Anthropologist|MacArthur Fellow|President’s Professor|Director, Center for Global Health|Director, Cultural Anthropology Methods Program|Editor, Field Methods
Planning a methods class for the spring? Our new book has 71 lessons, activities & PPTs for teaching qual & mixed-methods.
Tried & true teaching guides, tested by 97 international methodologists. Book edited by
@DrRuth_Alissa
,
@russbernard
+me!
Maryvale (a neighborhood in Phoenix, AZ) is more than 75% Hispanic. The lack of available testing & increasing inequities in COVID-19+ rates in AZ Latinx communities is unacceptable, unjust, an outrage.
The work recognized here was coauthored with 440 brilliant scholars. Naming everyone, I was told, would be “worse than an Oscars speech”…but I claim you all & my proud role in a community of scholars and advocates working together to end water insecurity
My 129th paper is my 1st first-authored in American Anthropologist, our flagship journal
Written with 41
@hwise_rcn
coauthors, our 20-site study shows water sharing defies predictions from classic reciprocity literature
If at first your paper is rejected: try, try 129 times!
Announcing the new NSF Methods CAMP (Cultural Anthropology Methods Program: Advanced Research Training for Ph.D. Students). Just funded, this summer program offers 3-week intensive methods training for Ph.D. students, led by me,
@russbernard
, & 30+ anthropological methodologists.
"We can learn from how humans have survived water insecurity, across cultures and across human history, to overcome our own water challenges," says 2023
@macfound
Fellow,
@AWutich
,
@ASUBeingHuman
.
Learn more about Dr. Wutich’s achievements and work:
I'm a new AAAS Fellow! Honored to be considered a peer of anthropologists I've admired my whole career & to be nominated by colleagues whose mentorship and collaboration mean so much to me
Coverage of our newly funded NSF GCR grant. We take a justice-oriented, pro-poor, community-based participatory approach to address water insecurity in colonias in AZ, CA, NM, TX using water sharing, social infrastructure, and water treatment innovations.
I've been teaching online at ASU for >10 years. It takes about 140 hours to develop a high-quality online course. So let's manage expectations as we move teaching online.
Even so, we must lower COVID-19 transmission through social distancing. Thanks to all who pitch in!
I am hiring 2 postdocs: water & participatory methods.
1. Action for Water Equity: continues work of
@siianadela
on
APPLY:
2. Engineering with Nature: similar to work of
@natureB
APPLY:
DM me with Qs
APPLY FOR POSTDOC WITH ME: , funded by NSF, State of AZ, & USACE, on participatory water equity.
Our last 2 postdocs went on to TT jobs at R1 universities. To assess my work as a mentor & fit with your interests, pls see p. 32; 2-12
NSF Cultural Anthropology Methods Program (CAMP) offers 3-week intensive methods training for Ph.D. students. We're accepting applications until 3/15/21. Our COVID-adapted CAMP is online 6/28-7/16/21 at no cost. (2022-23 will be in-person) Visit to apply!
Honored to be awarded the Carol R. Ember Book Prize, with
@brewis_alex
, for our book “Lazy, Crazy, & Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health” (JHU Press)
The Fall 2020 Society for Anthropological Sciences Carol R. Ember Book Prize has been awarded to Lazy, Crazy, and Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) by Alex Brewis and Amber Wutich -
Our dept is offering a “Pandemic Pivot” Summer Fellowship for PHD students who need to retool dissertation plans.
This a fab innovation under
@ProfAbigailYork
’s leadership as grad director! Proud our program is working hard to meet students’ needs in this tough time.
Ph.D. Students APPLY NOW! NSF Cultural Anthropology Methods Program will be held online June 27th - July 15th, 2022. (Application deadline 3/15; Decisions by 4/8). Apply here! 1/11
Now accepting applications for NSF CAMP (Cultural Anthropology Methods Program for Ph.D. Students). Our COVID-adapted CAMP launches online June 28-July 16, 2021. (2022-23 will be in person)
Visit to learn more & apply to CAMP!
1/9
Water friends, our brilliant colleague
@frkearns
has a new book out (& it’s excitingly the
#1
release in its category). I just preordered & can’t wait to read it!
Open invitation: We're launching MAD WATER, a new field of research that is our best effort at convening global scholars to prevent severe water insecurity under worse-case (yet likely) climate change futures. Please read & consider lending your talents to this effort.
So I'm teaching social network analysis to my 10-year-old child (due to my limited teaching skills & homeschool desperation)... And my doctoral mentor
@russbernard
has just called to give him an impromptu guest lecture while I work. BEST. ADVISER. EVER.
My book baby with
@brewis_alex
, “Lazy, Crazy, Disgusting: Stigma and the Undoing of Global Health” is coming out in Sept 2019 from Johns Hopkins University Press. So excited!
@juliarburnham
Zoom background algorithm does not work for students with dark skin tones. It attaches the background to their faces, not their homes. Learned this, unfortunately, when I suggested students add backgrounds for equity and privacy. It was the opposite of an equitable solution 😔
Thank you
@raulpacheco
for your tireless & free-of-cost hidden curriculum work. At NSF Methods CAMP yesterday, we took a deep dive into your guidance on how to do literature reviews! 😍
Today, our community partner accepted my invitation to coauthor the 1st paper from our NSF Colonias Water Security & Sharing Study!
Anthropologists aren't trained this way, but I listened & learned: we need to secure funds to cover community partner writing time, if we value it.
Just ended 1st community partner meeting for NSF colonias water insecurity study.
We talked frankly on justice & extractive research. We asked to coauthor with colonias residents.
Thankful to all who fought & taught to change how scientists engage communities.
We *can* use collective action to improve this: shift up collaborative papers on your docket & invite on coauthors with loads of care-giving. 1st work I did when this pandemic began: write a new (unplanned) paper with 3 untenured mothers as co-authors. A fab writing experience!
New review! Easy-to-use framework for theorizing Water Scarcity & Security in Anthropology
Written in the pandemic's 1st year, I was grateful to work with brilliant early-career profs:
@tmontoya22
@WorkmanCl
@mhberesford
& Lucero Radonic
Free here:
1/5
New paper: Centralized water systems are failing under climate change. We propose modular, adaptive, and decentralized (“MAD”) water as an alternative, drawing on history & research on successful hybrid, & informal, non-networked systems
Open access:
Just published: Water sharing, a comprehensive cross-cultural review. This was meant to be the theoretical terrain of my dissertation. It only took 12 years and 19 coauthors to get there! Freely available:
New paper: outlines hypotheses linking water & mental health. Coauthored with brilliant colleagues, psychiatrist
@drdrtsai
& biocultural anthropologist
@brewis_alex
.
"Water and mental health" in WIRES-Water
A thread.
ASU students! We are hiring a student worker to help build story maps about water insecurity on the U.S.-Mexico border. Join this excellent NSF-funded team at
@KylCenter
! Job closes Feb. 1
NEW Water International special issue! "Water insecurity & the state: failure, disconnection & autonomy"
Edited by
@ProfessorJepson
, me, Vanessa Empinotti & Pedro Jacobi
Proud to have coauthored this new 4-field anthropology text with
@brewis_alex
,
@cindilsturtz
, Kelly Knudson & Chris Stojanowski with
@wwnorton
The book helps students understand how anthropology can build a better world through community-engaged research.
The Society for Applied Anthropology, founded in 1941, has been promoting community-based, participatory, action-oriented & applied research for nearly a century: anthropologists truly dedicated to helping save the world. An exceptional organization
Congratulations to longtime SfAA member Dr. Amber Wutich for being awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship this year to recognize and support her critical work on water insecurity, social infrastructure, and human well-being.
Our new stigma book is reviewed in Nature: "A hard-hitting study exposes the devastating effects of shame and discrimination" - Lazy, Crazy and Disgusting: Stigma & the Undoing of Global Health (with
@brewis_alex
)
I have two books on fat stigma coming out in 2021. Why is a water scholar working on fat stigma? Community-based participatory research (CBPR), that’s why! This a story of why I do one CBPR every 10 years…they are all-consuming, challenging, a serious commitment! 1/7
Faith Kearns is coming to work with us at ASU!!! As Director of Research Communications for our Arizona Water Innovation Initiative 🥳🎉
...best news ever (that I have been dying while keeping a secret)
Now for what is next: I am thrilled to say that next week I will be starting as the Director of Research Communications for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative with Arizona State University's Global Futures Laboratory!
In American Water Resources Association magazine: our simple explanation of how "social infrastructure"--cultural norms, informal institutions & social networks--helps address water insecurity. Focuses on water sharing, water vending & rainwater harvesting.
My
@HumBioAssoc
Pearl Lecture is published in AJHB. I explain why water insecurity research is so important right now, and how crucial biocultural anthropologists are to this emerging field. It was a wonderful chance to highlight the work of many amazing scholars!
@HWISE_RCN
World Water Reserve asked 13 water wonks: What's causing our current global water crisis & what actions are most crucial in mitigating it?
Here's my answer. Hope I did a decent job representing our views in
@HWISE_RCN
!
See more: Thx
@JeremiahCastelo
ASU asked me to provide inspirational thoughts on International Women’s Day — my answer was all about how the 1983 book “How to Suppress Women’s Writing” & the feminist prof who assigned it to me inspired me to write like crazy. And they printed it! Yes!!!
@DeondreSmiles
Very true. And also there’s a giant methodological literature on qualitative sample size — and none of it recommendeds anything near this, except in a handful of specific research designs. Just very silly & methodologically unjustifiable!
Thrilled to announce that
@siianadela
is joining our team as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Dr. Roque will lead our justice-oriented, pro-poor, community-based participatory work, as we take action for water equity in colonias. Welcome, Anais!
Coverage of our newly funded NSF GCR grant. We take a justice-oriented, pro-poor, community-based participatory approach to address water insecurity in colonias in AZ, CA, NM, TX using water sharing, social infrastructure, and water treatment innovations.
My mom (a 2nd grade teacher) sends me a paper on COVID-19 from medrxiv: "I know it's not peer reviewed, but it's still interesting." How great is she? Love it. And this is why open-access science is so valuable and so important.
Just ended 1st community partner meeting for NSF colonias water insecurity study.
We talked frankly on justice & extractive research. We asked to coauthor with colonias residents.
Thankful to all who fought & taught to change how scientists engage communities.
New paper! Reframes the water "trust" literature to focus on TRUSTWORTHINESS of the water system
Seriously brilliant & much-needed theoretical intervention led by
@NicoleJoyWilson
& amazing team. It was an honor to be a part of this effort.
An ASU undergrad just emailed to say her family was prepped, drilled, & safe in last week's tornadoes, thanks to the Disaster class
@siianadela
& I teach.
When I say we're teaching to save lives, I usually mean it more abstractly❤️
Important new paper from
@mhberesford
on embedded economics of water -- non-market exchanges & valuation; diverse water economies. It's an ambitious agenda that envisions a big tent & invites so many scholars inside. Exciting!
@HWISE_RCN
2023 is NSF Cultural Anthropology Methods Program (CAMP)'s final year of intensive funded methods training for Ph.D. students.
Apply by 1/31/23. Our COVID-adapted CAMP is online 3/24, 4/14, 5/5, 5/10-5/26 at no cost. (Acceptance by 3/1)
Visit to apply!
Join us for this talk! I can promise:
- Big integrative ideas for climate/water futures
- Talking about complex research like a normal person
- Half-baked assertions needing scientific scrutiny
- Explaining why I'm so bad at hand-flushing toilets
It will be fun. Please come!
Join us tomorrow for Mad Water, our
#TDWalterBean
Lecture with Amber Wutich (
@AWutich
), President’s Professor of Anthropology & Director of the Center for Global Health at
@ASU_CGH
. Don’t miss this talk on one of the greatest threats this coming century.
US profs, our students are not ok. Help where you can:
Does your university have emergency funds? Someone needs them.
Does your university have 24/7 counseling? Make sure students can contact it.
Do you have a big assignment due? Consider extensions or drop-the-lowest grade.
Excited to serve on the Editorial Board of the new Social Science & Medicine - Mental Health journal, edited by
@mendenhall_em
@drdrtsai
& Brandon Kohrt
Field Methods (IF=1.5) has a new format:
Short Takes are articles (less than 1500 words) on the application of methods. These brief articles, with step-by-step instructions, are meant to fill in gaps in the literature on the real how-to of existing methods.
Submit yours!
Congratulations to
@ProfessorJepson
on being awarded Texas A&M University Dean's Achievement Award for Research. She is a brilliant researcher and the inspired leader of our
@HWISE_RCN
collaboration.
This paper, during its conceptualization, utterly appalled my mentor and fave
@russbernard
. But, in the end, he agreed that "qualitative social network analysis" can be a-ok, IF it's methodologically rigorous & addresses network structure. This is the paper that convinced him.
New pub!
@AWutich
;
@mhberesford
; Bausch, J; Eaton, W;
@KathrynBrasier
; Williams, C; & Porter, S. "Identifying Stakeholder Groups in Natural Resource Management: Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Social Network Approaches." Society & Nat Res (2020).
I subscribe to AZ Republic to support our local reporters - many trained at
@Cronkite_ASU
- who are being furloughed & losing benefits right now when we need them most.
Since March, I work from home. I upgraded my internet.
My electric bill has significantly gone up bc my AC is constantly on. I’m paying for unused parking. I was furloughed
Today,
@Gannett
said it’s cutting retirement benefits.
Why would anyone want to work for this company?
Check out the paper that was wildest intellectual ride of my academic career so far. A brian meld between
@brewis_alex
&
@meehanmonster
was almost too much brilliance to handle! Luckily
@mhberesford
was there to make it make sense 😂
Congratulations to
@ASU_CGH
Center for Global Health Founding Director &
@ASUBeingHuman
President's Professor
@brewis_alex
on the Conrad M. Arensberg Award.
The award honors Dr. Brewis' visionary work furthering anthropology as a natural science
Join us for conversation about COVID-19, sponsored by the New York Academy of Sciences Anthropology Division. Honored to be a panelist with
@Thurka149
@juemos
Merrill Singer, and Shirley Lindenbaum. Monday April 20, 2020, 6:30PM EST/3:30PM PST
Reviewer 2 has pasted a *block quote* from one of my decade-old papers into his review. So I could see how important my own argument was. Y’all, I am unexpectedly delighted and charmed by this experience.
Fellows in the 2021 NSF Cultural Anthropology Methods Program are ready & excited for our Showcase celebration, where they present their projects nationally!
New volume on “Rethinking Environmentalism: Linking Justice, Sustainability & Diversity” from Strungmann Forum and MIT Press. Thanks to editors Sharad Lele, Eduardo Brondizio, John Byrne, Georgina Mace & Joan Martinez-Alier. And of course Julia Lupp!
Just got a big batch of submissions to Field Methods from women first-authors. And we haven't seen clear gender disparities in submissions over the last few months. Encouraging.
Congratulations to all the NSF Cultural Anthropology Methods Faculty who helped build our comprehensive online curriculum in our Oct. workshop. We look forward to the CAMP International kickoff in summer 2024!
With Directors
@russbernard
@robingnelson
@DrRuth_Alissa
@mhberesford
🔥 off the presses (quite literally when dropped at your door at noon in Arizona mid summer). Was a 🤩 project to do, working with an amazing team
@cindilsturtz
Sarah Trainer
@AWutich
@jessicaahardin
. + ❤️ to
@mendenhall_em
for the generosity of the forward!
Spent this morning catching up on
@aballes2
's stunning 2019 body of work. Her book, A Future History of Water, is still available for free download, and the Annual Review of Anthropology article on water adeptly covers recent terrain in our field. Huge congratulations,
@aballes2
!
My book A future History of Water is out!
Thanks to
@fondrenlibrary
it is Open Access! You can download here: If you would rather buy a paper copy this code E19WATER gives you a 30% discount from
@DukePress
New methods paper: we compare mixed-method analyses of social network interviews to identify stakeholder groups. We found qual (theme) analysis was more efficient than quant (component) analysis, in that it yielded a stable result within 16 interviews. with
@mhberesford
& friends
Using data from over 1000 anthropologists-who-teach in North America, we compare best practices for learning ethnographic methods to how they are taught... and find need for improvement-and may good practices too. Read open access.
@DrRuth_Alissa
@AWutich
Loved toasting & roasting lead author
@brewis_alex
while accepting the HBA award for our anti-stigma book Lazy Crazy Disgusting!
Thanks HBA for being a wonderful community,
@asher_rosinger
for nominating us,
@BarbaraPiperata
for moral support & recording it all ❤️
It was an honor to speak about water inequity & water insecurity with the
@PHXWater
Citizens' Advisory Committee. Thank you
@PHXWaterDir
&
@DCDC_ASU
for inviting me.
This summer, 40 of our ASU faculty show up *every week* to discuss the pandemic & our teaching. It's not required. There stopped being new information weeks ago. I actually think we all just want to see each other. It's quite sweet really. I love it at
@ASUBeingHuman
💜
Congratulations Dr. Christine DeMyers on your successful PHD defense & new job as Anthropologist at Water Institute of the Gulf!
@DCDC_ASU
@ASUBeingHuman
@ASU_CGH
New Foundations of Global Health reader just arrived! Feeling honored that my work on water and mental health, with
@brewis_alex
, was included alongside Vikram Patel, Paul Farmer, & many other GH luminaries. Thanks, Svea Closser & Peter Brown!
The 1st
@HWISE_RCN
in Elementary School Lesson on
#WaterInsecurity
and
#HumanRightToWater
for 8-11 year olds has launched. Students loved carrying 10 L of water (aka 22 lbs of rocks) to get a better feel for JMP Basic access.
They voted on the best tool for HRW monitoring...
Our lab’s postdocs, Dr. Anais Roque (
@siianadela
) & Dr. Barbara Quimby (
@natureB
), won 2 of the 6 ASU Knowledge Mobilization Awards for action-forward, socially-impactful research!
So proud of this citizen social science research, led by
@cindilsturtz
. We show how citizen social scientists bring valuable insights from lived experience to observational research.
Part of our
@ASU_CGH
efforts to develop & test new participatory methods!
✈️ to DC to give a keynote at the Inter-American Development Bank
@el_BID
on Water Security. Excited to share phenomenal research from
@DCDC_ASU
@HWISE_RCN
Join us for the AAAS Panel on Water Insecurity in the Global North on Tuesday Feb. 9 at 11:00 am (AZ), with HWISE members
@siianadela
, Lucero Radonic,
@ProfessorJepson
,
@brewis_alex
& me
What people call "cancel culture" is norm enforcement.
It's how people with low social power collectively oppose & change norms they can't accept. (People with high social power write a letter in Harper's.)
Compared to stigma, canceling is less dangerous: it's reversible.