Category Archives: Announcements

Announcements

John Bock Memorial

I share the news of John Bock’s passing with great sadness. He served the discipline of anthropology with distinction. He earned his Masters and Doctoral degrees in the lauded Evolutionary Anthropology program at the University of New Mexico. After a post-doc, he took a position at California State University Fullerton in 2000 where he rapidly rose to the rank of Professor on the basis of his original work on children in Botswana. He took advantage of the unique demography where, within a fairly small region, there are foraging, fishing, pastoralist and farming communities. He looked at how these distinct ecologies affected the lives of children. One question among many that he pursued was the relationship between children’s play and subsequent work assignments. Although widely taken as gospel, Bock (partnered with his spouse, anthropologist Sara Johnson) was the first to show an explicit connection between play activity and skill development such as playing at pounding in a mortar with pestle and doing it in earnest to husk the grain.  Their findings from Botswana would fill many highly-cited articles.

I met John in 1999 in Santa Fe at the annual The Anthropological Study of Play meeting where he gave a paper entitled “Children’s work and play among the Okvango Delta peoples of Botswana.” After the session I buttonholed John to seek his collaboration and guidance. He did much to reduce my woeful ignorance of the role of evolution in shaping life history, especially childhood. and continued to field evolution questions from me with great care and consideration. Our principal joint work was co-editing (with Suzanne Gaskins) a comprehensive survey of learning in culture— The Anthropology of Learning in Childhood— published by AltaMira in 2010.

Much as he would have liked to return to Africa, John already at our initial meeting confessed to suffering from serious illness. Over a course of almost 25 years, John ‘s life was repeatedly threatened then saved by miracle treatments just out of the pharma lab. Despite these continual setbacks and the daily challenges, he remained devoted to his family Sara, Nea and Alex and to the university community.

Placebound, he reinvented himself as an institution builder and created substantial new programs in Evolutionary Anthropology, Environmental Studies, and the Center for Sustainability for which he was the director. For each of the programs, he developed numerous new courses and was known as an outstanding teacher and mentor.  These many accomplishments led the University to name John their Outstanding Professor in 2012.

John Bock’s passing leaves a void for me, individually and professionally, but his remarkable life should be an inspiration to us all.

David Lancy
July 17th, 2024

Announcements

Newest issue of NEOS: Building Blocks of Knowledge: Investigating Education, Learning and Knowing in Children and Youth

We are pleased to announce that the Spring 2024 Issue (Volume 16, Issue 1) of NEOS, edited by Manya Kagan and Chelsea Cutright, is here! You can check out this exciting issue, entitled “Building Blocks of Knowledge: Investigating Education, Learning and Knowing in Children and Youth,” here:

https://acyig.americananthro.org/neosvol16iss1spring24/

ACYIG Updates, 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

ACYIG Blog, Announcements

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…

Announcements, Job Postings

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.

Announcements, Job Postings

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.

ACYIG Updates, Announcements

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