Over Fifty Years of Global Research

Over Fifty Years of Global Research

By Caby Styers

New to the Anthropology department’s resources is an interactive map that features past doctoral research of the department.

https://unc.maps.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=52950f2405564a96a296b8e7edb8a95f

Working with Amanda Henley, Head of Digital Research Services, Davis Library Research Hub, the department is mapping 404 doctoral projects completed since 1952. The map shows how students have expanded their studies outside of the US from the earliest days of the department, as well as documenting what was happening in US communities.

The results show hundreds of dots scattered around a world map which can be selected to learn more about research done at that specific area of the world. Their tiny digital presence belies a demanding scholarly investment. Most “dots” involve at least a year of living in that area, years of language classes, funding applications, and preparatory trips. The initial map showed over 200 different research projects and therefore well over 200 years of research done by the Anthropology students.

We challenge you to find these three recent examples:

Amelia Fiske’s research in Ecuador. She spent a total of 27 months doing fieldwork in Ecuador in two different trips. Dr. Fiske received research funding from the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Mitchell Foundation, and the Mellon Dissertation Fellowship for Latin American Research.

Erin Nelson completed her dissertation on sites in the northern Yazoo basin of the Mississippi Delta region. She spent 11 total months in the field and conducted archival

research at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History in Jackson, Mississippi. The research was funded by NSF, The Center for the Study of the American South, the Timothy P. Mooney Fellowship, and The Graduate School at UNC. Over the course of her dissertation work, she trained more than 20 students in field and laboratory methods.

Ashley Carse went to Panama for his research project to look at the politics, ecology, and infrastructure of the Panama Canal. In addition to his 18 months of field work abroad, he also spent another 3 months in Washington

D.C. and Maryland doing archival research. Carse received a Smithsonian Short-Term Research Fellowship, the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, a Fulbright Student Award/Award Extension and a NSF IGERT Fellowship in Population and Environment.