[URBANTH-L]Press Release - SfAA Award Winners

[Society for Applied Anthropology]

July 1, 2008
 
 
Press Release
Winner of Margaret Mead Award for 2007 Announced
 
The Boards of the American Anthropological Association and the Society for
Applied Anthropology selected Prof. João Biehl to receive the Margaret Mead
Award for 2007.  Biehl was selected for his book Vita: Life in a Zone of
Social Abandonment, published by the University of California Press in 2005.
Biehl is currently an Associate Professor of Anthropology on the faculty of
Princeton University.
 
The Award was presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for
Applied Anthropology in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 28, 2008.
 
The Margaret Mead Award is sponsored jointly by the two associations and
presented annually.  The Award is presented to a young scholar for a
particular accomplishment that employs anthropological data and principles
in ways that make them meaningful and accessible to a broadly concerned
public.
 
The Award honors the memory of Margaret Mead who in her lifetime was the
most widely known woman in the world and arguably the most recognized
anthropologist.  Mead had a unique talent for bringing anthropology into the
light of public attention.  The Award was initiated in 1979 by the Society
and with Mead¹s approval.  It has been presented jointly with the American
Anthropological Association since 1983.
 
Before joining the Princeton faculty in 2001, Prof. Biehl was a National
Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He
earned a doctorate in anthropology from the University of California at
Berkeley (1999) and a doctorate in religion from the Graduate Theological
Union (1996). 
 
Contact the offices of either association for details.
 
American Anthropological Association
Kathy Ano  
703.528-1902
         
Society for Applied Anthropology
Melissa Cope
405.843.5113
 
Additional Information
 
Vita is an ethnography of social death and health care in a globalizing
Brazil.  It tells the story of a young woman living at Vita, an asylum for
the sick, mentally ill and poor in the southern city of Porto Alegre. Due to
a misdiagnosed neurodegenerative disorder, Catarina becomes paralyzed, is
considered insane and is abandoned by her family. Through intense listening
and proceeding like a detective, Biehl reconstructs Catarina¹s life history
and uncovers the multiple forces‹ economic, medical, political,
familial‹that brought her to Vita and that make such ungoverned institutions
of last resort proliferate in Brazil and beyond. As Biehl assesses the moral
and technological failures of the broader, industrialized society, he also
illuminates the edges of human imagination that Catarina and others at Vita
keep expanding. Biehl¹s analysis is beautifully complimented with a series
of extraordinary photographs (by Torben Eskerod), prompting a comparison
with the collaboration between James Agee and Walker Evans in the classic
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
 
Biehl earned undergraduate degrees in theology and journalism and a master¹s
degree in philosophy from academic institutions in Brazil. Vita has received
five other major book awards, including the Basker Prize from the Society
for Medical Anthropology and the Stirling Prize from the Society for
Psychological Anthropology.  Biehl¹s research and writing has been supported
by grants from the MacArthur and the Wenner-Gren Foundations. He wrote Vita
while a member of the School of Social Science of the Institute for Advanced
Study. He was a Visiting Professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes and
received the President¹s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton in
2005.
 
Prof. Biehl authored numerous articles and book chapters and co-edited the
volume Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (University of California
Press). Prof. Biehl recently published a new book, Will to Live: AIDS
Therapies and the Politics of Survival (Princeton University Press),
exploring the political economy and ethics of global AIDS treatment
initiatives.
 
 
 
Society Announces 2008 Bronislaw Malinowski Award
 
The Society for Applied Anthropology is pleased to announce that Prof.
Orlando Fals Borda has been selected as the recipient of the Bronislaw
Malinowski Award for 2008. Dr. Borda received the Malinowski Award at the
68th Annual Meeting of the Society in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Bronislaw Malinowski Award is presented to an outstanding social
scientist in recognition of efforts to understand and serve the needs of the
world's societies and who has actively pursued the goal of solving human
problems using the concepts and tools of social science.

Professor Fals Borda is best known for developing the theory and methodology
of Participatory Action Research (PAR), now widely used by applied
anthropological, educational, and medical practitioners working with local
communities. 

Orlando Fals Borda was born in Barranquilla, Colombia, on July 11, 1925.  He
studied English Literature and History for his B.A. at the University of
Dubuque, graduating in 1947. He received his M.A. in 1953 at the University
of Minnesota and his Ph.D. in Sociology in 1955 at the University of
Florida. Fals Borda then worked in Brazil as a consultant for the
Organization of American States. Returning to Colombia, he was the Director
General for the Ministry of Agriculture from 1959 until 1961. In 1957, he
co-founded the Faculty of Sociology at the prestigious Universidad Nacional
de Colombia, becoming the faculty¹s first dean and continuing in that role
until 1967. He is known as the ³father² of sociology in Colombia.
Prof. Fals Borda has served as President of the Research Committee on Social
Practice of the International Sociological Association and has won several
awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation award, the Hoffman
Prize from the United Nations, the Kreisky Prize from Austria, and the Medal
of Order of Boyacá, Colombia. He has been awarded the Doctor Honoris Causa
degree from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the Universidad Nacional
de Colombia, and universities of Boyacá and Antioquia.

Please contact the Offices of the Society for additional information or
visit the SfAA website (www.sfaa.net, click on "Awards").
 
  
Society Announces 2008 Sol Tax Distinguished Service Award
 
The Society for Applied Anthropology is pleased to announce that Lucy Cohen
has been selected as the recipient of the Sol Tax Distinguished Service
Award for 2008.  Dr. Cohen is an Anthropology Professor at the Catholic
University of America in Washington, D.C.  She was presented the Sol Tax
Award on March 28 at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society in Memphis,
Tennessee.

Prof. Sol Tax provided distinguished, innovative service to the field and to
anthropological societies.  The Sol Tax Distinguished Service Award,
initiated by the Society for Applied Anthropology in 2002 is presented
annually to a member of SfAA in recognition of long-term and truly
distinguished service to the Society.
 
Dr. Cohen graduated with a B.A. in 1965 from Mt. St. Mary's College in Los
Angeles, California. Two years later in 1958, she earned the Masters of
Social Work from The Catholic University of America.  In 1966 she earned her
Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America. Lucy was recruited in 1967 as
Chief of Program Evaluation for the first Community Mental Health Center
funded in the District of Columbia.

Two years later in 1969, she returned to The Catholic University of America
to a senior position in the Department of Anthropology with a joint
appointment in the School of Social Service.  Her deep interest in public
affairs in the District of Columbia led to a high level of involvement in
community affairs. She was selected to the Board of Trustees for the
University of the District of Columbia when the institution was in its early
stages. She also served on the Board of Trustees of a prominent foundation
with a wide-ranging impact on the District, the Eugene and Agnes Meyer
Foundation.

Prof. Cohen's role within the Society has been long and sustained.  She
assisted in the development of the policy that led to the first Malinowski
Award that the Society presented in 1973.  She has also served as the
Program Chair for an annual meeting and been active on committees within
SfAA, particular those that deal with women, immigration, and government
relations.

Please contact the SfAA Office for additional information or visit the SfAA
website (www.sfaa.net, click on ³Awards²).
 
 
 
2007 Peter Kong-ming New Award Winners Announced
 
The Board of Directors of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) is
pleased to announce that Christina Chauvenet has been awarded First Prize in
the Peter Kong-ming New Student Research Competition for 2007.  Ms.
Chauvenet won the New Award for her paper, First Line of Defense: Health
Care Agents and Childhood Cancer in Recife, Brazil.
 
The Award was presented on March 28th at the 68th Annual Meeting of the
Society in Memphis, Tennessee. Her paper was featured at a special session
of the Meetings.  Ms. Chauvenet received a cash prize of $1,000 and an
engraved Steuben crystal trophy.
 
Ms. Chauvenet is an undergraduate at Wake Forest University.  She will
graduate in 2008 with a major in Latin American Studies and political
science.
 
The Peter K. New Student Research Competition was initiated in 1990, and
honors the memory of the late Peter Kong-ming New, a distinguished medical
sociologist/anthropologist and former president of the Society. The annual
competition is open to students at all levels and is given to the best paper
which reports on an applied research project in the social/behavioral
sciences. 

The competition is sponsored by the Society for Applied Anthropology. The
first prize carries a cash award of $1,000, an engraved Steuben crystal
trophy, and travel funds to attend the annual meeting of the Society.

Honorable Mention was given to Melissa Stevens, a graduate student in the
Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, for her paper
Power Disparities in Community-Based Tourism Partnerships: A Vietnamese Case
Study and to Troy Wilson, graduate student, Department of Anthropology,
Washington State University, for his paper Growth, Scale, and Sustainability
in Washington's Apple Industry.
 
Please visit the SfAA webpage (www.sfaa.net, click on ³Awards²) for
additional information on the New Award or you may contact the SfAA Office
at 405-843-5113.