AAA Meeting in D.C.

Our rental house in D.C, where we lodged for the week. The gorgeous fall colors were a treat for the San Diegan that has not quite discovered it is December

The holiday season has started, but that does not mean anthropologists have signed off for the year. Right after Thanksgiving, we headed to D.C to present our Panama research, or at least the results of our initial round of analysis, at the annual meeting of American Anthropological Association. Kathy and I presented a poster each, under the Gallery Section of the Late Breaking Sessions. You can see the session and our abstracts here: AAA Late Breaking Gallery Session 📷One poster was focused on the methodological issues involved in time-limited ethnographic research and the crucial role of the local knowledgeable informant to accomplish rigorous and informative ethnographic work in a short period of time. To download, click here: Rapid Assessment and the Crucial Role of the Informant

The other poster focused on intangible cultural heritage and tourism in Santo Domingo, and looking at conceptions of benefits and challenges involved in attracting more tourists. To download, click here: Will They Come? Intangible Cultural Heritage, Tourism, and Economic Policy in Santo Domingo, Panama Marino joined the meeting in D.C, so we had a great time getting to hang out again. I suspect we are getting him hooked on anthropology, at least he seemed to have a blast discussing with the other attendees, and is already considering next year's AAA meeting. Michelle was unfortunately unable to participate this time, but she submitted an abstract to be considered for next year's meeting of Society for Applied Anthropology. The nature of our data lends itself to being analyzed from several angles and we are thrilled that the process is moving forward.

Data entry, management and analysis is time-consuming. To accomplish this, we have the help of a student research assistant. Jason Lee is pursuing his BA in Cultural Anthropology at Ashford University, and started his work right after we returned from Panama. He is helping with transcribing, coding interviews, making nice photo presentations to spice up the posters, and much else. You will get to meet him here on the blog in the future.