WAPA Event Archives: 2002-03

Tuesday, October 1: Conservation as Social Science

James D. Nations, Vice President of Development Agency Relations at Conservation International, will speak on the nature of anthropology in the conservation movement. Given his experience a leading anthropologist in the field of environmental conservation, this promises to be a most informative evening.

During the past 20 years, Dr. Nations has worked for the conservation of tropical ecosystems in Mexico, Central America and South America. As a Lincoln-Juarez Scholar, he lived for three years among the Lacandon Maya, an indigenous group in the lowland tropical forest of Chiapas, Mexico. As a Tinker Foundation post-doctoral fellow with the University of California-Berkeley, he spent two years in Mexico, studying alternatives to deforestation. From 1987 to 1990, he lived in Guatemala as a Senior Fulbright Research Scholar. As technical advisor to Guatemala's National Council for Protected Areas (CONAP), he led the international team that established Guatemalaís three-million acre Maya Biosphere Reserve.

Dr. Nations' research has focused on the interface between human communities and protected areas, frontier agriculture, population dynamics, and the human exploitation of tropical forests. Dr. Nations holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. For a more extensive look at Dr. Nations' rich CV, please go to the WAPA web site or go directly to http://www.smcm.edu/wapa/nations.html.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, October 29: New Member Wine and Welcome

The wine & cheese reception for new WAPA members is scheduled for Tuesday, October 29, 5:30-7:30 pm. Plan on attending this fun and informal event. The reception allows newer and prospective members to get to know each other and to meet long-time WAPA members as well. The reception will be held in the international programs office of LTG Associates, located at 1101 Vermont Ave NW, at the corner of L Street, between 14th and 15th streets. The nearest Metros are McPherson Square and Farragut North. Parking is nearby on 14th and L streets. The building entry in next to an Au Bon Pain and has "American Medical Association" over the front doors.

Take the elevator to the 9th floor and someone will meet you there. Please arrive before 6 pm. If you arrive after 6, tell the guard at the lobby desk who you are and where you are going. If needed, the guard should ring the office at 898-9040, ext 151. A WAPA person will escort you to the reception.

It is important that we know early how many plan to attend so we can plan refreshments. Further, we need to provide a list of attendees to the security guard. With this in mind, please RSVP no later than Thursday, October 24, 2002, either by e-mail to Susan.Abbott-Jamieson@noaa.gov or by phone to Susan Abbott-Jamieson at (301) 713-2328 x 101. You can leave a message on her voice mail.

 1101 Vermont Ave., NW , Suite 900 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 6: The Environment, Human Rights and Anthropology: Lessons from the Trenches

Jason Clay, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the World Wildlife Fund, will speak at WAPA's November meeting on WEDNESDAY, November 6. Please make a note of this date change, as the first Tuesday in November is an election day (get out and vote!).

Dr. Jason Clay, an anthropologist by training, has taught at Harvard, worked in the USDA, and spent more than 20 years working with human rights and environmental NGOs. Clay spent more than a decade developing research methods to document and predict human rights abuses, genocide and ethnocide, social conflict, and man-made famines. In the 1980s, he was one of the inventors of green marketing and established a trading company within an NGO that developed markets for rainforest products with nearly 200 companies in the US and Europe (including such products as Rainforest Crunch with Ben & Jerry's ice cream). Retail sales of rainforest products amounted to more than $100 million per year by 1992.

More recently, Clay has been engaged in detailed examinations of the social and environmental impacts of commodity production. In 1996 he began to research ways to reduce the impacts of shrimp aquaculture, and in 1999, he created the Shrimp Aquaculture and the Environment Consortium (WWF, World Bank, FAO and NACA). He co-directed the work of the consortium to identify and analyze better management practices that address the environmental and social impacts of shrimp aquaculture. This work resulted in 35 cases in twenty countries. The cases range from pond level BMPs to ecosystem and national levels. The findings have been presented to more than 8,000 individuals from a wide range of groups in more than 150 meetings. The goal of the studies was to identify those practices that reduce the impacts of the industry, determine the cost of adoption and use of the practices, promote their dissemination, and develop investment and purchasing screens for shrimp from aquaculture.

Dr. Clay studied anthropology and Latin American studies at Harvard University, economics and geography at the London School of Economics, and anthropology and international agriculture at Cornell University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1979.

Clay was founder and editor (1980-1992) of the award-winning Cultural Survival Quarterly, the largest circulation anthropology and human rights publication in the world. He is the author or co-author of 12 books and more than 300 articles. He has given more than 600 invited lectures. His work has been the focus of more than 1,000 articles and documentaries and has been supported by more than 60 different funding sources. In addition, Clay has consulted with the World Bank, BID/I-ADB, US AID, UN FAO, UNCTAD, UNEP, UNDP, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Packard Foundation, and hundreds of international environmental, human rights, and community-based NGOs.

Dr. Clay is currently a Senior Fellow at World Wildlife Fund and Acting VP for WWF's Center for Conservation Innovation.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, December 3: Dilemmas of Anthropologists Working on AIDS Research with or within USAID

Panelists: Daniel Halperin, Ted Green, Stan Yoder. Anthropologists working professionally outside academia may have great opportunities to shape policy and formulate the research priorities of donors and institutions. Those working on AIDS research with or within USAID have, from time to time, had the opportunity to shape research questions and overall strategies.

The evening will be devoted to a discussion of the experiences of anthropologists who have conducted research on AIDS in the past and who are each currently involved in USAID-sponsored AIDS research.

Ted Green, Daniel Halperin, and Stan Yoder will tell brief stories about their efforts to shape policy relating to one aspect of AIDS research and interventions within USAID. They will talk about how they have accepted, rejected, or sought to reshape the vision within USAID of AIDS research and intervention in the light of their own concerns and professional judgment. The audience will then be invited to share their experiences with AIDS research in the context of conflicting priorities.

Daniel Halperin is an anthropologist who has done extensive research on HIV/AIDS while based at the University of California in San Francisco. He is currently doing HIV/AIDS and HIV prevention research for USAID in Washington, D.C.

Stan Yoder is an anthropologist who designs and directs health-related research for Macro International, the company that conducts the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) around the world. His areas of expertise include ethnomedicine in African countries, the evaluation of health communication campaigns, research methodology, and HIV/AIDS. Stan has conducted research in a dozen countries in West and Central Africa.

Ted Green is an anthropologist currently based at Harvard University, where he is writing a book on behavior change and AIDS in Uganda while serving as Principal Investigator for a multi-country study of AIDS and behavior change financed by USAID. Ted has done consultancies in dozens of countries around the world, and has published widely, both books and articles, on the work of traditional healers in Africa and ideas of illness in Africa.

Also at Tuesday's meeting: AAAS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
To encourage WAPA anthropologists to apply for the AAAS Fellowship Program before the January deadline, Dr. Deborah J. Cahalen, a former fellow, will briefly describe how she came to apply, what she did during her fellowship, and her transition out of the experience. There will be a few minutes for questions.

In 2001, Deborah Cahalen joined the U.S. Department of State's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, where she is responsible for reviewing and recommending U.S. policy and programs on democracy and human rights in 21 nations in East Asia and the Pacific. She has also worked in the Department's Office of Indonesia and East Timor. Prior to her employment at the State Department, she was a faculty member at the State University of New York, Binghamton. Dr. Cahalen has consulted on international development programs and policy for USDA, has obtained grants for and directed development and research projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and has authored many articles and a book (in press) on the subject of democracy and globalization. She has also taught at NYU and at the University of California, Davis. In 2000 she was selected as a Diplomacy Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday,January 7: Anthropology, Public Policy, and the Sustainability Transition: Reflections from the Field

Speaker: Twig Johnson

Twig Johnson works in the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Academy of Science, leading efforts to build a "Science and Technology for Sustainability Program." He received his Ph.D. in ecological anthropology from Columbia University, taught at Queens College, CUNY and the University of Maine, and spent two years as a visiting scientist at MIT. He has worked for the US Agency for International Development as: Director of the Office of Environment and Natural Resources, Director of the Office of Regional Sustainable Development for Latin America; Chief of the Policy Studies Division and of the UN Division. Additional public service includes: Peace Corps/Brazil (Volunteer and later as Country Director); Chair of the Tropical Ecosystems Directorate of US Man and the Biosphere Program; and, at the United Nations, Chief of Evaluation and Planning for UNICEF. He has been a member of the International Advisory Group of the Pilot Program for the Amazon (Brazil, G-7, World Bank), Member of the US Delegation to the UNCED Earth Summit and the Summit of the Americas - Santa Cruz. Within the NGO community Twig Johnson has worked as Executive Director, Center for Field Research, Earthwatch, and most recently, as Regional Director and VP for Latin America of the World Wildlife Fund.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, January 12: Holiday Party

WAPA'S WINTER PARTY, Sunday January 12, 2003, 3-7 p.m.

At the home of Ruth and Michael Cernea 6113 Robinwood Road, Bethesda, MD 20817
RSVP: rcernea@comcast.net or 301-320-5579

WAPA will provide the main dish, hot cider and beverages.

You are invited to bring:

A side dish: (those with surnames beginning with A-G)
Desserts: (last names beginning with H-O)
Salad: (if your surname begins with P-Z)

DIRECTIONS:

From Washington DC: North into Bethesda on River Road, Right on Whittier Blvd at the light. Robinwood is the sixth street on the right (dead ends at Walt Whitman High School).

From the Beltway (I-495) Take the River Road exit, south on River Road to 4th traffic light (Whittier Blvd), Turn Left on Whittier Blvd, Robinwood is the sixth street on your right.

From Montgomery County: call Ruth if needed.

Tuesday, February 4: The American Healthcare Revolution: Complementary and Alternative Medicine Comes of Age

With Claire M. Cassidy, PhD, , Dipl Ac, LAc

Interest in what came to be known as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (or CAM) faded in the US in the early 20th century but powerfully resurged after then-President Nixon's visit to China in 1971. This remarkable turn-about has rapidly led to such societal innovations as the development of an NIH Institute dedicated to CAM, a requirement that all biomedical schools offer CAM courses, the emergence of a huge non-pharmaceutical supplement and herb industry, the development of a new educational and legal infrastructure to support CAM delivery, and vociferous demands for insurance coverage and research funding. Topics to be touched upon during the first 30 minutes include problems of terminology, of developing a taxonomy to describe CAM, and of finding appropriate means of researching medical systems that bear little resemblance to biomedicine. An additional issue of interest is the low interest anthropologists have shown in this healthcare revolution--perhaps we can identify some reasons why!

Claire Cassidy earned her doctorate in Human Biology with a specialty in Paleonutrition and Paleopathology, then went on to a career at universities and in consulting in nutritional and medical anthropology. From the 1970s she pioneered courses in comparative medicine, and for six years in the 1990s served as research director at a leading acupuncture school. Subsequently she attended Chinese medical school herself, and today splits her time between writing, researching issues of perception in medicine, and treating patients with acupuncture.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, February 15: Book discussion

Details and directions to follow

Home of Charlie Chaney, 3 to 6 p.m.

Tuesday, March 4: WORTH: Empowering Women Through Savings-led Literacy and Microenterprise Development

Worth is an innovative women’s empowerment model based on literacy- and savings-led micro-finance and micro-enterprise development. Worth helps women take control of their own learning to become literate and numerate in business and banking, creating their own autonomous village groups which can be the source of future development in their communities. In the Worth program:

1) Women learn to read, write and do simple math while they save together.

2) Using their literacy skills, women learn how to become a community-based bank.

3) Women borrow from group savings to launch micro-businesses, and repay loans with interest.

Working together, participants read Women in Business, a series of books that takes them step-by-step through the process of forming strong economic groups, mobilizing and keeping track of their savings, lending for short-term working capital loans, and building micro-enterprises. The curriculum uses a self-study approach in which a group of motivated women can read, discuss issues, and make decisions on their own, with minimal outside promotion.

Erica Tubbs is Program Assistant at the international NGO Pact for Worth: A Women’s Empowerment Program. She has lived and worked in Nepal, South Korea and Russia and has recently completed research on the effects of poverty on women’s reproductive health and abortion decisions in the Republic of Armenia. She currently is pursuing a joint MA/MPH degree in International Development and Global Public Health at George Washington University.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, April 8: Building Civil Society and Promoting Ecosystem Management: A Double-Edged Swor

Speakers: Kirk Talbott and Dr. Owen Lynch, environmental attorneys.

From the mountains of Cambodia to the plains of Africa, indigenous and other local communities often struggle for livelihoods and political voice in countries fraught with ecological and social challenges. More often than not they are confronted by systemic corruption and official mismanagement of natural resources that benefit government and military officials and crony businesses. By linking the environmental struggle to protect ecosystems with the political battle to attack corruption and empower local communities, a powerful synergy can be achieved in meeting goals of both democratization and conservation. This talk will provide specific examples of this 'double-edged sword' and highlight the important role of lawyers, anthropologists and other social scientists can play in strengthening environmental governance and management.

Owen J. Lynch is a senior attorney and director of the Law and Communities Program at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) in Washington, DC. He has been actively engaged for more than two decades in fostering public interest law careers in Asia and more recently Africa, the Pacific and Latin America. The author of many articles and books, Lynch's substantive focus is on issues related to human rights and sustainable development. His area of special expertise is on community-based property rights (CBPRs) and their legal recognition in national and international laws. Lynch earned his B.A. from St. Johns University (MN) in 1975 and his J.D. from The Catholic University of America in 1980. He also earned Master of Laws and Doctor of Laws degrees from Yale University in 1985 and 1992, respectively.

Kirk Talbott received his B.A. from Yale and a Masters in Foreign Service and Law degree from Georgetown University. He is a member of the D.C. Bar Association and serves on several boards. He has worked in the international law, human rights, development and environment fields for over 20 years and has worked in over forty countries, primarily in Africa and Asia. Talbott spent nine years at the World Resources Institute and has worked at The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International and other organizations as well as practicing law involving nuclear claims litigation in the Marshall Islands. He has published and taught widely in the fields of community based resources management, environmental security and development policy.

Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday, May 6: Archaeology and Politics: Oil, Water, and the World Archaeological Congress

The speaker will be Dr. Joan Gero. Gero is professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, DC and academic secretary for the Fifth World Archaeological Congress (WAC) to be held in June 2003 at Catholic University. Her research focus is gender and power issues in prehistory, with a special interest in the Andean regions of Peru and Argentina. In addition, she has been published on the subjects of the origins of state-level society, feminist interpretations of prehistory, and the socio-politics of doing archaeology.

In her talk, Dr. Gero will discuss the formation of WAC, "a uniquely representative nonprofit organization of worldwide archaeology that recognizes the historical and social role and the political context of archaeology, and the need to make archaeological studies relevant to the wider community" (Gero 1999). The upcoming WAC session will, appropriately, highlight archaeology and war, among many other interesting topics.

This is the final regular meeting of the year. Sumner School, 7 p.m.

Tuesday,May 31: Party on the Potomac Cruise

The cruise will set sail Saturday evening, May 31, from 6:30-8:30 p.m., departing from the Alexandria City Marina, at Cameron and Union Streets. Cost is $15 per person, which includes wine, beer and light fare. Bring your favorite CDs if you'd like a musical cruise.

Boat maximum: 50 persons. To be certain of a place, RSVP by 5/24/03 to Ruth Cernea . After the sailing we'll head across the street to the Union Street Public House, 121 S. Union St. It's just across from the Torpedo Factory, near the marina. If you can't make it to the sailing, meet us for dinner and drinks at about 8:45.

This is the last event of the 2002-2003 WAPA calendar year and reservations are going fast. Don't miss out!