please be patient. If you can't find what you're looking for, please let us know.

Thanks to all of you for your continuing support of BAS.

Best wishes,


Karen Strier

Chair, BAS