Category Archives: Announcements

Announcing ACYIG’s Inaugural book prize winner…

The Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) is delighted to announce our inaugural prize for best new book representing the anthropology of childhood or youth goes to… Camilla Morelli, for her book Children of the Rainforest: Shaping the Future in Amazonia (Rutgers 2023).

Morelli’s remarkable ethnography traces how Indigenous Matses children are actively driving cultural change in their communities in a globalising world, addressing old questions about children’s agentive roles in generational cultural shifts and suggesting provocative new questions about what anthropology may have been overlooking about the cultural and global significance of children’s imaginings, affective attachments, and aspirations. The prize committee agreed that Morelli’s monograph exemplified the criteria of originality, relevance to the anthropology of childhood and/or youth, potential for significant impact on the field, and readability. In addition, Morelli’s book is rich with ethnographic detail, children’s drawings and photographs, making this an engaging and accessible text for a wide readership. Morelli’s clear and compelling storytelling makes it appear as though ethnographic research with children in a remote forest setting is easy. To so effectively trace the processes of cultural change from local to global levels from children’s perspectives takes an ethnographer of impressive skill and demands tremendous emotional and physical labour. Congratulations, Camilla on your achievement.

Link to Morelli’s book

Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Funk et al. on how sweet potatoes can replace teddy bears in child development

We are a team of six authors from Germany, the US, and India with backgrounds in socio-cultural anthropology and cultural psychology. Our book explores multifaceted linkages between culturally specific feeding practices and human bonding based on ethnographic case studies from Morocco, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Costa Rica.

 

 

 

 

 

A comparative analysis of our ethnographic research demonstrates that there are many culturally valued ways of feeding children, contradicting the idea of a single, universally best feeding standard. We show that in many parts of the world feeding plays a central role in human bonding and relationship formation, something largely overlooked by attachment theory and related approaches. Our analysis further demonstrates that feeding contributes to relationship formation through different socio-emotional dimensions, which we label proximal, transactional, and distal. Each of these relates to a specific aspect of the feeding relationship (e.g., physical intimacy, food as a life-sustaining gift, conviviality) and is experienced by qualitatively distinct emotions. Finally, we argue that feeding practices can lead to different forms of relationships. Through feeding and eating together, caregivers express core values about how different generations should relate to each other. In our research sites, intergenerational feeding relationships are either hierarchically organized, or characterized by a mix of egalitarian and hierarchical orientations.

Read more…

Two PhD positions in social anthropology/anthropology of childhood

Applications are invited for two PhD positions at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich. The positions are part of the SNSF Starting Grant “Saving Brains? Applying Ethnography to Early Childhood Interventions in the Global South.” The first position entails research in an East African setting, the second in a Latin American setting.

https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/phd-position-in-social-anthropology-regional-focus-east-africa/b556de46-1fe1-4243-a2a1-6fa91dc8f9f5

https://jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stellen/phd-position-in-social-anthropology-regional-focus-latin-america/616a4822-bbbb-42b2-af68-442dcf1bc20e

Please apply if you are interested in one of these regions, childhood studies, international development, global health, and in doing ethnographic research.

Job posting: Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Childhood and Critical Disability Studies

The Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University—Camden, New Jersey, invites applications for an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Childhood and Critical Disability Studies expected to commence on September 1, 2024. To view the complete position description, including minimum qualifications required, and to apply, please visit https://jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/212911

The Department of Childhood Studies seeks an outstanding scholar whose research and teaching interests address topics and practices regarding childhood and disability with a focus on intersecting systems of oppression in either domestic and/or global contexts. We are particularly keen on receiving applications from those who center racial justice in their scholarship and teaching. We value research quality, the demonstrated appreciation for multidisciplinary approaches to the study of childhood and disabilities, and an eagerness to continue the department’s mission of expanding childhood studies at the BA, MA and PhD levels.

Applicants must have earned their Ph.D. in Disability Studies, Education, Childhood Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, African-American Studies, Gender Studies, Latinx Studies, Media Studies, or a related field, and have a demonstrated promise of research and teaching excellence. The duties of a tenure-track assistant professor include engaging in an active research program, teaching two courses per semester (four courses per academic year) in the area of Childhood Studies, supervising MA and Ph.D. students, contributing to our innovative graduate program, and generally participating fully in the life of the department.

Rutgers University and the Department of Childhood Studies is committed to fostering diversity within its community. We welcome applications from those who would contribute to the further diversification of our program including, but not limited to: Black, Indigenous and people of color, persons with disabilities and persons of any sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression.

Established in 2007 as the first doctoral program in childhood studies in the USA, the department graduated its first Ph.D. students in May 2013.  Childhood Studies offers a robust, multidisciplinary curriculum for BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees.

Candidates may learn about the campus and the Department of Childhood Studies at http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu and by contacting Dr. Susan Miller, department chair.

Applications must include: a cover letter indicating the ways in which the applicant’s research adds to the department’s strengths and focusing on how their teaching and research may enhance a multidisciplinary program, a current CV, a personal statement that speaks to the academic, professional, and/or institutional work the candidate has undertaken to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, an example of published scholarship or a substantive writing sample, and have at least 3 letters of reference uploaded to the application portal. Applications received by December 1, 2023 will receive the fullest consideration.

2023 ACYIG Book Prize Call for Nominations

The Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) is pleased to announce our inaugural Book Prize competition. The ACYIG Book Prize Committee will award $300.00 to an anthropologically-focused book published in 2022-2023 that is cutting-edge, well-written, and contributes significantly to our understanding of children and youth.

Those nominated (self-nominations accepted) must be members of ACYIG. Nominations should be accompanied by four copies of the book, and a letter from the nominator (no longer than 500 words) addressing the book in terms of: (1) originality; (2) relevance to the anthropology of childhood and/or youth; (3) potential for significant impact on the field. No edited volumes or textbooks will be considered.

The awardee will be chosen in Fall 2023, and the Book Prize Committee review of the winning volume will be included in the Spring 2024 edition of NEOS, the flagship publication of ACYIG.

Nomination Letter Deadline: Monday, September 25, 2023

Committee confirmation email will be sent by: Monday October 9, 2023

Books must be sent to Prize Committee by: Monday, October 16, 2023

  • Please send nomination letter by email to

Ida Fadzillah Leggett, AYCIG Book Committee Chair

Ida.Leggett@mtsu.edu         

  • Within the nomination confirmation email, nominators will receive instructions on where to send four copies of the book.
  • The ACYIG Book Prize winner will be announced in Fall 2023.

Questions? Please email Ida Fadzillah Leggett at Ida.Leggett@mtsu.edu

Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Kathrine van den Bogert shares about Girls Who Kick Back; her new ethnography on street soccer, gender and Muslim youth in the Netherlands

The ACYIG is delighted to present our latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Kathrine van den Bogert’s Street Football, Gender and Muslim Youth in the Netherlands: Girls Who Kick Back.

Image showing teenage girls of varying ethnic background, some wearing hijabs, playing soccer
Image credit: Shutterstock

Spotlight on Scholarship

Find out how to submit your work to the Spotlight on Scholarship

Spotlight on Scholarship – A New ACYIG Feature

We are excited to announce a new feature at ACYIG – Spotlight on Scholarship!

If you or someone you know has published in the anthropology of children and youth, please consider submitting that article for the Spotlight on Research feature. This feature will not only provide scholars an opportunity to share their research but also help ACYIG bring attention to the work being published in regard to childhood and adolescence.

Our first author is José Enrique Hasemann Lara. His article, “Care in Ruination: Accessing Children’s Critiques of Health Through Playwriting,” explores what writing plays with children can tell us about their perspective on their worlds.

Dr. Lara holds a Ph.D. in anthropology (UCONN, 2021) and an M.A. in applied biocultural medical anthropology (USF, 2011), and M.P.H. in global communicable diseases (USF, 2011). His past research has focused on public health, inequality, racialization, and the unequal distribution of access to public goods in the urban landscapes of Tegucigalpa and Comayagüela, Honduras.

Please visit the Spotlight on Scholarship page to find out more! If you are interested in sharing your work, please visit our author guidelines page and submit your work today.