Maasai guides visit Luther in a cultural exchange

Luther College Associate Professor of Anthropology Anita Carrasco was granted the highly competitive, Writing Fellowship from the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Germany for a six-month residency. The Center accepts applications from faculty and researchers from all over the world, awarding fellowships to only 12 percent of applicants.

Lambda Alpha is the national honors society for anthropologists. Its purposes are to promote interest in the study of anthropology as a university discipline, to recognize outstanding student performance, and to encourage scholarship and research in anthropology. Lambda Alpha was established nationally in 1965.

The Anthropology program hosted the Spring 2017 Senior Project Symposium on Wednesday, May 10, in Koren. Four students presented their senior paper projects.

A recent donation of artifacts related to Hmong refugees has given student workers in Luther's Anthropology Lab the chance to catalog this new collection. From this collection, the students have been able to learn more about the history and culture of these refugees.

"Objectworlds: Imagined Lives and Curated Knowledge," is an intriguing exhibit on display in Olin on campus. The interdisciplinary exhibit includes items from Luther's archives and anthropology collections.

On February 16, Luther's anthropology program celebrated the Anthropology Day (#AnthroDay) as part of the national awareness campaign promoted by the American Anthropological Association.

Marshall Stay ('17) presented a poster titled 'Geophysical Investigations at the Heritage Valley Mound Site in Northeast Iowa' at the 60th Annual Midwest Archaeological Conference on October 7 in Iowa City, Iowa.

We asked Marshall to share some of his thoughts about the experience and he provided some great responses!

The anthropology faculty and staff at Luther College are pleased to announce Marshall Stay as the 2016-17 recipient of the R. Clark Mallam Memorial Scholarship in Anthropology.

Anita Carrasco, assistant professor of Anthropology at Luther College, visited the American Heritage Center (AHC) in the summer of 2016 as part of their travel research grant program. There, Carrasco examined the impact of American mining corporations on the indigenous populations of Chile in the Atacama desert.

Anita Carrasco, assistant professor of anthropology was awarded the 2016-18 Nena Amundson Professorship Award for her project: Healers, Sorcerers and Misfortune: "Indigenous Women’s Strategies for the Protection of their Health and Wellness." Specifically, Carrasco will identify three elements: (1) the strategies women adopt to prevent, mitigate or eliminate the events that hinder their health and wellness; (2) the circumstances that drive them to decide to consult the services of healers and sorcerers in their quest to understand the sources of their misfortunes; and finally, (3) why they postpone consulting the country’s medical and legal system to protect themselves.

Maryna Bazylevych and Brittany Anderson co-presented a paper at the Society for the Applied Anthropology Meeting in Vancouver, Canada on March 31st. Entitled "Fire into Flame: Categories of Risk among Young People in Ukraine," this presentation completes their 2 year collaborative project on imaginaries of good health among Ukrainian youth sponsored by Nena Amundson Distinguished Professorship.