Practice, Pedagogy, and Medical Anthropology

Presentation Location

Governors I

Document Type

Event

Start Date

8-4-2022 10:30 AM

End Date

8-4-2022 12:00 PM

Description

  • Shelly Yankovskyy, Session Chair
  • Amanda Reinke (Kennesaw State University). Putting Anthropological Critiques into Practice.
    How do we use anthropological critiques of institutions, practices, and processes to improve practices that address the needs of the public? Drawing on applied anthropological literature and from the author’s experience as a conflict management practitioner and academic, this presentation discusses the relationship between critiques of practice and practicing anthropology. Rather than a relationship defined in opposition (academic vs. practitioner or Ivory Tower vs. applied), I use my positionality as a researcher, academic, entrepreneur, and practitioner in conflict management to argue that engaging with theoretically informed critiques is necessary for practice improvements, and that practitioners are central to improving theory. Key words: practicing anthropology, entrepreneurship, conflict resolution.
  • Alisha Winn (Practicing Anthropologist). Anthro what? Anthropology in Professional and Community Spaces.
    The author describes her role as a consultant and educator for a city-government agency redeveloping neighborhood and community projects. For practicing anthropologists, it is imperative to utilize their anthropological skills in community-engaged work and entrepreneurship. The author examines this complex path and steps for a successful career outside of academia to broader audiences. Key words: community, redevelopment, practicing anthropology, entrepreneurship, neighborhoods.
  • Daniel A. Pizarro (Georgia State University) Abolition as Anthropological Praxis: The Necessity of Political Education.
    Anthropological praxis has the potential to help build and sustain social justice movements by speaking truth to power, exposing structural violence, and questioning communities’ safety and well-being. Anthropologists who engage in praxis interrogate the root causes of oppression by critiquing the discipline’s pedagogies. Currently, academic anthropology overlooks the ways in which popular and political education are necessary to ameliorate social suffering and to advance human rights. This paper explores prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, a liberatory praxis framework that socio-cultural anthropologists may adopt as active participants in the abolitionist struggle. This case study draws on community-based participatory action research with Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a political education working group called Atlanta Political Education Series (APE Shit). Inspired by Paulo Freire’s principle, “education is freedom,” this working group released a zine workbook titled "Abolition 101," an accessible resource in political education for community members who are interested in learning about PIC abolition. Autoethnographic data analysis reveals the value of incorporating a liberatory framework in academic anthropology. I argue that mainstreaming such an approach in formal anthropological pedagogy challenges students and mobilizes communities to be critically informed creators of their reality and active agents of social change. Key words: abolition, critical consciousness, liberation, pedagogy, praxis.
  • Shelly Yankovskyy and Anne Price (Valdosta State University). The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health in South Georgia.
    While the physical health effects of COVID-19 have been extensively studied, the effects of the pandemic on mental health have yet to be teased out for specific populations and across time. Anxiety and fear may have been the highest in 2020 when the severity of the virus, the ways in which it could be contracted, and the safety of basic activities were unknown. However, many individuals, though not all, were eligible for various social supports during this time—whether through the federal government or private sector. These supports included COVID-specific paid sick leave, the ability to work or attend school remotely, and COVID-19 economic relief available for individuals and households, small businesses, and state and local governments. Now, many of these structural supports have been removed, as school districts are under increasing pressure to remain open, Covid-specific paid sick leave has ended, and workers are increasingly required to return to work promptly after contracting Covid. At the same time, mask mandates and other health mitigation methods are not allowed or minimally required at many workplaces. This may mean that the mental health effects of the pandemic are at their most severe in the current period, at least for specific populations. In this paper, we interview private and public mental healthcare providers in South Georgia as key informants who provide data on how the pandemic has affected mental health in the regions, and how the types, incidence, and severity of conditions has varied over the course of the pandemic. Key words: mental health, Covid-19, South Georgia, economic relief.

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Apr 8th, 10:30 AM Apr 8th, 12:00 PM

Practice, Pedagogy, and Medical Anthropology

Governors I

  • Shelly Yankovskyy, Session Chair
  • Amanda Reinke (Kennesaw State University). Putting Anthropological Critiques into Practice.
    How do we use anthropological critiques of institutions, practices, and processes to improve practices that address the needs of the public? Drawing on applied anthropological literature and from the author’s experience as a conflict management practitioner and academic, this presentation discusses the relationship between critiques of practice and practicing anthropology. Rather than a relationship defined in opposition (academic vs. practitioner or Ivory Tower vs. applied), I use my positionality as a researcher, academic, entrepreneur, and practitioner in conflict management to argue that engaging with theoretically informed critiques is necessary for practice improvements, and that practitioners are central to improving theory. Key words: practicing anthropology, entrepreneurship, conflict resolution.
  • Alisha Winn (Practicing Anthropologist). Anthro what? Anthropology in Professional and Community Spaces.
    The author describes her role as a consultant and educator for a city-government agency redeveloping neighborhood and community projects. For practicing anthropologists, it is imperative to utilize their anthropological skills in community-engaged work and entrepreneurship. The author examines this complex path and steps for a successful career outside of academia to broader audiences. Key words: community, redevelopment, practicing anthropology, entrepreneurship, neighborhoods.
  • Daniel A. Pizarro (Georgia State University) Abolition as Anthropological Praxis: The Necessity of Political Education.
    Anthropological praxis has the potential to help build and sustain social justice movements by speaking truth to power, exposing structural violence, and questioning communities’ safety and well-being. Anthropologists who engage in praxis interrogate the root causes of oppression by critiquing the discipline’s pedagogies. Currently, academic anthropology overlooks the ways in which popular and political education are necessary to ameliorate social suffering and to advance human rights. This paper explores prison industrial complex (PIC) abolition, a liberatory praxis framework that socio-cultural anthropologists may adopt as active participants in the abolitionist struggle. This case study draws on community-based participatory action research with Southerners on New Ground (SONG), a political education working group called Atlanta Political Education Series (APE Shit). Inspired by Paulo Freire’s principle, “education is freedom,” this working group released a zine workbook titled "Abolition 101," an accessible resource in political education for community members who are interested in learning about PIC abolition. Autoethnographic data analysis reveals the value of incorporating a liberatory framework in academic anthropology. I argue that mainstreaming such an approach in formal anthropological pedagogy challenges students and mobilizes communities to be critically informed creators of their reality and active agents of social change. Key words: abolition, critical consciousness, liberation, pedagogy, praxis.
  • Shelly Yankovskyy and Anne Price (Valdosta State University). The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Mental Health in South Georgia.
    While the physical health effects of COVID-19 have been extensively studied, the effects of the pandemic on mental health have yet to be teased out for specific populations and across time. Anxiety and fear may have been the highest in 2020 when the severity of the virus, the ways in which it could be contracted, and the safety of basic activities were unknown. However, many individuals, though not all, were eligible for various social supports during this time—whether through the federal government or private sector. These supports included COVID-specific paid sick leave, the ability to work or attend school remotely, and COVID-19 economic relief available for individuals and households, small businesses, and state and local governments. Now, many of these structural supports have been removed, as school districts are under increasing pressure to remain open, Covid-specific paid sick leave has ended, and workers are increasingly required to return to work promptly after contracting Covid. At the same time, mask mandates and other health mitigation methods are not allowed or minimally required at many workplaces. This may mean that the mental health effects of the pandemic are at their most severe in the current period, at least for specific populations. In this paper, we interview private and public mental healthcare providers in South Georgia as key informants who provide data on how the pandemic has affected mental health in the regions, and how the types, incidence, and severity of conditions has varied over the course of the pandemic. Key words: mental health, Covid-19, South Georgia, economic relief.