Since the onset of the pandemic, classes at MSU have been primarily online to promote health and safety efforts. The shift from in-person to remote classes prompted significant reconfigurations of the fall and spring semesters’ courses to online formats. Throughout this transition, Dr. Adán Quan and Dr. Ethan Watrall have provided tremendous support in modifying classes as the Department of Anthropology’s resident experts in remote education. Their assistance has included creating an online teaching guide for instructors and holding group and individual sessions with faculty to help develop their courses, work through technical or tool-based issues, and address topics of engagement and online pedagogy.

Both professors are highly experienced in developing and teaching online courses. Dr. Quan created the Department’s first online course about fifteen years ago and has been involved in various campus-wide online education groups and initiatives. Dr. Watrall has directed the Department’s summer online course program since its inception in 2013, helping shape the Department’s online course strategy and model, coordinating the development of new online classes, and mentoring graduate student instructors.

Drs. Quan and Watrall are very proud of the immense effort the Anthropology faculty have put in to master the fundamentals of effective online teaching. In converting in-person courses to online formats, the faculty gave great consideration to adapting their courses and teaching with this new, and possibly unfamiliar, medium. The faculty embraced the innovative opportunities that online teaching provides and the idea that in-person classes cannot simply be copied onto an online platform. At the core of this work has been a sincere concern for the students’ experience and wellbeing during these exceedingly difficult times.

The pedagogy of online teaching in the Department varies according to what is appropriate for each course. While synchronous teaching continues, many faculty have successfully created courses that can be delivered asynchronously. Dr. Watrall notes that one of the benefits asynchronous courses offer is providing an environment in which students can balance the stresses of the current situation and the obligations of completing coursework. Additionally, asynchronous content can jump-start future classes or be used in other contexts.

Fostering engagement and a sense of community are key components in all forms of education but can be elusive in an online classroom environment. To build this interaction in remote classes, Dr. Quan encourages instructors to create a “social presence” with online tools, like videos of themselves talking so that students can see them as a human being. Equally important is creating opportunities for students to establish their own social presence in the online class, including through regular discussion forums and activities. Providing a space for online exchanges and critical discussion is essential for all remote classes and certainly for anthropology courses, which cover complex and multifaceted topics such as race and ethnicity.

With the transition to remote classes came several challenges. One strain has been the vast amount of work required to build and deliver a polished and engaging class, as well as the readiness to adapt as plans change in response to the pandemic. The predominance of remote schooling has also created personal and professional challenges for both students and instructors. Efforts to mitigate these issues have included streamlining courses, being flexible with class responsibilities without compromising academic standards, and continuing to be supportive and empathetic in communications with students. The Department has navigated this significant shift with great competency and thoughtfulness, and we thank Drs. Quan and Watrall for their guidance.

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Associate Professor, and previous longtime Chair of the Department, Jodie O’Gorman has co-directed the Morton Village Archaeological Project for the past twelve years. Dr. O’Gorman’s research focuses on post-migration cultural interactions and the question of violence and cooperation in the pre-Columbian mid-continent of North America. Dr. O’Gorman became interested in late prehistoric villages of the upper Midwest region in 1987, when she worked on a large longhouse community identified as “Oneota” by archaeologists. Her dissertation focused on gender, domestic economics and social complexities as seen through the longhouses and associated burials at that site. Her interest in Oneota and curiosity about the settlement of one such group at a site in the Illinois River Valley, in an area already rife with conflict and occupied by a Mississippian group—a group Oneota avoided in other areas—led her to the current project. Dr. O’Gorman’s inquiry links to broader questions regarding post-migration adaptations, violence, and social negotiation.

To better understand community life in the late pre-Columbian Central Illinois River Valley, Dr. O’Gorman helped initiate the Morton Village Archaeological Project in 2008 with co-director Dr. Michael Conner of the Dickson Mounds Museum, Illinois State Museum System. This project investigates the social context of the Norris Farms #36 cemetery, which is one of the most well-documented cases of violence and low-level, intermittent warfare among Native American groups. At least a third of the men and women interred within the cemetery suffered violent deaths, and children were not immune from such fates. Additionally, symbolism from the Mississippian group was incorporated into the Oneota mortuary practices. This cemetery, therefore, raised many questions about life in the associated habitation site of Morton Village.

Through excavations at Morton Village, Dr. O’Gorman and her research team have been piecing together an interpretation that reveals cultural negotiation and resiliency. Dr. O’Gorman hopes her work will contribute to discussions within archaeology on cultural interactions, multi-cultural society, and migration in the North American mid-continent before European incursion. She also hopes future research on violence and warfare will include more holistic considerations of the roles of women and children, as well as adult males, in our interpretations of the past.

Dr. O’Gorman is proud of the impact her research project has had on students. With the help of graduate students, Dr. O’Gorman and Dr. Conner have co-directed seven undergraduate field schools at the site and several summers of field work. Many graduate students have conducted doctoral research with material from the project and numerous undergraduates continued to work in the lab after their field schools, several pursuing formal research projects.

Dr. O’Gorman and her research team have presented nearly 50 papers or posters at regional and national conferences and public venues. Public outreach activities with the Dickson Mounds Museum and the Illinois Nature Conservancy have been a central component throughout the project. Recently, Dr. O’Gorman helped the Nature Conservancy at Emiquon develop a virtual tour of the site and has been invited to speak at their upcoming symposium. Dr. O’Gorman has also co-authored many articles in journals such as World Archaeology and the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

Currently, Dr. O’Gorman is working with Dr. Conner on examining the development of multicultural societies and the consequences of migration based on their findings at Morton Village. Their next project will be a detailed site report from a decade of fieldwork. After this, Dr. O’Gorman looks forward to a book project that will examine various aspects of the Oneota tradition and linkages to contemporary Native American Tribes.

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Over the past six years, Assistant Professor Lucero Radonic has conducted ethnographic research on the strategies used by cities and urban residents to adapt to climate change and make a home where drought and extreme heat events have become protracted conditions. Dr. Radonic’s research has specifically focused on people’s intimate relationship to water by examining water management policies and practices in Tucson, Arizona. In collaboration with the city, Dr. Radonic has worked on analyzing some of their water conservation programs and identifying ways to improve them.

One of these water conservation programs promotes the use of rainwater harvesting, which is a simple and ancient technology that is making a comeback. As an anthropologist, Dr. Radonic sees how this most minimal of infrastructure offers a lens through which to study how people relate to each other and to a changing urban environment. Some of the questions her research explores include: How do people conceptualize and use rainwater in their everyday lives and home space? What motivates people to collect rainwater? How do people relate to different sources of water and make decisions accordingly? What are the barriers for implementing rainwater collection and other water conservation measures?

This research has definitively shown that individual motivations for adopting rainwater harvesting need to be studied, and not assumed. Dr. Radonic and her research team learned that peoples’ motivations for adopting rainwater harvesting vary, as they are informed by people’s cultural background and did not follow a standard economic model. People were not primarily motivated by the idea of financial water savings, even when that is how the program was originally promoted by water managers. Understanding what drives different sectors of the population to adopt this technology helps design a program that meets the needs of users and can contribute to equity in implementation. Dr. Radonic’s research emphasizes that what appropriate support looks like for such programs will vary for different sectors of the population. Therefore, a single approach is unlikely to be effective.

These findings offer important considerations for environmental justice issues. The literature shows that incentive programs, such as the one studied by Dr. Radonic, disproportionally benefit middle to upper income residents and residents who have the cultural skills and competencies to interact with government bureaucracies. By understanding different motivations and tailoring programs accordingly, Dr. Radonic’s research contributes to social justice in the distribution of environmental amenities that could increase quality of life in the city. The results of this project offer immediate impacts in informing the redesign of these programs and shaping outreach and educational materials to improve their reach and efficiency.

With the intent to make her work accessible and relevant to anthropologists and interdisciplinary scholars working on resource governance, Dr. Radonic has published on her research in Human Organization, Economic Anthropology, and Water Alternatives. Dr. Radonic has also presented at the American Anthropology Association, the Society for Applied Anthropology, the International Association for the Study of the Commons and Tucson’s Citizen Advisory Board.

Dr. Radonic’s inspiration for this project stems from a book—“Water is for fighting over: And other myths about water in the West” by John Fleck—which made her think about the importance of applying ethnographic methods to explore cooperative behavior and institutions in water governance. The efforts around water conservation fit this mold and she developed this ethnographic project, eventually being contacted by the city to work with them. As her work progresses, Dr. Radonic finds it very exciting, and satisfying, to see anthropology in dialogue with public policy.

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In the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory, graduate and undergraduate students learn how to read the lives—and deaths—of individuals and groups from the past. The laboratory was established in 2012 by Associate Professor Gabriel Wrobel, who has conducted numerous excavations and research projects on ancient Maya sites in Belize.

As a bioarchaeologist, Dr. Wrobel focuses on the analysis and interpretation of skeletal remains from archaeological contexts. One of his primary research interests involves analyzing how Maya communities used cave and rock shelters for ceremonial and burial purposes, some sites reaching back 2,000 years. He also examines how changes in the rituals performed over time reflect broad sociopolitical transitions that occurred in the Maya region.

In Dr. Wrobel’s lab, students learn how bones and teeth can provide insight into where individuals came from, genetic relations between groups, what individuals ate, how they altered their bodies for cultural or religious reasons, diseases and traumas they experienced, and how they died. Undergraduate students who want foundational lab skills learn how to care for and maintain skeletal collections and work with data bases. Those with more experience typically undertake independent research projects, often publishing papers or presenting their research at conferences.

Research is a constant and dynamic part of the MSU Bioarchaeology Laboratory experience. Dr. Wrobel and his students often focus on documenting morphological variability that can be directly observed on the bones. For instance, some skeletal variants in the lab have an underlying genetic cause that makes possible determining relatedness between individuals and groups. Other projects focus on observable markers of pathology, such metabolic diseases like scurvy that leave their mark on bones. One major endeavor in the lab has been using digital 3D modeling to study and document bones, particularly skulls. These models create permanent digital records of the remains, helping both Dr. Wrobel’s lab and other researchers across the world for years to come.

Dr. Wrobel’s collaborations with other MSU researchers allow him and his students to look deeper into bones and teeth using medical imaging techniques. For example, Ayla Schwartz, an undergraduate working in the Bioarchaeology Lab with Dr. Wrobel, is studying Harris lines seen in the ends of long bones with computed tomography (CT). These lines of increased bone density, visible only in CTs and X-rays, show when growth paused due to juvenile malnutrition, disease, or trauma. Dr. Wrobel and his students also collaborate with researchers beyond MSU who use isotope analysis to reconstruct diet and geographic origin.

Since 2005, Dr. Wrobel has directed a field project in central Belize, which includes an Education Abroad field school program providing undergraduate students firsthand excavation and research training. The school’s focus is shifting from its original inland location to the coast of Belize, where Dr. Wrobel co-directs a research project with a colleague from University College London. The program, already underway, excavates a Maya site known as Marco Gonzalez on the island of Ambergris Caye. The site was a trading post connecting coastal and inland communities in Belize, Mexico and the Caribbean. This port managed to weather the 9th century Collapse, when large areas of the Maya region went through a cataclysmic depopulation and most large cities in Belize and Guatemala were rapidly abandoned. In addition to exploring the extent of trading activities, research will focus on the community’s resilience, using data from excavations and skeletal remains.

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Congratulations to the winners of our 2020 Anthropology Fieldwork Photography Contest. Thank you to everyone who entered photos and to our judges from across the department. The photos were truly amazing and are a stunning reflection of the fieldwork in this department.

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This spring, PhD student Micayla Spiros received the inaugural College of Social Science Graduate Student Research Award. This award is presented to one graduate student from the entire College of Social Science who initiates and conducts original research and demonstrates a clear potential for continued research excellence. Spiros is a graduate student in the MSU Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (MSUFAL) who studies how variation in the human skeleton can aid in the identification of unknown remains.

Spiros’s research focuses on macromorphoscopic (MMS) variation in the postcranial skeleton, which involves examining the expression of human variation in the skeleton below the skull. Spiros became interested in this research topic after identifying a gap in biological anthropology, in which researchers primarily focused on the cranium for estimating an individual’s ancestry from the skeleton. Since recognizing this disparity, Spiros has worked towards standardizing the collection protocol of postcranial variations and assessing their utility in estimating the biological profile. Spiros has presented her research at the American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference and published articles in Forensic Anthropology and Journal of Forensic Sciences. Spiros is now addressing the current lack of understanding behind variation in the postcranial skeleton, and the absence of postcranial data in juvenile individuals.

While MMS variations are assumed to be associated with genetic variation, the effects of ontogeny and non-biological influences have yet to be fully explored. For her dissertation research, Spiros is exploring the growth and development of postcranial variation by collecting data on individuals from diverse age, population, and socioeconomic cohorts. Using a biocultural approach, Spiros is investigating the theoretical foundations of these variations while considering developmental theory, ecogeographic history, plasticity, and human adaptability.

By better understanding the underlying factors of postcranial MMS variation, Spiros hopes that this will be useful in forensic casework involving identification of juveniles and adults and in bioarchaeological research. Spiros plans to expand her postcranial MMS database beyond the U.S. to a global scale representing worldwide variation. Through her research, Spiros is contributing to the exploration of biocultural impacts on skeletal biology and variation.

Spiros’s experiences at MSU have strengthened her expertise and skills in forensic anthropology and research. As a graduate student of the MSUFAL, Spiros regularly engages in forensic casework involving identification, trauma analysis, and recovery of human remains. Spiros has also taught the osteology lab section for the Osteology and Forensic Anthropology course, which bolstered her passion for education both within academia and the public. Spiros is grateful for the guidance from her adviser, Dr. Joseph Hefner, in encouraging her development as a researcher and instilling the importance of equity and respect in a working environment. Spiros also appreciates the continued support from one of her mentors since her Master’s program, Dr. Sherry Nakhaeizadeh, who constantly drives her to push the boundaries of science; and Dr. Jennifer Love, Forensic Anthropologist at the D.C. Office of the Medical Examiner’s Office, with whom Spiros has interned, who served as a clear example of the mutual respect between medical examiners and forensic anthropologists.

In addition to her postcranial MMS variation research, Spiros is working with Drs. Sherry Nakhaeizadeh, Tim Thompson, Ruth Morgan, and Joseph Hefner on “eye tracking” research. This work examines how practitioners visually perform osteological methods to investigate decision-making strategies of a protocol when analyzing skeletal remains. The findings from this research are important for explaining the intricacies of human variation to new students and for improving protocols in the field.

After earning her PhD, Spiros hopes to work in a medical examiner’s office aiding in forensic casework while continuing skeletal biology research.

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Associate Professor Chantal Tetreault has won a coveted Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program Award. Dr. Tetreault specializes in linguistic and cultural anthropology and her recent work has primarily focused on issues of migration and social change in France. More generally, her research illuminates how cultural processes of identity construction are achieved through everyday language use. Dr. Tetreault’s award will support her research project, “What is Arabic Good For? Future Directions and Current Challenges of Arabic Language Educational Reform in France.”

Currently, only 0.2% of all middle and high school students who take a second language in France have access to Arabic, despite it being the second most widely spoken language. In her research, Dr. Tetreault will analyze the ways that Arabic is taught and not taught in France through investigating the types of discourses, institutional gatekeepers, and practitioners influencing the inclusion of Arabic in the French education system. Dr. Tetreault will explore the perspectives of politicians, educational administrators, scholars, teachers, and students to gain insight into the ways these differently positioned individuals interpret the value of Arabic relative to the evolving issues of culture, politics, and education in France.

The educational landscape of Arabic language instruction in France is complex, with ties to a colonial past and a post-colonial present. These relationships continue to play out in terms of France’s immense role in economic, political, and cultural affairs in the Maghreb and the Middle East. However, despite clear geo-political stakes in the Middle East and North Africa and the Arabic language, France has repeatedly failed to make Arabic a national educational priority unlike other European Union countries. Dr. Tetreault’s research will contextualize the French cultural impasse on Arabic language educational reform in terms of the rise of right-wing Islamophobic political discourses. The importance of these public conversations and failed educational reforms goes beyond the scope of language instruction to entail changing understandings of French identity in the context of immigration, globalization, and post-coloniality.

With this award, Dr. Tetreault will travel to France and conduct her research next spring over the course of six months, collaborating with colleagues at the National Institute of Eastern Languages and Civilizations (INALCO). Dr. Tetreault’s analysis of the national debates surrounding Arabic language educational reform in France will be disseminated through a series of articles and a book. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program encourages academic and professional experts across disciplines in their international research and/or teaching endeavors. This program selects individuals through a competitive process to help them achieve their ambitious goals. Fulbright prides itself on being the “most widely recognized and prestigious international exchange program in the world.”

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Dr. Mara Leichtman has been awarded a prestigious fellowship of the Luce/American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Program in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs. Dr. Leichtman is an Associate Professor of Anthropology affiliated with the Muslim Studies Program, African Studies Center, and Asian Studies Center. Her research interests focus on the interconnections among religion, migration, politics, and economic development through examining Muslim institutions and the communities they serve.

Luce/ACLS Fellowships support scholars in the humanities and social sciences pursuing research on any aspect of religion in international contexts with a desire to convey their specialist knowledge to the media. The Luce/ACLS Fellowships culminate in producing a significant piece of scholarly work and communicating these perspectives to public audiences through collaboration with journalists. Dr. Leichtman’s fellowship will support her book project, “Humanitarian Islam: Transnational Religion and Kuwaiti Development Projects in Africa.”

Arab Gulf states are surpassing Western development agencies in providing assistance to African countries. Dr. Leichtman’s research will analyze individual, civil society, and state giving in Kuwait through Islamic ethical frameworks as motivations for charity. Case studies of transregional connections with Senegal and Tanzania assess the cultural and religious impact of Gulf funding in Africa while complicating the “giver/receiver” binary. Through exploring Sunni and Shi‘i organizations in Africa, Dr. Leichtman’s project will unpack the politics of Kuwaiti giving by situating the aid apparatus within national, international, historical and contemporary contexts. Media coverage has depicted Africa as another sphere for the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry in disseminating Sunni-Shi‘i sectarianism. Based on this research, public writing for media and policy outlets will demonstrate that Iran is not the only Shi‘i player in Africa and that Africans are not simply pawns in Gulf power politics.

Dr. Leichtman is among only six other scholars from across the country to be awarded a fellowship this year. In addition to receiving $63,000 to implement their projects, each fellow will participate in a media training workshop and an annual symposium that brings the scholars into dialogue with renowned journalists to discuss key issues in religion and international affairs. This collaboration will serve to disseminate more nuanced, contextualized, and dynamic understandings of religion in global public life, politics, and policy. The Luce/ACLS Program in Religion, Journalism & International Affairs is made possible by the generous support of the Henry Luce Foundation.

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Dr. Gabriel Sanchez has been awarded a National Geographic Early Career Grant in support of his collaborative and eco-archaeological research with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band. Their project, “Archaeology as Conservation Science: Investigating the Historical Range of California’s Endangered Coho Salmon” employs archaeological data to inform contemporary salmon management by identifying the native range of salmon species and their presence in specific coastal streams. Dr. Sanchez joined the Department as a College of Social Science Dean’s Research Associate and specializes in Indigenous and environmental archaeology. Working through the lens of historical ecology, he studies ancient fisheries along the Pacific Coast of North America and how data from archaeological sites can inform contemporary resource management and conservation.

The National Geographic Society funds “bold, innovative, and transformative projects” through a highly competitive grant program, with a particular focus on projects aligned with conservation, research, education, technology, or storytelling. The National Geographic Early Career Grant is a one-year funding award, which offers an exceptional opportunity for early career scholars to join an international community of National Geographic Society Explorers.

Dr. Sanchez’s collaborative eco-archaeological project employs archaeological datasets and molecular archaeology methods, such as collagen peptide mass fingerprinting and ancient DNA analysis, to define which salmon species were historically present in California streams over the last ~7,000 years. This research is pertinent for the endangered Coho salmon as their historical biogeography is debated; researchers argue that Coho salmon are not native south of the San Francisco Bay, while others suggest Coho are native as far south as Santa Cruz County. The field of archaeology is uniquely situated to inform the debate of salmon biogeography given the preservation of animal remains in archaeological sites and the broad use of resources by Native Californians, which provides a wealth of baseline environmental information prior to the arrival of Euro-Americans and subsequent landscape-level transformations.

The research is especially relevant for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, who, through their established non-profit Amah Mutsun Land Trust, are stewarding their traditional terrestrial and aquatic territories. Salmon is a culturally significant species, and the research will support their efforts to mitigate the potential extinction of salmon within their territories and California broadly. As part of the project, members of the Amah Mutsun Native Stewardship Corps will participate in all aspects of the fieldwork.

The research project will define which salmon were native to coastal streams and illuminate their genetic diversity as a means of helping tribal and state resource managers prioritize salmon restoration, stream protection and restoration, water allocation, and also inform land-use practices. At this time, samples have been submitted for collagen peptide mass fingerprinting and ancient DNA analysis but are delayed due to laboratory closures resulting from Covid-19.

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Associate Professor Heather Howard has been awarded a distinguished Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship. The Whiting Public Engagement Program is a national grant that advances scholarly work applying the humanities in ways that benefit communities. The program’s fellowships recognize faculty whose work interacts with the public and brings together discussion on topics of significance. Dr. Howard’s work focuses on collaborative, community-based, and participatory approaches to research which promote the value of Indigenous knowledge frameworks to scholarship.

Dr. Howard is one of only six Fellows awarded across the country this year. The fellowship, in the form of $50,000, will support Dr. Howard’s project titled “Waganakising Quillwork: A Portal to Share Indigenous Knowledge.” With this fellowship, Dr. Howard will engage in a collaborative project with Waganakising Odawak (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians) to build a digital portal for Waganakising heritage.

The Waganakising Odawak are leaders in encouraging positive relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people while preserving their culture and advancing their self-sufficiency. This portal, and the process of its creation, will initially focus on porcupine quillwork traditions and align with Waganakising initiatives supporting historical and traditional arts knowledge while cultivating intercultural respect and understanding. As a Tribal-governed platform, the portal will be curated by Indigenous historians, makers, and other knowledge-holders of the Waganakising Odawak in Michigan.

Waganakising porcupine quillwork is a beautiful decorative art but is also a significant and profound cultural practice representing Waganakising history, Tribal sovereignty, and environmental responsibility. This art embodies the respectful relationships between the human and non-human world which are interwoven in Waganakising oral traditions and storytelling.

These dimensions of the art are brought to the foreground by porcupine quillwork master and teacher Elder Yvonne Walker Keshick, who is known not only for her artistry, but also her way of relating that work to responsible gathering and protecting resources, Tribal rights, and the history of regional trade and political negotiations. Quillwork and Waganakising artists like Yvonne Walker Keshick therefore play a central role in perpetuating cultural knowledge and educating non-Indigenous neighbors about respect for Tribal ways of life.

To create this interactive tool, Waganakising historians and knowledge-holders will lead community events with Tribal members to identify heritage objects for including in the portal and to discuss the portal’s design. The project will begin by drawing on materials that are already digitized by the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC) with further technical support from the MSU Digital Heritage Imaging and Innovation Lab. The Waganakising portal will be a gateway to cultural heritage items and discussions by digitally drawing together materials held across the country and internationally into a centralized, Indigenous community managed platform.

Images:

Right—A quill box featuring otters made by Yvonne Walker Keshick using all natural quills. Image courtesy of MSU Museum collections, ID 2017:24.108. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong.

Lower left—Yvonne Walker Keshick with her granddaughter teaching quillwork on birch bark at the Great Lakes Folk Festival, East Lansing, August 8, 2015. Photo by Pearl Yee Wong.

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