October 30, 2017
Dr. Harriet Kupferer was one of the early PhDs in Anthropology from UNC- Chapel Hill. She was awarded her degree in 1961 upon completion of her dissertation, “The “principal people,” 1960: a study of cultural and social groups of the Eastern Cherokee.” She actively supported the growth of Anthropology in the Southeast U.S., serving as president of the Southern Anthropological Association in 1974-75, and as the founding chair of the Department of Anthropology at UNC-Greensboro, where she taught for twenty-three years.
Through a generous donation from Dr. Kupferer in 2010, Carolina’s Department of Anthropology established the Kupferer Award, a travel fellowship that supports the field research of first year doctoral students. Dawn Rivers and Sugandh Gupta share what they did with their funds this past summer.
“I spent the summer doing interviews with self-employed individuals here in the Triangle area. Each interview subject received a $20 honorarium as thanks for their participation in the research. There were numerous lunch meetings and much auto mileage accumulated. It sounds dull but the interviews were terrific and I managed to get some excellent data for my upcoming Master’s thesis.” – Dawn Rivers, second year graduate student.
” I spent one month during the summer interviewing and observing the residents of Jammu city, Jammu and Kashmir, India. As a psychologist and medical anthropologist, my research interests are two-fold. First, I am interested in exploring the current and emerging landscape of Jammu city because of its peculiar situatedness in the Indian geography and polity.
Second, I am interested in understanding What and How the youth of Jammu city is being impacted: affectively, psychologically, socio-culturally and politically. Currently I am examining the cultural motifs of addiction and dependency (both clinical and non-clinical) that have emerged significantly in my fieldwork.
The Kupferer fund by the Department of Anthropology, UNC-CH aided my summer. I used the fund to secure approvals from the ethical committee at the field-site; for traveling locally and supporting my accommodation at the field. ” – Sugandh Gupta, second year graduate student.