wASHINGTON ASSOCIATION OF PROFESSIONAL ANTHROPOLOGISTS

Profiles of Anthropological Praxis:  An International Casebook

Click here to view a recording of presentations by four award recipients featured in the casebook.

Thirty-five years ago, Praxis Award founder Bob Wulff and co-director Shirley Fiske edited a volume called Anthropological Praxis: Translating Knowledge into Action (1987, Westview Press), based on narrative descriptions from Praxis Award winners. WAPA is happy to announce that a sequel is now available.

Profiles of Anthropological Praxis: an International Casebook features chapters on all 22 Praxis Awards given over the past 10 years (2009-2019), including both winners and honorable mentions. Each chapter describes a problem and how a project attempted to address it with the following structure: Problem Overview, Project Description, Anthropologist’s Role, Outcomes, and the Anthropological Difference – that is, how the unique approaches of anthropology were effectively applied to address human problems.

The 22 projects described were carried out in a wide variety of settings in the United States, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, with scopes of work that ranged in dimension from small community efforts to national and multinational endeavors. The authors (including a few who will be quite familiar to WAPA members!) describe how they applied anthropological knowledge and methods, and most have included personal reflections and updated epilogues to bring their work into current focus. A table of contents is found below.

This book is very relevant to anthropology education in general, and it would be especially useful as a casebook for upper-division college classes and graduate seminars in applied anthropology, culture change, and medical anthropology, among others. Profiles of Anthropological Praxis should also be of value to professionals interested in understanding how recent anthropological projects are successfully designed, managed, and concluded. The chapters will also be relevant to social scientists and public policy professionals concerned with the planning, performance, and evaluation of social, economic, and health change initiatives in the United States and internationally.

Profiles was edited by past Praxis Award Chairs Terry Redding and Charlie Cheney. It is available as an e-book for $35 through the Berghahn Books website, and in hardcover for $135 plus shipping.

Profiles of Anthropological Praxis: An International Casebook

Edited by Terry M. Redding and Charles C. Cheney

326 pages, 13 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-80073-466-1 (hardcover)

Contents


Foreword: The Emergence of WAPA and Birth of Praxis

Shirley J. Fiske and Robert M. Wulff

Introduction

Terry M. Redding and Charles C. Cheney

Part I. Economic Development

Chapter 1. Emergency Food Security Recovery: An Afghanistan Case

Adam Koons

Chapter 2. Ecotourism in One Amazon Community: My Role as Anthropologist, Witness, Scribe, and Facilitator

Amanda Stronza

Chapter 3. Ethnic Minority Women-Led Routine Road Maintenance in Vietnam

Mari Clarke

Part II. Communities and the Environment

Chapter 4. Co-management of Natural Resources in Puerto Rico: Applied Anthropology, Public Access, and Environmental Public Policy

Federico CintrĂ³n-Moscoso

Chapter 5. Deal Island Peninsula Partnership: Applying Environmental Anthropology, Ethnography, and Collaborative Learning

Michael Paolisso, Elizabeth Van Dolah, Katherine J. Johnson, and Christine D. Miller Hesed

Chapter 6. Marcellus Shale Public Health Study

Thurka Sangaramoorthy

Part III. Cultural Preservation

Chapter 7. The Denver Museum of Nature & Science Repatriation Initiative

Stephen E. Nash and Chip Colwell

Chapter 8. Alan Boraas and Kahtnuht’ana Qenaga: Preserving and Renewing an Alaska Native Language

Kerry D. Feldman and Phyllis A. Fast

Chapter 9. San Diego’s Little Saigon: Using Anthropologically Informed Outreach to Create a New Public Space

Stephen Weidlich

Part IV. Health Promotion and Management

Chapter 10. Pastors at Risk: Toward an Improved Culture of Health for United Methodist Clergy in North Carolina

Cathleen E. Crain, Nathaniel Tashima, and Terry M. Redding

Chapter 11. Anthropology in an Epidemic: Ebola in West Africa

Olive Minor

Chapter 12. Caring Together, Living Better: Anthropologists’ Contributions to a Caregiver Support Program in the South Suburbs of Cook County, Illinois

Rebecca L. H. Berman and Madelyn Iris

Chapter 13. A Video Ethnographic Study: Raising Healthy Children in Poverty and Examples of Excellence in Addressing Childhood Wellness

Cathleen E. Crain, Nathaniel Tashima, Reiko Ishihara-Brito, and Erick Lee Cummings

Part V. Sociocultural Change and Adaptation

Chapter 14. Dug-Well Revival: An Ethnographic Project for Drinking Water in North Bihar, India

Luisa Cortesi

Chapter 15. A New Model for News: Studying the Deep Structure of Young-Adult News Consumption

Robbie Blinkoff

Chapter 16. Learning to Live with Difference: How CEDAR Takes Anthropology Out of the Classroom and Into the World

David W. Montgomery, Adam B. Seligman, and Rahel R. Wasserfall

Chapter 17. Birangona: Toward Ethical Testimonies of Sexual Violence during Conflict

Nayanika Mookherjee

Part VI. Policy Change

Chapter 18. Anthropology in Action: An Anthropologist’s Role in Restoring US Support to the United Nations Population Fund

Barbara Pillsbury

Chapter 19. Decent Care: Shifting the Healthcare Paradigm

Cathleen E. Crain and Nathaniel Tashima

Chapter 20. Persistent Undercounts of Race and Hispanic Minorities and Young Children in U.S. Censuses

Laurie Schwede

Chapter 21. Using the Concept of Social Well-Being: Developing and Implementing a Framework for UNICEF Planning and Evaluating Efforts to Achieve Rights and Development Goals for Children and Families

Mark Edberg

Conclusion

Terry M. Redding and Charles C. Cheney

Afterword

Riall W. Nolan

Index

Updated 28 January 2023

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