Suchergebnisse

AbstractStudents' education in applied anthropology can occur through a variety of sources including classroom instruction, hands‐on experience and professional mentorship. Anthropology programs, and especially those with an applied focus, can help facilitate these types of experiences. This article details one such attempt: the creation and implementation of a local conference. The Texas Applied Anthropology Summit (TAAS) was first developed in 2016. The purpose of this and subsequent TAAS events was to bring together anthropological practitioners, faculty and students in an effort to build and strengthen relationships around applied anthropology in Texas. Based on data collected from past TAAS events and additional outreach with anthropologist practitioners it was determined that while key differences in practitioner and student/faculty interests exist, TAAS serves as an important networking tool for all attendees. This article also details what is needed, including programmatic support, to organize and implement a local conference.

AbstractThis special issue presents accounts of different aspects of the CommuniVax Coalition and its work—a project that conducted rapid, multisited, applied anthropological research to deliver guidance during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Our purpose in writing these articles is to provide details of our work so anthropologists interested in similar types of research can learn from our efforts. While anthropological research has been, and largely still is, an endeavor of individuals at a relatively slow pace, the future of the discipline, and especially of anthropologists working outside traditional academia, is team‐based, rapid research. As such, anthropologists need to know how to conduct research at speed, participate as members of research teams and, more importantly, how to organize and lead teams to conduct timely, collaborative, focused, and practical research.

AbstractIn this article, we highlight a partnership between CommuniVax and a human‐centered design firm (Bridgeable) that resulted in CommuniVaxCHAT—an online toolkit capable of engaging community members and translating their experiences and local knowledge in a way that decision‐makers, including mayors and public health directors, can act upon. In addition to considering the process involved in creating CommuniVaxCHAT, and its associate practicalities, we examine how human‐centered design, and more particularly personas and journeys, can act as boundary objects to facilitate engagement between groups and create interventions or policy. In this way, we argue that HCD can be used similarly to PhotoVoice as a tool to introduce ethnographic insights into applied and participatory contexts.

Purpose
Meals on Wheel Central Texas (MOWCTX) provides meals to more than 5,000 home-bound older adults in the Austin area every weekday. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of client-volunteer interactions to assess the social benefits clients receive and ascertain if and how loneliness and social isolation are addressed.


Design/methodology/approach
Observations of volunteer-client interactions, interviews with clients and surveys of clients were conducted to gain insight into clients' experiences with MOWCTX services.


Findings
Qualitative analysis of observation and interview data revealed four non-tangible benefits clients received from MOWCTX: reduced physical risks when mobility issues are present, a daily safety check, opportunities for social contact and increased ability to maintain independence. Survey results supported these conclusions.


Originality/value
This research examines the impact of volunteer-client relationships on the experience of loneliness and social isolation.

AbstractIn this article we consider applied anthropology as it exists at the program level. While individual faculty can promote applied training, sustainability in applied education is only possible when entire faculties—and the college and university administrations that provide the necessary financial, structural, and social support—are committed to this approach. While many options for program development exist, we argue that being aware of what other programs are doing, and what is and is not working for them, is both time‐saving and transformative. This article provides overviews of common applied anthropology training approaches, discusses the importance of support for applied programs, and introduces the rest of the articles in this series, which focus more specifically on particular approaches, programs, and training needs.