Welcome to the Department of Anthropology!

Anthropology is the integrative study of human beings at all times and in all places. Within this broad field of study, three programs of foundational training form the focus of our department: Archaeology; Human Biology, Ecology, and Evolution; and Sociocultural Anthropology and Ethnography.

We cross cut these specializations with five concentrations to integrate anthropology’s diverse expertise. Our current concentrations focus on: Health, Medicine, and Humanity; Heritage and Unwritten Histories; Global Engagement; Race, Place, and Power; and Food, Environment, and Sustainability.

June 25, 2021
To: UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees
From: The Race, Difference, and Power Concentration, Department of Anthropology
Date: June 25, 2021

Re: Open Letter to the Board of Trustees Concerning Academic Integrity at UNC-Chapel Hill

As faculty and students who study the ways that race, difference, and power manifest in our
relationships, experiences, identity, politics, and agency, we are committed to building a vibrant
and just Carolina community. We join our colleagues from units all across campus in voicing
concern about recent events at UNC-Chapel Hill—especially those threatening academic
integrity—that indicate our institution is in crisis and in need of immediate action.

From the UNC Board of Trustees’ refusal to review the faculty’s recommendation that journalist
Nikole Hannah-Jones be appointed with tenure; to the statements of a growing number of women
faculty of color who have chosen to publicly share their reasons for leaving UNC and the
difficulties they face in staying; to UNC Student Body President Lamar Richards’ open letter
informing the Carolina community to brace for genuine reckoning; to Faculty Chair Mimi
Chapman’s need to call the campus to action, we are alarmed about the gravity of these
escalating events that endanger our institution, our campus community and our collective ability
to thrive. More specifically, we are facing threats to academic freedom; to institutional efforts to
promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; and to the health and wellbeing of our
scholarly community. This is no way for faculty, students, or staff to live.

We urge the Board of Trustees to consider carefully the faculty’s recommendation and vote on
Hannah-Jones’ tenure case and to ensure it is acting in the best interests of the university, not
those of outside parties. We also call upon our leadership at all levels to uphold the values of
academic freedom, diversity, scholarly integrity, and public service that will always be central to
a flourishing public university.

Respectfully,
Members of the Race Difference and Power Concentration, UNC Department of Anthropology
Karla Slocum, Thomas Willis Lambeth Distinguished Chair, Professor of Anthropology
Angela Stuesse, Associate Professor, Anthropology & Global Studies
Ariana Avila, PhD Student, UNC Department of Anthropology
Patricia A. McAnany, Kenan Eminent Professor & Chair, Department of Anthropology
Anna Agbe-Davies, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Donald M. Nonini, Professor, Anthropology Department2
Glenn Hinson, Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Anthropology
Townsend Middleton, Associate Professor, Anthropology
Caela O’Connell, Assistant Professor, Anthropology and E3P
Lucía Stavig, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Francesca Sorbara, PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Valerie Lambert, Associate Professor of Anthropology
Additional Anthropologists, UNC Department of Anthropology and Beyond
Gabrielle C. Purcell, graduate student, anthropology department
Michele Rivkin-Fish, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Lillian Ondus, 2021 UNC Anthropology M.A. Alumna
Mara Buchbinder, Professor of Social Medicine, Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology
Cayla Colclasure, PhD Student, Anthropology
Aaron Delgaty, Teaching Assistant Professor, Anthropology
Christopher Nelson, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Margaret Wiener, Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of
Anthropology
Benjamin Arbuckle, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, UNC-CH
Lauren Leve, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies
Jocelyn Chua, Associate Professor, UNC Anthropology
Colin Thor West, Associate Professor – Anthropology
Dawn Rivers, Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology
Geoffrey R. Hughes
Colleen Betti
Molly Drilling, Academic Advisor in the Academic Advising Program and IDST 290 Instructor
Sierra Roark, Graduate Student, Anthropology
Peter Redfield, Professor Emeritus, UNC Chapel Hill
Silvia Tomaskova, Druscilla French Distinguished Professor, UNC Chapel Hill
Amanda Thompson, Professor, Anthropology

Cc: Kevin Guskiewicz, Chancellor
Mimi Chapman, Chair of the Faculty

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Concerning the Possession and Unethical Use of the Remains of the Children of MOVE and the Africa Family: A Statement in Solidarity with the Association of Black Anthropologists, the Society of Black Archaeologists, and the Black in Bioanthropology Collective

April 29, 2021

Thirty-six years ago, the Philadelphia Police Department bombed the residence of the MOVE family, and killed eleven family members, including five children. Those same bombs also destroyed 61 adjacent residences – more than an entire city block. At the time, it was widely believed that the remains of those killed in the fire had not been located. However, it has now come to light that the skeletal remains of at least one child in this extended Black family have been kept by two biological anthropologists rather than returned to the surviving family members. Worse yet, these bones have been regularly exhibited in a virtual bioanthropology course taught by one of these anthropologists.

The members of the Race Difference and Power Concentration of the Anthropology Department at UNC Chapel Hill emphatically endorse the statement by the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA), the Society of Black Archeologists (SBA), and the Black in Bioanthropology Collective (BiBA) demanding that the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Department of Anthropology of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University immediately take restorative and reparative measures that redress the unethical treatment of MOVE family remains. We deplore and condemn the callous acts employed in the treatment of these remains, unethically kept for three decades from MOVE family members within a purportedly “scientific” skeletal collection. This is yet another example of the failure of the anthropological discipline to fully come to terms with its history and legacy of racialized anthropology, which must come to an end immediately.

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Prompted by hate crime in Atlanta, the Race, Difference, and Power Concentration has prepared a statement of solidarity with the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, naming the particular inflections of anti-Asian xenophobic White supremacy and their consequences and calling for action.

You can find the statement at the RDP website.

Statement in Solidarity with AAPI Communities against Hate

March 21, 2021

As members of the UNC Chapel Hill community, we condemn in the strongest terms the recent murders of eight people in Atlanta, six of them Asian and Asian-American women, as a hate crime promoted by the anti-Asian and misogynist rhetoric of White supremacy. Such xenophobic and misogynist ideologies associated with White settler colonialism in the United States date back at least to the anti-Chinese immigration laws of the 1880s, fueling the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII, the exclusion of Asians from naturalized citizenship until the 1950s, and the verbal harassment and physical violence that has proliferated for decades and escalated over the past year.

We, members of the concentration on Race, Difference and Power within the Department of Anthropology, urge the University, civil society organizations, and local, state, and federal authorities to work to protect people of Asian descent and to ensure their safety on campus and in the United States. We also offer our deepest sympathies to the family members of those who have been murdered and assaulted, and we commit to stand in solidarity with people of Asian descent against the current and future attacks.

In love and solidarity we say their names: Daoyou Feng, 44; Paul Andre Michels, 54; Xiaojie Tan; Delaina Ashley Yaun, 33; Hyun J. Grant, 51; Suncha Kim, 69; Soon C. Park, 74; Yong A. Yue, 63 and the sole survivor Elcias Hernandez-Ortiz, 30

Department News

Anthropologist working in the Tech Industry

July 14, 2021 UNC Anthropology PhD alum, Lindsey Wallace, has edited a collection of essays about anthropologists working in the tech industry for SCA’s “Hot Spots”. Click here to view the collection.

Anthropology Professor and Graduate Student Article

Anthropology professor Benjamin Arbuckle assisted in editing a special edition of the journal ‘Animal Frontiers‘ that came out recently. Professor Arbuckle and Anthropology graduate student, Theo Kassebaum, also co-wrote an article for the journal, which can be found here.

Anthropology Class of 2021 Virtual Commencement

May 16, 2021 From everyone in the Department of Anthropology at UNC Chapel Hill – Congratulations to all of our 2021 graduates!! To watch the video of our virtual commencement, click here.

Department Celebrations

May 12, 2021 Further achievements by our graduate students: Anusha Hariharan has been awarded a 2021 Charlotte Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in support of the writing of her dissertation entitled, “‘In Solidarity: Feminist Friendship, Care and Ethical Life in Southern … Continued

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