NSF:
Training Initiatives in
Research Design & Methods
2010

With this note we would like to bring to your attention to four training initiatives in research design and methods for 2010. The Cultural Anthropology Program at NSF funds these initiatives, which are for Ph.D. students and holders of the Ph.D. in cultural anthropology.

Field Methods in Bolivia (for Ph.D. students). Now in its seventh year, this training program takes place among the Tsimane’, a native Amazonian society of farmers and foragers in Bolivia and is directed by R. Godoy (Brandeis). Training focuses on methods to collect ecological, demographic, economic, cognitive, anthropometric, and health data. The training builds on and is informed by a panel study in progress since 1999, and lasts five weeks. Tentative instructors include V. Reyes-García (Brandeis and Barcelona), L. Gravlee (Florida), O. Heffetz (Cornell), C. Morsello (Sao Paulo), W. Leonard (Northwestern), S. Tanner (Georgia).
Dates: June 13-July 18.

Research Design (for Ph.D. students). Now in its 15th year, the Summer Institute for Research Design in Cultural Anthropology (SIRD) is for Ph.D. students who are writing their research proposals. The three-week course focuses on research design and the writing of a scientifically well-conceived proposal. It also provides an introduction to methods for collecting and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data. Instructors include: J. C. Johnson (East Carolina), S. Weller (Texas), H. R. Bernard (Florida), A. Wutich (Arizona State).
Dates: July 19–August 6.

Short courses on Research Methods (for holders of the Ph.D.). Now in its sixth year, the SCRM program offers intensive, five-day courses on research methods in cultural anthropology. In 2010, the SCRM offers:

Text Analysis Clarence C. Gravlee (Florida) and Amber Wutich (Ariz. St.)
July 19–23.

Methods in Ethnoecology J. Richard Stepp (Florida) and Justin Nolan (Arkansas) July 26–30.

Methods in Geospatial Analysis Eduardo Brondizio (Indiana) and Tracy Van Holt (E. Carolina). August 2–6.

Workshops in Research Methods in Anthropology (for all cultural anthropologists). These one-day workshops are offered at the meetings of the AAA and the SfAA. See the Methods Mall (below) for current offerings.

More information and application forms are available on the Methods Mall:
http://www.qualquant.net/training/

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
FOR VISITING RESEARCHERS IN 2011

Write a book, articles, an essay or your PhD thesis in a peaceful environment on the shore of the Lake of Geneva in 2011

Have the opportunity to meet other researchers from different disciplines and countries and to meet experts from numerous International Organizations & Non Governmental Organizations based in Geneva (WHO, WTO, WIPO, UNHCR, ILO, WMA, ICRC, …)

THE BROCHER RESIDENCIES
The Brocher Foundation residencies last between one and six months. They give researchers the opportunity to work at the Brocher Centre on projects on the ethical, legal and social implications for humankind of recent medical research and new technologies. In 2011 the Brocher Centre will host up to ten researchers at any one time.

The Brocher Foundation offers to successful applicants an accommodation in the Villa Brocher, an office with all working facilities and a dinner with the other guests every evening. It also covers a plane or train ticket in economy class to Geneva (round trip) up to a maximum amount (cf “Statute for visiting researchers” available on www.brocher.ch).

“Junior” visiting researchers can apply for a scholarship in order to cover their local expenses in Geneva. This scholarship amounts to 33 Swiss francs a day (per diem). To be eligible, the applicant should be a PhD student or should have obtained his PhD degree in 2006 or later and should not perceive any other treatment during the time spent at the Foundation. Developing a research project involving cooperation with a Swiss university, an European university, a non-governmental organization or an international organization will be considered as an advantage. A researcher can apply with one or two other researchers to work on a collaborative project together.

TOPICS FOR THE YEAR 2011

Ethical, Legal & Social Implications of recent medical research and new medical technologies among the following disciplines:

Bioethics, Health Anthropology, Health Economics, Health Governance, Health Law, Health Philosophy, Health Psychology, Health Sociology, Medical Ethics , History of medicine

Ethical, Legal & Social Issues on the following topics:

Access to medicines, Biobanks, Biosecurity and Dual Use Dilemma, Clinical Trials and Research on Human Subjects, Genetic testing and screening, Health Care Reform, Nanotechnology, Neglected disease, Pandemic planning Reproduction & Technology, Stem Cells, Transplantation

HOW TO APPLY

To apply, please complete the application form available at www.brocher.ch and send it by e-mail to scientificprog@brocher.ch

and by mail to:
Fondation Brocher
471 Rte d’Hermance
CP 70
CH - 1248 Hermance
Switzerland

The deadline for submission is the 18th of January 2010

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this call for proposals please visit the Brocher Foundation website www.brocher.ch or contact our staff at scientificprog@brocher.ch

Call for Papers:
Archaeology and Economic Crises
Archaeological Review from Cambridge - Volume 26.1, April 2011

The economy is at the forefront of many minds due to the current global situation. Governments, organizations and individuals world-wide have been forced to make numerous changes in order to deal with the current economic downturn and a number of lives have been drastically affected. With the financial world in turmoil, constant stories of crisis in the media, and the impact on individuals, it seems fitting that archaeological enquiries into economic crises should be made at this time.

Economy and change are popular themes in archaeology which can be explored through numerous avenues of study. Investigation into multiple aspects of economic crisis allows the interaction between economy, environment, and importantly, society, to be studied. In investigating the occurrence of economic crises in the past, archaeologists can better understand the mechanisms of these changes and their social implications. The notion of economic crisis, however, is not a simple one; it is complex and multifaceted, raising a number of questions through archaeological enquiry. ARC invites contributions on the theme of Economic Crisis. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

-What constitutes an economic crisis? How do we identify and define the occurrence of economic crisis in the archaeological record using artefactual, environmental and societal markers? How do we assess its impact?

-How do human groups with differing social structures respond to economic crisis? Does the definition of a crisis change with the degree of social complexity?

-How is the concept of economic crisis approached using zooarchaeological, archaeobotanical, and other archaeological science techniques?

-What is the relationship between both contract and academic archaeology and the economy? How has the economic downturn affected, and how will it continue to affect, employment and dynamics within these sectors?

Please send abstracts of not more than 500 words to Suzanne Pilaar Birch (sp518@cam.ac.uk) or Rosalind Wallduck (rjw89@cam.ac.uk) by 31st January 2010. The full article should not exceed 4000 words. Deadline for first drafts will be in early May 2010, for publication in April 2011. Style guidelines and notes for contributors can be found at http://www.societies.cam.ac.uk/arc/contribute.html

Archaeological Review from Cambridge is a journal of archaeology managed and published on a voluntary basis by postgraduate research students at the University of Cambridge. Issues are released twice a year. ARC is a non-profit making organisation. Although primarily rooted in archaeological theory and practice, ARC increasingly accommodates a wide range of perspectives with the aim of establishing a strong, inter-disciplinary journal which will be of interest to those engaged in a range of fields.

Sites of Transformation: New Perspectives on Religion as Revolution
March 26 & 27, 2010
McGill University, Montreal, Canada

We are currently accepting paper proposals that address questions that are similar but are not restricted to the following:

* How have particular religious movements challenged established worldviews through (re)education?
* How have they provided a space to deconstruct and/or reconstruct identity?
* Can religious conversion be thought of as revolutionary?
* In what ways has religion involved itself in, or been usurped by revolutionary political movements?
* What linguistic and methodological revolutions have been associated with religion?

Further information is also available on our website:
http://rsgs.mcgill.ca/gradconference

Paper proposals are due by February 1, 2010.

One of the goals of the conference is to encourage the interdisciplinary study of religion, and we therefore welcome proposals from graduate students specializing in any scholarly discipline, including, but not limited to:

* Anthropology
* Art history
* Communications/Critical Theory
* Cultural studies
* English
* History
* Law
* Philosophy
* Political science
* Psychology
* Religious studies
* Ritual studies
* Sociology

2010-2011 FELLOWSHIP OPPORTUNITY
SHORT-TERM TRAVEL GRANTS (STG) PROGRAM

IREX is pleased to announce that applications are now being accepted for the 2010-2011 Short-Term Travel Grants (STG) Program

STG provides fellowships to US scholars and professionals to engage in up to eight weeks of overseas research on contemporary political, economic, historical, or cultural developments relevant to US foreign policy.

The STG application is now available online at:
http://www.irex.org/programs/us_scholars/uss_info.asp

Completed applications are due no later than 5 pm EST on February 2, 2010.

Postdoctoral Scholars and Professionals with advanced degrees are eligible to apply for the STG Program. In addition to the pre-departure logistic support provided by IREX staff, the Short-Term Travel Grant also provides:

• International coach class roundtrip transportation
• A monthly allowance for housing and living expenses
• Travel visas
• Emergency evacuation insurance
• Field office support

Questions may be addressed to the STG Program Staff at stg@irex.org

Countries Eligible for Research:
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan

STG is funded by the United States Department of State Title VIII Program

Call for Papers
Uncertainty: ambiguities and doubt in knowledge production

Graduate Student Conference
Stanford University
April 23-25, 2010

What work does uncertainty do? How is it produced and how is it involved in settling questions of classification, causality, and accountability? What types of political engagements are made possible by making uncertainty and ambiguity--rather than certainty and consensus--a central analytical concern?

Recent scholarship in science studies and other fields suggests that the production and management of uncertainty is central to political, social, and ethical debates around many of today's most controversial issues. Models of risk and uncertainty have been implicated in the recent financial crisis, and the threshold of certainty required by "sound science" has been a matter of contention in debates about anthropogenic climate change and environmental toxicity. Similar issues of uncertainty have marked a number of sites of critical inquiry, from the court room to the genetics lab to the experimental field plot. While a great deal of work on this topic and related inquiries into risk and ignorance have been motivated by the post-structural critique of certainty, truth, and objectivity, older debates in anthropology and related fields--about value and fetishism, purity and the sacred, risk society, the nature/culture distinction, and the production of race, gender, and sexuality--have also been centrally concerned with ambiguity and uncertainty.

This conference aims to foster productive dialogue across diverse areas of current study and long-standing scholarly discussion around these and related themes.

We invite submissions that engage with the problem of uncertainty from across the critical social sciences and humanities: papers that investigate the production, marshaling, or technical management of uncertainty from a historical, ethnographic, or theoretical perspective. Among other topics, papers might address the role of uncertainty in environmental management, scientific and actuarial forecasting, the deployment of medical technologies and treatments, and the crafting of identity. We also welcome submissions focusing on the methods and ethics of social scientific inquiry and how we understand and communicate uncertainties in our own research.

The conference will feature Hugh Gusterson and Karen Barad as keynote speakers as well as faculty discussants from several institutions for student panels. There is no registration fee.

Please send abstracts for 15 minute papers to uncertainty2010@gmail.com by February 1, 2010. Submissions should include a title, abstracts of no more than 250 words, and a short biography of no more than 100 words. Please email uncertainty2010@gmail.com with any inquiries.

Call for Paper Proposals
Experimental Ecologies: Emerging Worlds in Anthropology

a one-day Graduate Student Conference
Department of Anthropology
UC Santa Cruz
April 9, 2010

Ecologies are structured by diverse interactions between organisms and the physical environment. Population dynamics, material and energy flows, and food webs are traditional subjects of ecological sciences. In this conference we are interested in the ways that the metaphor of ecology can be productively and creatively applied in anthropological inquiry. How can the language of ecology cast new light on human worlds as well as problematize the anthropocentric gaze? What new actors, landscapes, and relationships can ecology bring to the fore? What new methods and modes of representation does an “ecological” approach suggest?

Experimental approaches to these questions and diverse interpretations of ecology are welcome. As heterogeneity and competition are features of ecologies, we also welcome papers that challenge the utility of the ecological metaphor, but in so doing work to develop a framework that can engage with some of the following themes:

boundaries, geographies, and landscapes • growth and decay • centers, peripheries, and scales • agriculture, infrastructure, and environment • bureaucracy, knowledge, and institutions • expression and representation • human and non-human • worlding and the future

It is our hope the conference papers will take us through cities, germs, deserts, websites, bodies, outer space, hospitals, economies, and worlds-not-yet imagined—and in so doing enrich our capacity to understand people, place, and practice.

We seek papers from advanced graduate students IN ANY DISCIPLINE, and posters from all graduate students, which explore these topics. Senior scholars from across the discipline will comment upon the papers and convene discussions. The deadline for submissions is January 29, 2010. Please email an abstract of up to 250 words, along with your name and institutional affiliation to: experimentalecologies@gmail.com