Associate Professor of Anthropology Susan Shaw has a new book titled Governing How We Care: Contesting Community and Defining Differences in U.S. Public Health Programs, which explores the ways in which non-traditional community health programs are responding to health-related struggles faced by marginalized groups. Read the UANews article here.

Congratulations to Ufuk Coşkun, Lori Labotka, and Gila Silverman, each of whom has been awarded a dissertation research grant by the Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Institute. SBSRI awarded 11 dissertation grants in all. Ufuk’s project is undergoing revisions, so no title or abstract is available right now. The titles of Lori and Gila’s dissertations appear below, with abstracts.
 
Lori Labotka, “So What’s Going On with Your Hair Right Now?” Negotiating Identity through Hair Care Practices in a Women’s Prison
 
Abstract: Although there has been a rapid increase in the number of women incarcerated in the United States over the past three decades, little is known about the daily experiences of women in prison. Incarcerated women face a heavily restrictive environment in which many aspects of daily life, including appearance, are institutionally regulated. Building on theoretical work on the role of beauty practices in the creation of gendered, racial, and ethnic identities, this project will explore the significance of hair care in an Arizona state women’s prison. Hairstyles and interactions relating to hairstyling are a primary means though which incarcerated women can create identity, display characteristics about themselves, and form social relationships. Utilizing ethnographic methods, including interviews, focus groups, and participant observation, I will explore women’s daily experiences of incarceration through attention to hair care rituals and discourse about hair. This will shed light on the everyday mechanisms through which women interact with the restrictive context of the prison and construct meaning for their position as inmates. Knowledge of incarcerated women’s daily experiences will expand theoretical understanding of the intersection of gender and punishment.
 
Gila Silverman, Praying for Healing among Liberal (Non-Orthodox) American Jews
 
Abstract: This project is one component of dissertation research exploring the intersections of religion, health, and healing in an American Jewish context. This component of the research focuses on the Jewish prayer for healing, the Mi Sheberach (literally, “the one who blessed”), which has become a central element of North American liberal (non-Orthodox) religious and ritual life. The growing centrality of these prayers for healing comes at a time when American Judaism has shifted away from congregational and communal life to a more personalized approach to Jewish beliefs, practices and identities, based on the desire for an individually-meaningful experience, rather than in belief in God or communal obligation. This research project uses ethnographic methods to explicate the metaphors, meanings, and experiences (physical, emotional and spiritual) generated through Jewish prayers for healing, including their impact on the everyday lives and identities of those reciting them and the communities in which they live. Previous studies of religion and health have been limited in their definitions of both healing and of religion, which emerged out of theoretical and epistemological assumptions based in both Protestantism and biomedical research. This project problematizes these theoretical concepts, using the lived experience of modern liberal Judaism to shed new light on the meaning of religious practice among a highly secular population, and on the multiple meanings of healing, when physical cure is neither expected nor requested.
 

Two out six SBSRI Small Faculty Grants recently awarded went to SoA faculty members Irene Bald Romano, Research Social Scientist, and Marcela Vasquez-Leon, Associate Professor in Anthropology and Associate Research Anthropologist, BARA. We’ll provide Dr. Vasquez-Leon’s title and abstract later; Dr. Romano’s appears below.
 
Title: Expressions of Power and Disgrace: Reconstructing Two Elusive Public Monuments in Roman Puteoli
 
Abstract: Two major public monuments of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD from the ancient town of Puteoli (modern Pozzuoli) on the Bay of Naples are testimony to the ways in which Power and Disgrace are expressed in Imperial Roman culture. One monument is preserved in a 1.62 m. high marble panel in the Penn Museum with an inscription honoring the emperor Domitian. The inscription was erased following his assassination in AD 96, as proscribed by damnatio memoriae. The panel was reused in the Trajanic period (ca. AD 102) and carved in relief on its other face with images of soldiers of the Praetorian Guard. It joins with a fragment in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, and there is another possible fragment in the Museo Archeologico dei Campi Flegrei in Baia—together forming a second monument at Puteoli. I have published the marble panel in the Penn Museum but have never had the opportunity to study the joining panel in Berlin. I propose to travel to Berlin to study the piece and to meet with the curator/director of the museum to discuss the possibility of a collaborative project involving marble analysis (using stable isotopes and EPR for identification of the marble source) and computerized reconstructions of these monuments.
 

It turns out that last week’s announcement of SoA Magellan Scholars was a bit premature and incomplete. Here’s the whole list, a total of 15 recipients for the School, complete with their Magellan Circle donors and a brief biography.
 
Ashley Beasley
Major: Anthropology
Patron: Tom Keating
 
An Arizona native, Ashley plans to work as a nautical archaeologist.
 
Amanda Bruno
Major: Anthropology and Religious Studies
Patrons: Vivi and Adib Sabbagh
 
During her freshman year, Amanda changed her major five times, finally settling on a double major in both Anthropology and Religious Studies, but with minors in Government and Public Policy, Linguistics, and Italian.
 
Ashlee Espensen
Major: Anthropology
Patron: Reenie Keating
 
Ashlee recently studied in Greece as part of the “Arizona in the Aegean” study abroad program. She is working toward a Ph.D. and is a captain of the color guard in the Pride of Arizona UA marching band.
 
Devyn Friedman
Major: Anthropology and Studio Art
Patrons: Beth and Mike Kasser
 
Devyn studied in Guatemala last year and had the opportunity to visit exotic archaeological sites as well as work with native women artists in the town of Comalapa.
 
Taylor Genovese
Major: Anthropology
Patron: The Loft Cinema
 
This past summer, Taylor was able to combine his two passions (anthropology and filmmaking) by helping film a three-part mini-series for Oxford University Press in Italy.
 
Iris Gishkin
Major: Anthropology
Patron: J.P. Jones
 
Iris completed archaeological fieldwork in 2011 in the ancient Hohokam dwellings of Tucson, and this past summer she worked on Pre-Incan occupation sites in Ecuador. She works at Manzo elementary as part of the School Garden Project, assisting children in grades K–4 to learn science and creativity through the garden-based lesson plans she developed.
 
Esther Gotlieb
Major: Anthropology
Patron: Gwen Weiner
 
Esther is an intern with United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona, where she is observing and participating in programs providing health and nutritional information to families and communities classified as “at risk” for obesity.
 
Leah Guillaume
Major: Anthropology, Art History, and Italian Studies
Patrons: Vivi and Adib Sabbagh
 
After graduation, Leah hopes to go to graduate school and earn a degree in art conservation and restoration. She also works in the Tree Ring Lab.
 
Rebecca Hynes
Major: Anthropology and Linguistics
Patrons: Dick and Mary Rose Duffield
 
Rebecca is a lab assistant in linguistics helping with phonological experiments in Scots-Gaelic, and she is also doing an independent study researching the Navajo education experience. This spring, Rebecca plans to attend University College, London where she will study pragmatics and semantics in that university’s Department of Linguistics.
 
Jillian LaCroix-Martin
Major: Anthropology
Patrons: Edythe and Bruce Gissing
 
Jillian is interested in evolutionary studies, primatology, and osteology. She studied abroad during the summer of 2012 in Costa Rica at the La Suerte Biological Field Conservatory. Jillian volunteers at Tu Nidito, which is a grief support group for children. She also plays violin and piano, and was a principal of the second violin section last year in the UA Philharmonic Orchestra.
 
Cesar Medina
Major: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Psychology
Patrons: Edythe and Bruce Gissing
 
Along with majors in psychology, philosophy, and anthropology, Cesar is pursuing research in the evolutionary psychology lab at the UA and plans to obtain his doctorate in cognitive neuroscience.
 
Ariana Nicolini
Major: Anthropology and Biomedical Engineering
Patrons: Earl and Louise Carroll
 
Ariana’s goal in becoming a biomedical engineer, with a background in biological anthropology, is to contribute to the development of medical technology to advance the health and quality of life of the world’s population. Currently Ariana works as a Cytology Lab technician at University Medical Center, works at UA Presents, and is a research assistant at UA Nutritional Sciences.
 
Andrew Richard
Major: Anthropology
Patron: Bonham Richardson
 
As a young boy, Andrew and his grandfather started studying about the Paleonidans. Now he plans to continue his path in archaeology by going to graduate school. For the time being he works as a lab technician and lithic analyst in the Borderlands Lab at the Arizona State Museum.

Kellan Smith
Major: Anthropology
Patrons: Ed and Keeley Wright

Ever since she can remember, Kellan has been interested in the experiences of displaced peoples. During her studies at the UA, she has become very interested in the plight of the Bhutanese refugees and for the last year and a half, she has volunteered as an English language instructor at an apartment complex with a large population of refugees from Bhutan. She also works as a student researcher in the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology, as an intern in the English language instruction program at the Iskashita Refugee Harvesting Network, and as the treasurer of the UA Undergrad Anthropology Club.

Kimberly Valdez
Major: Anthropology
Patron: Rosemont Copper

Kimberly found her passion for Egypt in the fourth grade, especially the mummification process. She also found her love for music and soon after learned to play the flute. Her greatest achievement to date was being chosen to participate in the Southern Arizona Social Science Symposium where she combined her passion for anthropology and music together and presented her original research titled “The Culture of Musicians: How Being a Musician Can Affect the Skeleton.” Her goals in life are to continue this research and to venture into Medical Anthropology or Forensics.