Discover what sets the Michigan Wolverines apart in college football. In this episode of This Anthro Life, host Adam Gamwell explores the innovative cultural strategies implemented by head coach Jim Harbaugh that led to the Wolverines' 2024 National Championship victory. Learn how a player-led culture, distributed leadership, and sustainable success through cultural strengths created a resilient and dominant team. 

I'm Adam Gamwell as a cultural anthropologist and award-winning media creator, I specialize in storytelling. My diverse background spans startups, nonprofits, cultural organizations, and Fortune 1000 companies, focusing on applied strategy, experience design, and human insights. My approach blends experiential research, like engaging with Peruvian quinoa farmers for climate change initiatives, with cutting-edge tools like AI and trends foresight. By leveraging big data alongside traditional ethnography, I align human needs with business goals, ensuring projects resonate profoundly.

Keywords: Michigan Wolverines, 2024 National Championship, College Football, Cultural Shift, Leadership Transitions, Player-led Culture, Distributed Leadership, Cultural Strategy, Team Culture, Player Empowerment, Sustainable Success, Anthropological Methods, Cultural Strengths, Adaptive Cultural Leadership

About This Anthro Life
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. We unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives.

Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com for more captivating episodes and engaging content.

Follow This Anthro Life:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life/
https://www.thisanthrolife.org/
https://thisanthrolife.substack.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife
https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/

In this episode of This AnthroLife, host Adam Gamwell dives deep into the concept of "cultural moats" and how tech giants like Apple leverage design, technology, and cultural influence to cultivate an intensely loyal customer base. Adam examines the subtle yet powerful symbols Apple uses. This strategy preserves Apple's unique cultural identity while sparking a competitive race among tech companies to replicate the blue bubble experience on Android. The episode also introduces semiotics—the study of symbols—and its critical role in business and marketing, illustrating how cultural symbols like Apple's evolve and shape consumer behavior.

I'm Adam Gamwell as a cultural anthropologist and award-winning media creator, I specialize in storytelling. My diverse background spans startups, nonprofits, cultural organizations, and Fortune 1000 companies, focusing on applied strategy, experience design, and human insights. My approach blends experiential research, like engaging with Peruvian quinoa farmers for climate change initiatives, with cutting-edge tools like AI and trends foresight. By leveraging big data alongside traditional ethnography, I align human needs with business goals, ensuring projects resonate profoundly.

Keywords: Cultural Moat, Apple, Android, User Experience, Symbolic Ecosystem, Integrated Technology, Loyal Customers, Brand Loyalty, Psychology of Branding, Tech Innovation, Apple Ecosystem, Rich Communication Services (RCS), Design Choices, Technology and Culture, Apple Messages, Antitrust Investigation, Semiotics, Symbolic Communication.

About This Anthro Life 
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. We unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives.

Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com for more captivating episodes and engaging content.

Join us for an intriguing discussion on the connection between law and human behavior with Dr. Mark, a distinguished forensic psychiatry specialist. I'm Adam, your host, and in this episode, we explore forensic psychiatry—a medical field that bridges legal systems and mental health. Dr. Mark explains the differences between treating psychiatrists and forensic psychiatric experts in the legal field. We discuss mental health assessments in legal contexts, psychiatric training evolution, and challenges of presenting evidence in court. Dr. Mark highlights the advantages of diverse group practice. Discover the crucial role of forensic psychiatry in the justice system and the need for effective communication and holistic mental health.

Keywords:
Forensic Psychiatry - Human Behavior - Legal Systems - Mental Health - Psychiatric Training - Legal Contexts - Psychiatric Evidence - Anthropology - Podcast - Essay - Group Practice - Justice System - Effective Communication - Holistic Health - Law Psychiatry - Forensic Expert - Mental Assessments - Medical Evolution - Psychiatry 
Follow This Anthro Life:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life/
https://www.thisanthrolife.org/
https://thisanthrolife.substack.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife
https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/ 
Contac Mark Levy:
https://fpamed.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-levy-md-83538213/

At long last we are back! In this episode host Adam Gamwell talks with Design Researcher and Strategist Amy Santee. 
This is one of these conversations that's a few years in the making. Adam has been following Amy's work for a while now both on her blog anthropologizing.com where she writes about anthropology in industry, design and business, on LinkedIn and other social media sites as well as at conferences sharing the good work of doing anthropology in industry. Adam and Amy discuss what Design Research is and how it works, how it aligns and differs from traditional anthropology and ethnography, and how tactics and methods can be applied both in industry or academia. 
Amy Santee is a design research and strategy consultant who helps teams build products, services and brands through an understanding of people, context and experience. Trained as an anthropologist, Amy uses a human-centered lens to make sense of complex problem spaces and create value for others. She has worked primarily in digital product design, innovation and strategy, in areas such as ecommerce, entertainment, retail, home improvement, health care, enterprise software, and consumer tech. Amy is active in the applied anthropology community and blogs about design, business, organizational culture and careers at anthropologizing.com. She also provides career advising services and presentations to groups on these topics. You can learn more about her on LinkedIn or visit her website, amysantee.com.
Transcript of the episode here
As always, your reviews and support mean the world to us and help the show continue. Please help sponsor the show with a monthly or onetime donation on Anchor or Patreon.
Episode 128


---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this special interview, TAL's Ryan Collins talks with scholar, activist and artist Jason de Leon about the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border. In addition to these roles, de Leon is a MacArthur Fellow and National Geographic Explorer. He uses his platforms to create public dialogue, exhibitions, and media about undocumented migration, the human costs of the US immigration policy known as 'deterrence through force.' This very human conversation reveals the emotional toll, and sometimes trauma, that comes with precarious work on the border with undocumented migrants, smugglers, shady legality and deadly terrain as well as deep questions and reflections about privilege, position, and power. 
Full Transcript of the episode here
Checkout some of Jason's projects
http://www.hostileterrain94.com/
http://undocumentedmigrationproject.com/
MacArthur Fellow Video
Episode 127



---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this episode Adam Gamwell talks with Alex Limpaecher and LaiYee Ho, co-Founders of Delve. While Delve is a qualitative research suite, to help code transcripts, find insight, and pull actionable insights from data, the conversation takes focus on the subject of research. Specifically, the driving question is: how can qualitative and quantitative data work together? Here, academic and industry methodologies with anthropology are put into conversation leading to insights and actionable steps from social data. 
Transcript for the episode: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/delve/
From the Delve Site:
Delve is an online tool that helps you code and analyze transcripts from in-depth interviews or focus groups. 
Make your research process structured and transparent by creating a coding structure that evolves into your final insights.
Delve is more streamlined than coding with spreadsheets and documents, and more intuitive than traditional CAQDAS software.
Delve tool: https://delvetool.com/
Episode 126

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

For this episode, we're doing something a little different. I'll be your guest. I got interviewed by the wonderful Sarah Dunigan on her podcast Anthro Dish, a weekly podcast about food identity and culture about design anthropology and some of the research I did on quinoa production and conservation in Peru for my PhD. I'll let Sarah intro the episode and run it unedited on my end. Just wanted to drop in and let you know we're here and in the spirit of helping our fellow anthro podcasters cross promote and get their good work out there. 
Sign up for our NEW Weekly Newsletter here,
Check out Sarah's podcast Anthro Dish and the episode page from our conversation on Quinoa Production and Design Anthropology

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this episode, Adam and Aneil reflect on Aneil’s fieldwork in climate finance. Climate finance is an area of finance focused on mobilizing investment for climate change solutions, namely infrastructure that is sustainable. Aneil’s research is centered on the growth of the green bond market within climate finance. Green bonds are debt instruments that finance infrastructure deemed sustainable by the climate finance community, such as public transit, green building, renewable energy, and water infrastructure (Tripathy 2017).
We analyze some snippets of interviews with climate finance practitioners and reflect on why notions of sacrifice appear so prominent in how they approach finance. It is unexpected, provocative, and humanizing. 
Max Weber Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic
Definition of Finance from Mirriam Webster Dictionary
For more on Sacrifice: 
Marcel Mauss and Hubert Spencer On Sacrifice
This Anthro Life: Making Sense of Finance: Boundaries, Institutions, and power and Caitlin Zaloom

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Storyslamming Anthropology Series, Story 2. Written and Performed by Taylor Genovese
In recent years, the terms Public and Anthropology have been paired with more frequency. Yet, what this seemingly suspect partnership is, how it could function, and what goals it could have are still in relative formation. Today, public anthropology might mean several different things ranging from jargony lectures that are “open to the public”, digital media (like blogs, videos, or podcasts) that are generally accessible online, or presentations given to an informant public on work produced by a researcher. Large voids remain. We ask, then, why not turn to already publicly oriented writing for inspiration? What if “Guns, Germs and Steel” (Diamond 1999), “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind”, (Harai 2015) or “Freakonomics” (Levitt and Dubner 2009) were written by anthropologists? 
What if we told you that once upon a time, they were? When Margaret Mead wrote “Coming of Age in Samoa” in 1928, anthropologists and non-anthropologists alike flocked to her work because of its accessibility - and felt topical relevance. Could such an achievement be attainable today? 
While some scholars might reject an approach based on “popular” writing, we argue that the enormous success of the above books (as well as the podcasts, YouTube videos and Netflix series based on them) demonstrates a general interest in theories of humankind, what it means to be human in the contemporary world, and throughout history. We ask why have anthropologists not followed suit? Despite the massive amount of scholarship published each year by anthropologists, none seem to crack that elusive space between rigorous research and “pop-science.” While there are trade offs between academic complexity and writing for a lay audience, the theme of the 2017 American Anthropological Association conference, "Anthropology Matters!" speaks to our need to talk across (and storytell) different worlds. Our goal with this experimental panel was to invoke the public spirit of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits and others to speak to 21st century concerns from a comparative perspective in clear language. We picked papers that revealed juxtapositions, seemingly counter- or non- intuitive links between subjects, objects, ideas, emotions, practices, or traditions that we felt can intrigue, educate, and delight participants. The goal of this series of to expand our genres of sharing ethnographic and anthropological insight. We hope you enjoy! 
Story 1: #MeToo: Stories in the Age of Survivorship by Emma Backe


---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to This Anthro Life x EPIC 2019. This is the first episode in our 2019 collaboration with the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community or EPIC. EPIC is a professional organization that brings together ethnographers and social science practitioners across fields like user experience research and design, marketing, computer science, academia, and more. This year’s conference theme is agency, which is fascinating given the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, voice recognition software and platforms like Alexa or Hey Google, and controversies over privacy and sale of people’s personal data. 
Today host Adam Gamwell and guest host Matt Artz virtually sit down with the EPIC conference chairs Julia Haines and Lisa Di Carlo.
Julia conducts research at the intersection of technology, innovation, and human practices. She is a Senior User Experience Researcher at Google where she leads UX research for a team of over 400 designers and engineers, bringing an inclusive, human-centered perspective to the project. She is a co-founder of the Responsible AI License (RAIL) initiative and an inaugural member of the ACM’s Future of Computing Academy. 
Lisa is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Sociology Department at Brown University. She teaches courses on design anthropology, applied qualitative research methods and research ethics. The common threads throughout her research are migration and displacement, .from labor migration, to religious conversion as migration and displacement, to social innovation through the migration of ideas. When not preparing a massive conference, she conducts ethnographic research primarily in the Mediterranean area, most frequently in Turkey and Turkish diaspora communities. 
We have a wide ranging conversation that covers questions such as 

what agency looks like in industry and classrooms, 
what responsibilities corporations have to the agency of users, 
how we can make computing more equitable, 
the pace of research in academia and industry, 
how students and other professionals looking to move into industry ethnography and research can get a leg up. 


As always, we want to hear from you! Drop us a voice message on Anchor or a message on Twitter @thisanthrolife or email at thisanthrolife@gmail.com. If you get some value out of listening to the show, please consider supporting us at Patreon.com/thisanthrolife or on Anchor.fm with a dollar or a few bucks a month, whatever you can afford. Your support makes this show possible. Thank you!

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Adam sits down (in a cafe, so this is live, people) with Jay Hasbrouck, Founder and Principal of Filament Insight and Innovation and author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset, a how-to guide for anyone looking to better understand and apply many of the methods ethnographers learn to their own businesses and practices. We talk through some of the techniques Jay covers in his book as well as talk candidly about the world of consulting and client relationships. 

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Adam and Andrea continue the conversation with Julie Lesnik, author of Edible Insects and Human Evolution, but this time they’re going prehistoric. Oh, and they’re talking about gorillas and chimpanzees too. Learn how to fish for termites, why we wish we had more baskets, and why any of those things matter to understanding human evolution. Edible Insects, part 3
Check out discussion questions here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/insects/
More about Julie:
https://www.entomoanthro.org/about-julie.html
https://www.octopusandape.com/

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Think you could eat a cricket? What about a spider? In this episode of TAL Adam Gamwell and guest host Andrea Eller are chatting with Julie Lesnik about her new book, Edible Insects and Human Evolution. Listen in as they discuss why Americans tend to be so grossed out by bugs, and if it’s always been that way. Edible Insects, part 2
We know many of you are educators, and some are already using TAL in the classroom. Great! To help support the educational impact of TAL, we are including some discussion questions from each episode. Please feel free to use these (in whole or part) for classroom discussion prompts, essay questions, or larger research inspirations. We think we cover a lot of quality anthropological knowledge on TAL, and we hope you think so too! 
TAL and their contributors are dedicated to the value of audio scholarship. Let us know how you end up using these questions in the comments below. We’d like to know how you want us to make more educational materials in the future. Check out the discussion questions here: http://www.thisanthrolife.com/insects


---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Delve into the world of software development, work culture, and the philosophy of 'good enoughness,' with Paula Bialski.

I'm Adam Gamwell as a cultural anthropologist and award-winning media creator, I specialize in storytelling. My diverse background spans startups, nonprofits, cultural organizations, and Fortune 1000 companies, focusing on applied strategy, experience design, and human insights. My approach blends experiential research, like engaging with Peruvian quinoa farmers for climate change initiatives, with cutting-edge tools like AI and trends foresight. By leveraging big data alongside traditional ethnography, I align human needs with business goals, ensuring projects resonate profoundly.

About This Anthro Life
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. We unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives. Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com for more captivating episodes and engaging content.

Keywords: software development, good enough-ness, maintenance, AI, work culture, legacy code, managers, engineers, agile, sustainability, anthropology

Connect with Paula Bialski:
https://www.instagram.com/paulabialski/
https://paulabialski.com/

Follow This Anthro Life:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life/
https://www.thisanthrolife.org/
https://thisanthrolife.substack.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife
https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/

Edible Insects part 1. Will crickets ever catch on as an alternative source of protein in the United States? How about cockroach “milk”? Why do people in so many parts of the world NOT eat insects? Where does that disgust for or against eating certain things come from? Adam is joined once again by guest host and biological anthropologist Andrea Eller to dig into edible insects, what just might be a new marketing idea for McDonald's, and how insects reveal underlying cultural trends of disgust, environmental resource use, gender and economic trends.

Part 2 of The Social Life of Robots, with Emma Backe. In this episode hosts Adam Gamwell, Ryan Collins and Emma Backe tackle sex and gender norms underlying digital voice assistants like Siri, Cortana and Alexa, the history and gendering of science and technology studies (STS) and what this means in an era of AI and robots, and third, theories of rights such as the right to work, the right to sex and how robots clarify and confound these issues.

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration between the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association, and This Anthro Life Podcast. 
In this fifth and final episode, Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker, and Ryan Collins focus on cultural survival, a complex subject framed by migration, misconceptions over language and identity, as well as by resilience of the human spirit across borders. With a subject like cultural survival, the question comes to mind, what factors threaten shared heritage, tradition, and disband communities? Here we are joined by Alejandro Santiago González (Ixil), and Mercedes M. Say Chaclan (K’iche) representatives of Washington, DC-based Mayan League, an organization working to sustain Maya culture, communities, and lands. Alejandro and Mercedes share their experiences and give insight into the ongoing struggles Maya peoples face today, including issues of language, translation, and communication for indigenous immigrants who are currently in the United States. Helping to elucidate this subject, we are joined by Ph.D. Folklorist Emily Socolov, a frequent collaborator with the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Folklife and Cultural Heritage and an Executive Director of the Non-Profit Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders, serving the Mexican immigrant community in New York. 

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In the pop culture imagination, perceptions of robots and AI occupy a space of mystery and intrigue that gravitates between harbingers of impending societal collapse and bringers of mythical salvation. However, where does contemporary science and technology stand? Moreover, how do the social experiences of the past and in the present color our understandings of emerging technological realities? On this episode, hosts Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins are joined by Emma Backe to discuss these questions and more. In Part I of Making Robots Human our conversation embraces the humor of pop culture AI while making room to address that our fears and hopes of robotic futures are revealing of our complex social concerns today. 

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association, and This Anthro Life Podcast. In this episode, Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker, and Ryan Collins dive into the topic of curation. What does it mean to put on a festival or put on a museum exhibit? How can we understand culture on display and introduce outsiders to other social realms? Sharing their narratives and experiences with different forms of curation are Diana Baird N’Diaye, Cultural Specialist and Curator at the Smithsonian Center for Culture and Folklife, Arman Atoyan, CEO and Founder of the (AR) and virtual reality (VR) app and game development company Arloopa, and Pablo Girona, a researcher from Tucuman, Argentina who studies cultural heritage in Catalonia and Quebec. To learn more about Diana Baird N’Diaye’s work visit: https://folklife.si.edu/authors/diana-n-diaye. And, to learn more about Arman Atoyan and Arloopa, visit: http://arloopa.com/

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

On this episode of This Anthro Life, hosts Adam Gamwell and Matt Artz are joined by assistant professor and musicologist Nate Sloan and music journalist and songwriter Charlie Harding, the hosts of Switched on Pop, a podcast about the making and meaning of popular music. On Switched on Pop, Charlie and Nate break down pop songs to figure out what makes a hit and what is its place in culture. They also help listeners find "a-ha" moments in the music, make you laugh, dance, and dig deeper into the world of pop music. Here Nate and Charlie speak with TAL on the study of popular music, the appropriation of musical elements, what defines “pop” and how that is changing. This episode focuses on Nate and Charlie’s choice to use podcasting as the narrative venue to house their storytelling and dives into the value of deep listening. Tune in to hear more. To learn more about Switched on Pop check out: www.switchedonopop.com and
http://gideonandhubcap.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move , an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life Podcast

In the US, fashion has been relegated to large impersonal retail spaces and increasingly online stores. Fashion in the US, as many know all too well, is transactional. The sense of community one has through clothing is often expressed through style though it is exceedingly rare for truly deep relationships to develop between the designer and the purchaser, even if an article of clothing is commissioned. But, community and fashion can be much more integrated.

With this episode, we invite you into the conversations we had with participants in the Crafts of African Fashion program at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2018. We speak with Soumana Saley a Nigerian leather worker and designer, Cynthia Sands and her mentee Tomara Watkins, also known as Tam, two fashion designers who work between the United States and the African continent, and the program’s curator Diana Baird N’Diaye. This episode was broken into three underlying themes of African fashion, and craft production focused on: the local marketplace, transnational and international fashion trends, and the relationships between consumers and producers within a community.

The Crafts of African Fashion is an initiative promoting the continuity of heritage arts in Africa, exploring the vital role of cultural enterprises in sustaining communities and connecting generations on the continent and throughout the diaspora. The activities for this portion of the Festival took place in the Folklife Festival Marketplace.

About our Speakers:

Diana N’Diaye is a Cultural Specialist and Curator at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. She holds a PhD in anthropology and visual studies from The Union Institute.

Soumana Saley is a leather craft artisan from the West African country of Niger. He currently lives in Millersburg, Pennsylvania running his own business. You can learn more about Soumana and see his products on his online store accessible at https://www.facebook.com/pg/soumanasaleyonline/ and you can learn more about Soumana’s school at https://www.ngodima.org/.

Cynthia Sands is an African American textile artist and businesswoman in Washington, DC. Sands’ art career includes experimenting and blending contemporary and original African artistic methods, materials, and dying techniques. She also works closely with African artisans to sustain the use of indigenous art and craft making tradition for social development, income generation, skills-transfer, and art education. You can learn more about Cynthia and her work at the website: www.entuma.com.

Tomara (Tam) Watkins, is a mentee of Cynthia Sands and is the founder of Loza Tam, a hair accessory line created in collaboration Ghanaian women artisans and entrepreneurs. Visit Tam’s online store at www.Lozatam.com.

Adam Gamwell is the co-host and executive producer of the This Anthro Life (TAL). He is the founder and director of Missing Link Studios www.missinglink.studio a new media collective dedicated to producing creative media for social impact. Adam holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Ryan Collins is the co-host and editor of This Anthro Life (TAL). Ryan holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Leslie Walker is the project manager of the Public Education Initiative at the AAA. He served as a special guest host, collecting stories during the Folklife Festival the forthcoming podcast series with This Anthro Life.

Contact Us

Contact Adam and Ryan at thisanthrolife -at - gmail.com or individually at adam -at- thisanthrolife.com or ryan -at- thisanthrolife.com
Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @thisanthrolife.

All of our content can be found on thisanthrolife.com. Be sure to leave us a review, let us know if you like the show. We love to hear from you.

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

“I hope that more people will listen to more music outside of their own little comfort zone. I think that we enrich ourselves, we are better human beings when you open up your heart to other cultures, other music, to other worlds to other points of view. Because ultimately, as I said in the very beginning, we’re all the same. We’re all humans, and we all can connect in different ways with the things that we like. But, when we see it through the eyes of a different person. Then we better ourselves. We enrich ourselves.”

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move , an audio collaboration from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life Podcast.

The above quote comes from Betto Arcos, music journalist and host of NPR’s The Cosmic Bario. Music, whether you create it or are an avid listener, pulls you in a deep sensory allure. The connection humans make with music is so deep that it can impact us physically and serve as a key point of return for our memories. As our guests from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival can attest, as much as it conjures deep feelings and memories, we learn something through the experience of music. Joining the distinct artists together in their views on music is a central theme, that music can help us overcome social difference. For Betto, this recognition is central to his desire to create music. Betto Arcos, in his own words:

“I think that’s ultimately why I do it [create music]. I feel like there is a responsibility. There is a sense of a higher reason, why I do this. But deep down it’s also because I love music. Because I’m passionate about it and I feel like we can only do better as a human race, as people, if we know about each other a little more.”

About our Speakers

Betto Arcos is a music journalist based in Los Angeles, host of The Cosmic Barrio, a reporter for NPR, and regular reporter for PRI. You can learn more about Betto at: http://bettoarcos.com/

Or follow him on Twitter @ArcosBetto

Amy Horowitz is an activist, promoter, feminist scholar, Roadwork team putting women artists and musicians on the road, the first multiracial, multicultural coalition. You can learn more about Amy Horowitz at: https://amyhorowitz.org/

And read about RoadWork https://www.roadworkcenter.org/

Arpan Thakur Chakraborty, Rabi Das Baul, Girish Khyapa and Mamoni Chitrakar are the Baul performers, mystic minstrels from the Indian state of Bengal. The Bauls are known for devotional songs that honor the divine within. Additionally, Mamoni Chitrakar is a traditional Indian patachitra singer and painter from West Bengal. You can learn more about their causes at: www.banglanatak.com

The purpose of this series is to create narratives linking the diverse peoples, perspectives, and activities across the Festival from a series of micro ethnographies like those above. The open format interview style allowed participants to define in their own words the relationships between their artisanship, musical ability, or experiences and how migration and movement shape their lives. Conversations with curators and other researchers supplemented the interviews with Festival participants and helped us to identify the research involved in selecting participants and the presentation of cultural heritage for the Festival. This approach allows us to foreground a central or thematic conversation and narrate events and activities at the Festival that listeners can paint in their minds as if they had been there to experience it.

About Our Hosts

Adam Gamwell is the co-host and executive producer of the This Anthro Life (TAL). Adam holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University. He founded and produces narrative media out of Missing Link Studios.

Ryan Collins is the co-host and editor of This Anthro Life (TAL). Ryan holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Brandeis University.

Leslie Walker is the project manager of the Public Education Initiative at the AAA

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to CultureMade: Heritage Enterprise in a World on the Move, an audio collaboration series from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the American Anthropological Association and This Anthro Life Podcast.

Join hosts Adam Gamwell, Leslie Walker and Ryan Collins as they explore what it means to craft, form, and make culture in a world defined by movement, migration, and changing borders. Step into behind the scenes conversations and candid interviews from the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Hear from artists, fashion designers, dancers, weavers, and craftsmen who give life to heritage and shape the many worlds of traditional culture in a planet on the move.

"Art is a Movement" How does art help contribute to political protest? Should art never be sold for money? How can dance unify a community? How are traditions like calligraphy and traditional dances passed on between generations?

In this episode, we overview the subject of art as informed by representatives from The Armenian program and the Catalonia program of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. The above ideas on art put forth by Ruben Malayan encompasses the complex feelings, ideas, and understandings that art not only evokes within society but also those of who seek to understand art from a more holistic perspective.

Art is complex. Though what counts as art within a society is often recognizable to insiders, the rationale as to why is often much more difficult to discern. Anthropology, at its best, can help us explore the complexities of art. Through critical dialogue, anthropologists can ask what it means to experience art from the vantage point of different cultures and explore the messages that the artist intended to convey.

The purpose of this series is to create narratives linking the diverse peoples, perspectives, and activities across the Festival from a series of micro ethnographies like those above. The open format interview style allowed participants to define in their own words the relationships between their artisanship, musical ability, or experiences and the ways in which migration and movement shape their lives. Conversations with curators and other researchers supplemented the interviews with Festival participants and helped us to identify the research involved in selecting participants and the presentation of cultural heritage for the Festival. This approach allows us to foreground a central or thematic conversation and to narrate events and activities at the Festival that listeners can paint in their minds as if they had been there to experience it.

Read more and see photos here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/art-is-a-movement/

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

This Anthro Life is opening the conversation with EPIC (the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Community) on the theme of Evidence. Taking center stage at this year's Annual EPIC Conference. “Evidence” is a subject of increasing social importance in today’s political climate. What constitutes evidence and when it is found to be credible all have far-reaching consequences. Because of this, practicing anthropologists are exploring concerns of and around evidence through experimentation, new methodologies, and research innovations that speak to contemporary ethnographic practice.

Joining TAL to open the conversation on evidence is Dawn Nafus and Tye Rattenbury, two of the EPIC 2018 Conference organizers. Our discussion with Dawn and Tye focused on the relationship of evidence in their work as ethnographic and data research scientists. Dawn and Tye work at the intersection of computational and ethnographic approaches.

Dig in Deeper Here: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/epic-evidence/

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this podcast episode, Adam hosts Paul Austin, founder of Third Wave, to discuss his journey with psychedelics, microdosing, and the intersection with leadership and personal development. Paul shares his personal background, from growing up in a traditional Midwest home to experimenting with cannabis and psychedelics which led him to explore the boundaries of life and eventually start Third Wave.

The conversation covers the impact of psychedelics on mental health, their ability to disrupt entrenched patterns, and their role in enhancing creativity, focus, and relational skills. Paul emphasizes the importance of safety, intention, and integration in psychedelic experiences, and discusses the future of psychedelic accessibility and legality in the U.S. and globally. The discussion also delves into microdosing protocols, the differences between LSD and psilocybin, and how these practices can benefit leaders by fostering neuroplasticity, courage, and a reevaluation of success.

Finally, Paul shares his vision for the future of psychedelics, including creating accessible, secular, global retreat centers for psilocybin mushrooms, inspired by the free model of Vipassana meditation centers.

I'm Adam Gamwell as a cultural anthropologist and award-winning media creator, I specialize in storytelling.
My diverse background spans startups, nonprofits, cultural organizations, and Fortune 1000 companies, focusing on applied strategy, experience design, and human insights. My approach blends experiential research, like engaging with Peruvian quinoa farmers for climate change initiatives, with cutting-edge tools like AI and trends foresight.
By leveraging big data alongside traditional ethnography, I align human needs with business goals, ensuring projects resonate profoundly. About This Anthro Life This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. 

We unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives. Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com for more captivating episodes and engaging content.

Time Stamps: 

00:00 Intro
02:40 The Origin Story of a Psychedelic Advocate
09:30 The Cultural Shift in Psychedelic Perception
15:20 Psychedelics in History and Modern Times
22:21 Microdosing Explained: Protocols, Benefits, and Considerations
29:14 The Rising Popularity of Microdosing in Modern Culture
34:27 The Intersection of Spirituality and Psychedelics
57:19 The Future of Psychedelics: Legalization and Cultural Shifts Keywords: microdosing


About This Anthro Life: 
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. Hosted by Adam Gamwell, we unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives. Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org  and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com  for more captivating episodes and engaging content.  

Connect with Fredrik Thomassen
Website: https://www.superside.com/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikthomassen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supersidehq/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/f_thomassen?lang=en  

Connect with This Anthro Life:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life-podcast/ 
This Anthro Life website: https://www.thisanthrolife.org/ 
Substack blog: https://thisanthrolife.substack.com 

Andrea Eller is a biological anthropologist driven by a question of how do our bodies continue to react to things today? In other words, how does evolution continue to impact us and why is this important? To address this, Andrea Eller looks at how bodies respond and adapt to circumstances of chronic stresses. The stresses that Eller looks at, however, are both physiological and social. Not only does Andrea postulate explanations to account for change over time in relation to more visible circumstances like ecology, tool use, and disease. But, Andrea also considers less visible issues like, class, race, and gender as critical factors that also impact our physiology over time.

Evolution Responds, it does not React

One of the compelling predicaments that Eller discusses with Adam has  to do with current data on primates. For example, data from captive  primates are excluded from wider studies. In part, the problem is that  there is a growing population of captive primates. With more an more  primates being born into captivity, there is a concern that adaptation  is occurring in many primates. As Eller notes, the pressures to adapt in  one environmental setting or another (called selective pressures) will  be different. That means looking at the same species of primates  requires context. Whether coming from different settings, the wild,  scientific laboratories, or zoos, data on primate adaptations will  differ.
Similarly, humans use clothing as a tool for adapting to different  environments. Down or wool coats would seem out of place at Miami beach  just as scuba gear would not be an appropriate choice for reaching base  camp at Mount Everest even though each of these clothing options  reflects different human adaptations.
Mindfulness Training – Outreach and Engagement
One of the most captivating aspects of Eller’s conversation was her  genuine passion for public outreach. For Eller, it is an ongoing  struggle to help get the public to see evolution in a different light.  Too often she sees a perspective of humans being the masters of the  planet, rather than one group of participants within it. However,  combating this perspective (among others) requires outreach and  engagement. For Eller, this begins with engaging kids. “Kids haven’t had  all of the primate educated out of them,” she says. They are more open  to experience awe and be captivated out of curiosity when seeing  examples not only of our evolutionary past but the present as well.

Read more: https://www.thisanthrolife.com/andrea-eller/

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

When TAL first interviewed Hamilton Morris, it was shortly after he and his production team had finished season 1 of Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia. Now, Morris has completed two seasons of his critically acclaimed show on VICE. This time on TAL, Morris has a more reflective tone.
With Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins, Morris shares his experiences as a filmmaker in traditional and counter-culture environments. These experiences have given Morris a unique window into psychedelics, underground pharmaceutical research, and the ethics of sharing information. The last point hits home for many anthropologists and social researchers, who also must be wary of the unintended consequences of sharing information. Depending on what is at stake, information can endanger informants and friends. Similarly, journalists and ethnographers are confronted

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Dr. Tricia Wang sees her work consulting as sitting at the crossroads of data and social justice. As a global tech ethnographer, Dr. Wang is obsessed with how technology and humans shape each other. In her own words, she wants to know, “How do the tools we use enable us to do more of what humans do, like socializing, emoting, and collaborating? And how do human perspectives shape the technology we build and how we use it?” 
Said differently, Dr. Tricia Wang’s expertise inhabits a gray space between industry and the academy. A space where many social scientists do not find easy comfort. Yet, Dr. Wang’s very candid enthusiasm is enough to draw in even the most ardent skeptics. In her own words, Dr. Wang has “always been between worlds” seeing the best in both. Though academics tend to value known discovery methods, and excel, they are less likely to engineer new prototypes. 

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome back listeners! Adam and Ryan have taken some time away as of late to finish and defend their dissertations. Now that Ryan is done, and Adam defends in just one week (so close!), TAL is getting back into gear with new content in the development and production stages. Now, another key detail, several episodes recorded earlier this spring are also on their way. Some of these are guest interviews (including a second interview with Hamilton Morris of HBO’s VICE and Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia) as well as the remainder of our Story Slamming Ethnography episodes (we haven’t forgotten about those). All that is to say, there is an extensive repertoire of content coming your way, including an upcoming collaboration with EPIC. Speaking of…
With this episode of This Anthro Life, we are joined by Dr. Alexandra Mack and collaborative guest host Matt Artz. Together we interview Alex and explore her story. What makes our discussion with Alex so distinct is her breadth of research and applic

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Thanks to the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) for having Adam Gamwell and Matt Artz of This Anthro Life present at the annual meeting in Philadelphia. We presented as part of the New Methods, Interventions And Approaches session.

Our paper title was Consulting Podcasters: Prototyping a Democratic Tool for Multiple Voices, Storytelling and Solution Finding. You can read it here. 

The session was recorded for the SfAA Podcasting project.

The simple idea behind the notion of consulting podcasting is that we  are using the podcast format to intentionally bring together  professionals to co-create meaningful conversations that provides expert  advice through the anthropological paradigm of the emic and etic.  Consulting podcasting applies the flexible, digital recording techniques  of podcasting with a process of in-the-moment of real-time discovery.  To that end we askew rigid preconfigured narratives or storyboards in  favor of an open-format conversation that mimic the methods of  semi-structured interviews. We allow room for the conversation to  breathe.
With openness we let guest stories speak and allow them to unfold  along their own path, on their own terms, without imposing our own  worldviews or narratives. In the process, we learn of a speaker’s  insider perspective, their motivations, and methods. We then compliment  the insider perspective with our outsider perspectives – as voices that  encourage deeper reflection and context building around issues of key  importance to the guest, to co-create a larger meta-narrative that makes  up the consultative engagement.
Check out Adam's and Matt's Creative Consulting and Production work at Missing Link Studios

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

On this episode of This Anthro Life, hosts Ryan Collins and Adam Gamwell are joined by TAL correspondent and guest host Astrid Countee and by a very special guest, Valorie Aquino. They joined us to talk about the 2017 March for Science. Valorie is one of the key organizing 30’s something scientists who helped make the 2017 march a reality. As she conveys in this episode, doing so was no easy task. This required countless late nights, missed social occasions, hours of frustration, and unfortunately, the all to occasional naysayers. Yet, Valorie’s story is one complete perseverance, rooted in a deep passion for science that began at an early age

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome listeners to the second installment of our Diversity and Inclusion crossover series, bringing together This Anthro Life with Brandeis University. For those of you who are new to the show, This Anthro Life (TAL) was launched as a scholar-practitioner program designed to bring anthropological and social science research and thinking to interdisciplinary and public audiences. The original idea behind the podcast is to use our skill sets and toolkits  as anthropologists to translate and socialize data, cultural patterns, and research into accessible open format dialogues and conversations that provided solutions for social impact and actionable insight.

On this episode, TAL hosts Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins are joined by Dr. Janine de Novais  of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) to expand on the  ideas behind “Brave Community” (discussed in episode 1 of the Diversity +  Inclusion in Higher Ed series) and to understand the major hurdles she  finds with diversity and inclusion in higher education today. With her  dissertation Dr. de Novais explored the ways in which classroom  experiences in higher education do and do not contribute to deep  learning that influences students understandings of race. Dr. de Novais’  scholarship also focuses on a practice-based question: what kind of  learning about race do college students need given our racially diverse  and deeply unequal society? Her answer: Brave Community–a  pedagogy that relies on academic grounding, the distinctive culture of a  classroom, to support students. As we learned in our interview, much of  Dr. de Novais’ interests today are influenced from life experiences. 
Read more here on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome to Story Slamming Anthropology. This series features both innovative narrative and audio performance drawing on the deep toolkit and methods of anthropology.  The goal with Story Slamming Anthropology is to invoke the public  facing spirit of Franz Boas, Margaret Mead, Melville Herskovits and many  others to speak to 21st century concerns from a comparative perspective  in clear language. The narratives here are based on juxtapositions,  seemingly counter- or non- intuitive linking’s of subjects, objects,  ideas, emotions, practices, or traditions that will intrigue, educate,  and delight. In doing so, the goal of these stories is to bring  anthropological storytelling to wider audiences and to demonstrate that  anthropology matters today more than ever.
This narrative, #MeToo: Stories in the Age of Survivorship, is written and performed by Emma Louise Backe. 
The reckoning of #MeToo has  ushered in a renewed politics of storytelling, one whose capillary reach  and discursive power requires critical analysis and reflexive  consideration of how we listen to and seek out stories. As an  ethnographer of sexual violence, who conducted fieldwork on a rape  crisis hotline during the Pussygate controversy and has served as a Peer  Advocate in George Washington University’s Anthropology Department to  respond to incidents of sexual misconduct, I wanted to situate and  historicize the #MeToo movement, with the recognition that the academy  must similarly grapple with the perils of harassment and assault. This  recognition of violence, particularly in light of the suffering slot,  must be accompanied by the acknowledgement that the anthropological  community contains survivors as well as perpetrators, experiences of  trauma as well as complicity and predation. By offering an ethnopoetic  approach to #MeToo, I propose opportunities to explore the gaps between  lived experience and knowledge production, one whose theoretical  intercession recognizes that a disposition towards care must also leave  room for hesitation and creative reconfigurations of listening.
Emma Louise Backe is a social justice  sailor scout working in international development and global health on  issues related to gender-based violence and women’s health. She has a  Master’s in Medical Anthropology and Certificate in Global Gender Policy  from George Washington University. When she’s not advocating on behalf  of reproductive justice and consent, she manages The Geek Anthropologist, writes for publications like Lady Science, and tweets from @EmmaLouiseBacke.
If you enjoy Story Slamming Anthropology, or are would like to share a narrative of your own, let us know!  You  can contact Adam and Ryan at thisanthrolife -at – gmail.com or  individually at adam -at- thisanthrolife.com or ryan -at-  thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Design and anthropology have been  seen together with increasing frequency over the last few years, but how  do design and anthropology fit together in relation to industry? And,  how does this pairing create insight? Adam and Matt (a guest host at  This Anthro Life) are joined by Dr. Natalie Hanson to explore these questions and more.
Dr. Hanson has been working at the  intersection of business strategy, technology, social sciences, and  design for nearly 20 years. This gives her a relatively unique  perspective on the worlds of anthropology and design. Hanson is also the  founder of Anthrodesign, which started as a list serve and now has its own Slack channel (you could join too by following the instructions here).
Read more on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Welcome listeners to the first installment of our Diversity and Inclusion crossover series, bringing together This Anthro Life with Brandeis University. For those of you who are new to the show, This Anthro Life (TAL) was launched as a scholar-practitioner program designed to bring anthropological and social science research and thinking to interdisciplinary and public audiences. The original idea behind the podcast was to use our skill sets and toolkits  as anthropologists to translate and socialize data, cultural patterns, and research into accessible open format dialogues and conversations that provided solutions for social impact and actionable insight.
With the Diversity and Inclusion  Series, we are opening a semester long podcast series about diversity  and inclusion in higher education and beyond. Here, our inspiration  comes from anthropologist Ruth Benedict’s  claim that anthropology’s job is to make the world a safe place for  human differences. One small step in doing so is to have conversations  on tough topics, and that is precisely what we aim to start with this  series.
Conversations matter. This  conversation is about opening questions on, what does it mean to engage  diversity in an academically grounded way, in the context of critique?  What do students need in order to do this well? For Dr. Janine de Novais, of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, some answers come from her dissertation research which demonstrates the power of conversations in classroom settings. She focused broadly on the dynamics and possibilities of learning about race in the classroom by comparing two different courses on the subjects of slavery and black political thought. What she concluded was that students “became more intellectually brave, and displayed greater interpersonal empathy” when classrooms settings were safe to express intellectual issues even on difficult and emotional subjects.
Read more of the story here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

How can we democratize access to talent and foster equal opportunities?

In this insightful episode of This Anthro Life, we delve into the transformative power of the COVID-19 pandemic on the shift to online work. We discuss the potential of remote work to create a more equal playing field in the job market, Fredrik sharing his experience of building Superside, a platform that helps marketing and creative teams overcome design bottlenecks. Through this insightful discussion, we explore how this transition not only enhances productivity but also levels the playing field for individuals worldwide.
From the importance of speed and quality in creative endeavors to the pivotal role of values and psychological safety in organizational success, we unravel the keys to building a future where talent knows no bounds. Join the conversation as we explore how remote work, accelerated by the pandemic, is reshaping industries, amplifying creativity, and paving the way for inclusive and innovative organizations. 

Timestamps:

01:40 Exploring impacts of the pandemic on remote work adoption
02:51 Origin story of Superside and its mission
04:22 Founder's background in marketing and identifying creative bottlenecks
09:31 Spreading remote work to smaller markets around the world
11:22 Remote work enabling access to specialized global talent
12:01 Remote work reducing discrimination and enabling diversity
17:25 Flaws in traditional resume screening and interviews
22:08 Innovating better methods for skills and values testing
26:29 Focusing on career growth opportunities at Superside
30:50 Rapid growth and exceptionally low turnover at Superside
34:20 Fostering psychological safety for creativity and truth-seeking
38:42 Leadership modeling openness to criticism and dissent
42:09 Universal principles and truth-seeking in quality design

Key Takeaways:

• The internet and remote work can create fair opportunities by providing access to talent and removing geographical barriers.
• The COVID-19 pandemic has sped up the shift to remote work, demonstrating that people can be effective while working from home.
• Overcoming the traditional hurdles in creative processes can be achieved by utilizing online platforms like Superside to streamline design and marketing tasks.
• Establishing a diverse and inclusive company is not only morally sound but also results in improved performance and innovation.
• Evaluating values and cultural compatibility is essential in recruitment and team building, and this can be accomplished through structured assessments and standardized testing.

About This Anthro Life: 
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. Hosted by Adam Gamwell, we unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives. Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org  and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com  for more captivating episodes and engaging content.  

Connect with Fredrik Thomassen
Website: https://www.superside.com/ 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fredrikthomassen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/supersidehq/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/f_thomassen?lang=en  

Connect with This Anthro Life:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life-podcast/ 
This Anthro Life website: https://www.thisanthrolife.org/ 
Substack blog: https://thisanthrolife.substack.com 

In this Conversations episode, This  Anthro Life hosts Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins are joined by author  Andrew Rowen to discuss his new novel, Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold. Coming in the months trailing the 525th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s  (or Cristobal Colon’s) voyage to the America’s, Rowen’s novel seeks to  add some much needed depth to the modern myths on the subject.  Encounters Unforeseen doesn’t start at the (in)famous voyage, or even in  Europe. Instead, The drama alternates among three Taíno  chieftains—Caonabó, Guacanagarí, and Guarionex—and Bakoko, a Taíno youth  seized by Columbus, Spain’s Queen Isabella I of Castile, King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Columbus. 
Some text from the Press Release:  After 525 years, the traditional literature recounting the history of  Columbus’s epic voyage and first encounters with Native Americans  remains Eurocentric, focused principally—whether pro- or  anti-Columbus—on Columbus and the European perspective. A historical  novel, Encounters Unforeseen: 1492 Retold now dramatizes these  events from a bicultural perspective, fictionalizing the beliefs,  thoughts, and actions of the Native Americans who met Columbus side by  side with those of Columbus and other Europeans, all based on a close  reading of Columbus’s Journal, other primary sources, and anthropological studies.
Read more on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this Conversations episode of This  Anthro Life, Adam Gamwell and Ryan Collins explore the subject of  sensory ethnography –  a focus in anthropology that tends to deemphasize  the written word to explore visual, acoustic, and other sensory  perceptions. Today, researchers explore senses increasing in the media  through virtual simulations, visual and auditory stimuli that cause  different reactions (fostering disorientation or meditative states), and  of course art. But, how we perceive the world around us can also be  influenced by culture and our surroundings, from music, to dance, to  collective effervescence. After all, viral examples in recent years  (like the infamous dress),  demonstrate that human perception varies visually from person to person  (often in the recognition of more or less recognized colors in the  light spectrum). Individual distinctions aside, as humans we’re limited  in our generally ability to sense and see the world around (infrared and  ultraviolet light are imperceptible to us, for example). Yet, tactile  sense is intrinsic to our relatively unique to our ability to produce  and use tools. Though it tends to overlooked and under recognized in  most anthropological settings, sense is critical to the human  experience. This episode explores just a few examples of projects  related to sensory ethnography and how they take us beyond our everyday  experience of the perceived world around us. 
What is Sensory Ethnography
Sense and perception has always been part of ethnographic work, but it hasn’t always been emphasized. According to David Howes,  studies focused on sense perception have been documented as early as  the 16th century, when smell, auditory, and visual perceptions were  emphasized. In 20th Century ethnography, however, the senses took a  backseat. Switching again in recent years, with broadly accessible  digital video and auditory technologies, the senses have once again come  back into focus.
Read more about sensory ethnography here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Will Emojis be the death of writing? Are emojis modern day hieroglyphs? Is the increased use of emojis in textual conversations a sign of the end of language as we know it? Join us for one of our most popular conversations revisited! Your trusty hosts Ryan and Adam discuss the origin of emojis as well as the importance of actively seeking to understand the hidden biases of language.

What is an Emoji?
The term emoji originates from the japanese kanjis of “picture word”. Shigetaka Kurita  created the emoji in order to develop a way to send pictorial texts  using less data. Japanese phone users were sending pictures to convey  messages, but their phones were unable to handle the large amounts of  data involved in sending pictures, so Kurita created the emoji keyboard  that allowed for standard pictorial characters to be sent for the same  amount of data as a letter.
Read more on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In this Conversations episode of This Anthro Life, Adam Gamwell and guest host/TAL correspondent Matt Artz  explore the world of Design Anthropology with the help of Dr. Elizabeth  “Dori” Tunstall. Design Anthropology is a subject near and dear to our  hosts, who have been excited to devote an entire episode to the subject.  But, what is Design Anthropology? If you’re scratching your head, no  worries. Adam, Matt, and Dr. Tunstall have it covered and describe the  five iterations of design anthropology using examples of their use in  the field. Over the course of the episode Adam, Matt, and Dr. Tunstall  briefly cover issues of ethics within design anthropology as well as a  touching upon how to find jobs in design.   
Adam, Matt, and Dr. Tunstall also make time to get into the topics of whether:

the IRS is really as bad as popular culture makes them out to be.
How can we avoid cultural misappropriation?
And finally, how do value systems get expressed in design? 

“The goal of design anthropology is to create conditions of  compassion among human beings and conditions of harmony as it relates to  the natural world and all of the things that are within it” – Dr. Tunstall
Read more on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

Hey Listeners! Adam and Ryan are back from their brief summer hiatus (a time filled with fieldwork, dissertation writing, and travels abound) with new content, a fresh Patreon campaign, lined up interviews, an upcoming limited series on diversity in the university setting and much more! Support our new campaign on Patreon! Go ahead a click that nice image to visit our new page, to read about what we want to do, and how you can give securely. Just a dollar a month makes a huge difference for us! 
 
Kicking off the new season, Adam and Ryan dive into a new FreeThink  episode, in the style and length of our Conversations. In this episode,  they continue to make the case for why the world needs anthropology and  social science thinking more than ever. They also speak in favor of  interventionist anthropology in recognition of the plethora of social  issues, subaltern experiences, cultural miscommunications, and civil  tensions which are in the media’s focus more than ever.
With This Anthro Life’s new season we really want to emphasize the importance of our Patreon campaign.  Through Patreon, Adam and Ryan will engage listeners more directly  through new content, special episodes, video, and more. For the last 5  years, TAL has been almost entirely self-funded (though a huge thanks to  the few folks who have so generously contributed to the cause) and this  reality makes it difficult to produce the quality content you, our  listeners, have come to expect. But, we’re dedicated to persevering and  continuing because we believe in the anthropological focuses we discuss,  the content we produce, and in you, our listeners. We’re incredibly  humbled by the fact that we are soon to celebrate our 30,000th  subscriber and that our community continues to grow. We want to  celebrate this with you. Please take a moment to view our Patreon  page and choose which bracket is best suited for you. With any donation  you make, know that you are directly contributing to TAL and your  support means the world to us. TAL could not be produced without you and  it will continue to grow because of you.

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In response to several surveys that attempt to quantify happiness, Ryan, Adam, and Aneil spend this episode of This Anthro Life exploring happiness through the lens of fetishism. They discuss Daniel Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness, the film Happy, and more! They seek to answer the following questions: What kinds of things make us happy? How does happiness inhere in objects and how do we use objects to display our happiness? They end on a positive note by concluding that we have control over our happiness and suggesting a happy community may be a key part of being happy.  

In the episode we use the term fetish, made famous by Sigmund Freud, to mean something that points to something else.  It masks what is there (I.e. a statue of a deity that seems to be what  people are worshipping, but it is just a material thing that is pointing  to the deity). It can be any material type of the thing that points towards an abstract idea.
3 Ways Our Imagination Fails to Guide Us to Happiness

Our  imagination tends to add and remove details people might not recognize  that key details are fabricated or missing from their imagined  scenarios.
Imagined  futures and pasts are more like the present than they actually will be.  The future is not some far off thing. You are living the future.
Imagination fails to realize that things will feel different once they actually happen. We adjust to things. 

Read more on thisanthrolife.com

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

This episode is a little different from our normal content. In it we feature a presentation Adam gave for Pivotal Labs in which he explores This Anthro Life’s (and his own) developing philosophy about conversations and podcasting as social technologies and what the worlds of anthropology and podcasting can do. Some topics Adam touches on include: what anthropology does in the world, conversation as “little social laboratories”, mapping the contemporary podcast ‘cosmos’, podcasters as cultural brokers, and the kinds of stories we well as Charismatic Data. 
During this pseudo-episode (think of it like a Conversation meets a FreeThink) Adam asks the questions: What makes conversation a social technology? And how can data be charismatic?

During this pseudo-episode (think of  it like a Conversation meets a FreeThink) Adam asks the questions: What  makes conversation a social technology? And how can data be charismatic?
As Adam mentions, the audio recording during the talk got messed up,  so today we’re presenting you a ‘podcasted’ version of the talk edited  for length. You can check out the original talk on YouTube here, courtesy of Pivotal Labs. The original talk also includes much more about Adam’s research and TAL.
As always, remember TAL is an entirely self-funded labor of love, so  any help is always appreciated. We’ll be launching a Patreon campaign  soon for ongoing support. For now, please give securely at PayPal, every  bit makes a difference to us. 
Read the full story here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

This Anthro Life has teamed up with Savage Minds to bring you a special 5-part podcast and blog crossover series. While thinking together as two anthropological productions that exist for multiple kinds of audiences and publics, we became inspired to have a series of conversations about why anthropology matters today. In this series we’re sitting down with some of the folks behind Savage Minds, SAPIENS, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology to bring you conversations on anthropological thinking and its relevance through an innovative blend of audio and text.

In our fourth episode of the TAL + SM  collaboration Ryan and Adam chat with Dr. Kristina Killgrove about her  strategies for engaging popular audiences through writing. We start  by discussing interdisciplinary collaboration and its role in improving  writing. Then we explore Kristina’s strategies for choosing content to  cover in her blog, Powered by Osteons. We end by considering some ways anthropology has changed in terms of crowdfunding and the possibilities of open data.
Read the full story here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

This Anthro Life has teamed up with Savage Minds to bring you a special 5-part podcast and blog crossover series. While thinking together as two anthropological productions that exist for multiple kinds of audiences and publics, we became inspired to have a series of conversations about why anthropology matters today. We’re sitting down with some of the folks behind Savage Minds, SAPIENS, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology to bring you conversations on anthropological thinking and its relevance through an innovative blend of audio and text.

In our third episode of the TAL + SM crossover series (blog post here),  we explored SAPIENS’ approach to producing anthropological content for  popular audiences. Ryan and Adam were joined by the digital editor of  SAPIENS, Daniel Salas, to discuss the implications of using anthropology  to engage the public through journalism. The episode focused on the  questions How do you reconcile scientific and anthropological writing,  and is this mixture a new genre? Is there a balance to be found between  producing timeless “evergreen” stories versus current events focused  content for audience engagement? 
Read the rest here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

In the second conversation of the TAL + SM crossover series, Ryan and Adam were joined by AAA Executive Director Ed Liebow and Program Manager for Educational Outreach Leslie Walker. They explored the work of the AAA, the changing natures of work and research today, and critically assessed anthropology in terms of scope and impact.

Read the article here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

How do the hidden costs of technology, like social media and search engines, shape our lives in unforeseen ways?

In this compelling episode of This Anthro Life, we engage with filmmaker David Donnelly, delving into the depths of his documentary "Cost of Convenience." Donnelly's exploration uncovers the intricate web of consequences spawned by technology, spotlighting the covert toll of social media and search engine usage. Through a narrative woven with two years of intensive interviews and research, Donnelly unveils the unseen impacts of our digital age. The conversation traverses the power dynamics inherent in data collection, emphasizing the imperative of transparency. We advocate for a cultural shift, calling for an evaluation of our relationship with technology and its pervasive influence on modern society.

Explore the intricate repercussions of technology through David Donnelly's lens in "Cost of Convenience." Delve into two years of intensive research revealing unseen impacts.


Timestamp: 
0:00 The impact of digital technology on human experience, exploring themes of power, data collection, and mental health.
06:44 Data collection and surveillance in the tech industry.
14:27 The impact of technology on critical thinking and society.
17:48 Interdisciplinary approach to understanding complex problems.
23:10 The impact of algorithms on mental health and privacy.
30:37 The impact of online interactions on human connection and well-being.
33:28 The purpose of education and critical thinking.
38:04 The impact of algorithms on society, including privacy, wealth inequality, and discrimination.
43:47 AI bias, responsibility, and accountability in technology development.
49:08 Tech's impact on society, including mental health, aging, and consciousness.

Key takeaways

• Technology platforms that we use for free collect and sell our data, which can be used to predict our behavior more accurately than our minds.
• The lack of transparency in data collection and algorithmic decision-making gives those with access to the data a tremendous amount of power and influence.
• Our relationship with technology is causing a range of societal issues, including mental health problems, polarization, and misinformation.
• There is a need for a cultural paradigm shift and more informed citizenship to address the consequences of technology and advocate for transparency and control over data.

About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is a thought-provoking podcast that explores the human side of technology, culture, and business. Hosted by Adam Gamwell, we unravel fascinating narratives and connect them to the wider context of our lives. Tune in to https://thisanthrolife.org and subscribe to our Substack at https://thisanthrolife.substack.com for more captivating episodes and engaging content.  

Connect with David Donnelly:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dav_donnelly/?hl=en
Twitter: https://twitter.com/daviddonnelly?lang=en
  
Connect with This Anthro Life:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisanthrolife/ 
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisanthrolife 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/this-anthro-life-podcast/ 
This Anthro Life website: https://www.thisanthrolife.org/ 
Substack blog: https://thisanthrolife.substack.com 

This Anthro Life has teamed up with Savage Minds to bring you a special 5-part podcast and blog crossover series. While thinking together as two anthropological productions that exist for multiple kinds of audiences and publics, we became inspired to have a series of conversations about why anthropology matters today. For this series we’re sitting down with some of the folks behind Savage Minds, SAPIENS, the American Anthropological Association and the Society for American Archaeology to bring you conversations on anthropological thinking and its relevance through an innovative blend of audio and text.
Read the article here

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

We like to bring you some of our favorite conversations from our catalogue as we think about new ways to explore the topic. This week we’re bringing you our Visual Anthropology conversation split into two, digestible parts, so here’s part 2. Plus we (still) miss Aneil and wanted to hear his voice again. We hope you enjoy the conversation revisited with us! Join us for an ‘enlightening’ trip as we ‘shed some light’ on the world of sight, seeing, and visual anthropology. In this episode we explore the deep impact of visual culture across the globe and time from ancient Greece to the invention of photography to metaphors of knowledge, to genotypes and phenotypes, arrangement of food, and more!
If you like TAL, please drop us a 5-star review on iTunes or Stitcher or however you enjoy the podcast. If you are able, dropping us a couple of bucks makes a huge difference in making the show sustainable!


---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message

We like to bring you some of our favorite conversations from our catalogue as we think about new ways to explore the topic. This week we’re bringing you our Visual Anthropology conversation split into two, digestible parts. Plus we miss Aneil and wanted to hear his voice again. We hope you enjoy the conversation revisited with us! Join us for an ‘enlightening’ trip as we ‘shed some light’ on the world of sight, seeing, and visual anthropology. In this episode we explore the deep impact of visual culture across the globe and time from ancient Greece to the invention of photography to metaphors of knowledge, to genotypes and phenotypes, arrangement of food, and more!
 

Read More

---

Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message