COLLABORATIVE ANTHROPOLOGY

Anthropology is a challenging discipline rooted in colonial mechanism of oppression. Many of its early practitioners and scholars were white men studying “the other,” with little space for underrepresented populations to participate in the discipline. In the last two decades, there has been a welcome sea change in anthropology, ushering in new ways of thinking that honor inclusion and offer critique of the discipline.

I use the four fields of the of the discipline—archaeological, cultural, biological and linguistic—to work alongside communities to preserve cultural narrative and practice. I have worked with Morman bike gangs in New Zealand, transgender activists in Singapore, and market vendors in Ghana. I worked with the Smithsonian-affiliated Ogden Museum of art to create the award-winning exhibition Where They At: New Orleans Bounce and Hip Hop in Words and Pictures.

I am the founder and executive director of Alces Community Works, a public anthropology organization working alongside community members in Wyoming to preserve and share multimedia stories of people and place.