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This Anthro Life
This Anthro Life episodes
- The Fight to Save Cultural Memory with Charles HenryInterdependence is the idea that the wellbeing of our world and for our physical and emotional selves depends on those around us, yet when we find ourselves up against a challenge bigger than ourselves, our sense of interdependence becomes stronger.
When we move that scale even larger (i.e. a global climate crisis), interdependence becomes paramount. Climate change not only affects our everyday lives, but affects cultural history and cultural artifacts such as books and architectural styles, as well as more ephemeral practices like theater, song and language.
How well we are able to face these challenges has to do with how we tell stories. How well we tell stories depends on what we choose to protect, preserve, and make prosper in our cultures. If you’ve used the Internet in the last 20 years, or 20 minutes, you know that there isn’t a lack of information or stories online, but how much of our and others’ cultural heritage exists digitally, how accessible is it, and who is able to contribute?
These are questions that Charles Henry engages with in this episode. Charles is the president of the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), a nonprofit that works with libraries, cultural institutions, and higher learning communities to improve research, teaching, and learning environments.
Check out the Council on Library and Information Resources: https://www.clir.org/about-us/history/
Digital Library of the Middle East, one of the world’s largest online archives of Middle Eastern and North African artifacts. https://www.clir.org/2020/07/clir-and-stanford-libraries-announce-digital-library-of-the-middle-east-platform/
The HBCU Library Alliance Partnership, which is a long-term partnership to foster awareness of and access to collections held by Historically Black Colleges and Universities. https://www.clir.org/initiatives-partnerships/hbcu-library-alliance/
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.53 min - On Being Heard and Learning to Listen with Nethra SamarawickremaWhen we think about social science and social scientists working out in the world, we tend to jump to the science part, you know jobs that focus on research - consumer research, user experience research, or qualitative studies for non-profits. But if you have any experience with therapy, whether as a patient or therapist, worked with a career or life coach, or anything to do with conflict mediation, you might have noticed there’s more than a little overlap in skill sets with anthropology.
I have been really fortunate to get to know Nethra Samarawickrema, co-founder of the Listen Up Lab, an anthropologist and coach and all around calming presence - something we need more of today.
What’s her secret? Well a lot of things, but one I want to pull out here is her application of a mode of listening called Nonviolent Communication. Nethra reveals the common connection between anthropology and nonviolent communication that drew her to both and shows how they complement one another. Think about things like withholding judgment, active listening, situated perceptiveness.
If this episode sounds good to you, I highly recommend you check out our conversation with Jeremy Pollack on how to manage social conflict, communicate effectively and finding common ground. These episodes complement one another really well.
https://www.thisanthrolife.org/how-to-manage-social-conflict-communicate-effectively-and-find-common-ground-with-jeremy-pollack/
Listenup Lab: https://www.listenuplab.com/
Listen Up Lab is running a 2-day online workshop called FLOW to support writers and artists with unblocking themselves on April 23 and 24th, 2022. The details and sign up information can be found here: https://www.listenuplab.com/course-content-flow
Nethra would love to connect with people who might be interested in coaching related to work, creativity, or getting in touch with their needs in their relationships. She offers free introductory hour-long coaching sessions that folks can sign up for on my website here: https://www.workwithnethra.com/
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.54 min - Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency Revolution with Mick MorucciIf you’re alive in 2022 you’ve probably heard of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Whether you’re an active trader, just dabble, or think you’d never touch the stuff, cryptocurrency raises a fascinating challenge to the question of what is money? And how can technology fundamentally reshape how we engage in finance and social life? Is crypto a revolution?
If you're listening to this episode in early 2022, then you're probably well aware of the ongoing inflation and commodity price increases both in the United States and globally. You know, money and finance are often the table stakes of how we think about navigating life today. That can both be part of the background or very much in the foreground of our minds, depending on how things are going. And as we wrestle with economic uncertainty in the wake of war, a changing climate and geopolitical shifts things can feel bleak. But at these moments, it's important to stay curious and ask where and how are we trying to make things better? And this is a bit about where that revolutionary technology part just might come in.
Mick Morucci is a crypto-anthropologist, Bitcoin expert and the co-founder of geyser.fund, and NFT social discovery platform. He’s also a prolific writer and publishes regularly on Bitcoin, block chain technologies and NFTs.
In this episode we explore:
- the cultural and financial origins of Bitcoin
- what is a blockchain
- money as information and story
- open source technologies
- why decentralization matters
- privacy and surveillance
and more!
https://www.mickmorucci.com/
https://geyser.fund/
Check out some of Mick's writing:
Bitcoin as a Divine Idea - https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-as-a-divine-idea
Why Anthropologists are More Interested in Bitcoin than Economists - https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/anthropologists-are-interested-in-bitcoin
The Social Experience of NFT Art - https://forefront.news/blog/feat-mick-social-experience-of-nft
Episode produced by Adam Gamwell
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.50 min - Deep Storytelling: Bicultural History and Fiction with Andrew RowenIt's a common truism that history is often written by the victors, but it is equally true that the actual story is more complicated. One of the most poignant examples of this is the "discovery" of the new world by Christopher Columbus.
So today I am super excited to have author Andrew Rowen back on the podcast. Andrew caught our attention back in 2017 for his book encounters, "Unforeseen 1492 Retold", which rather than another single sided story is a bicultural retelling that portrays the life stories of both Columbus and the TaĂno chieftains from their youth to their encounters during the invasions of 1492.
Andrew is back to talk about the sequel "Columbus and CaonabĂł 1493 to 1498 Retold". In this episode, we explore Andrew's rationale for producing a bicultural series of novels and choosing historical fiction over historical nonfiction in order to bring to life the context thought processes and perspectives of people present at the time in the 15th century.
This also meant writing in a way that doesn't prescribe how events would turn out because of course, folks in the 15th century had no idea what was going to happen. The 1493 to 1498 epoch also entailed some of the most challenging aspects to explore such as the growing discontent between TaĂno chieftans and Spaniards, Columbus' continual insistence on enslavement, the role of disease and sickness in cross-cultural encounters and the political machinations of queen Isabella and king Ferdinand. This episode has a bit of everything, you know, whether you're interested in the world of the 15th century and, or you're curious about the process of writing historical fiction, including how to do archival and on-site research and do character development in ways that make sense with the research that you're finding and the challenges of telling bicultural histories in respectful and honest ways.
Website: AndrewRowen.com
Facebook: @andrewsrowen
Production: Adam Gamwell
Editing: Craig Stanton
Music: Crackle and Chop, Epidemic Sounds
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.1 hr 11 min - Build Better Worlds: Anthropology for Game Design, Film and WritingHave you wondered why fantasy stories mostly are just copies of Medieval Europe? Why pop culture has been so obsessed with zombies? Or why Black Panther and the Falcon and the Winter Soldier seemed to hit the right chord at the right time for American conversations on race? To answer these questions, we're diving into world building, the process of creating realized worlds for (mostly) fictional stories and how anthropology could literally change the game.
On this episode Astrid Countee joins Adam Gamwell to co-host a conversation with the very dynamic duo of biological anthropologist/archaeologist Kyra Wellstrom and cultural anthropologist Michael Kilman. Kyra and Michael are educators and authors, and their latest book caught our attention because it does two things at once. First, it serves as an introductory textbook for anthropology students, digging into key ideas like culture, ritual, food, power and death. But second, it’s premised around how to use anthropology for building better world for game design, fiction writing, and filmmaking.
Building a better worlds is about creating more authentic characters based on actual science and data on culture. Thus the book is both an introductory text for anthropology students and creators.
Production: Adam Gamwell
Music:
Take 2 - Pro Rees
A Nifty Piece of Work - New Fools
Ragtime - peerless
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.1 hr 4 min - Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 Years of Consciousness with Charles FosterCharles Foster set out to answer one of the most perplexing questions of all - what sort of creatures are we humans? - in one of the most unique ways possible: immersing himself in experiences that evoke three central epochs in the development of consciousness - the upper Paleolithic, around 40k years ago, the neolithic, around 10k years ago when humans invented/stumbled upon and couldn’t get out of agriculture, and the Enlightenment, which ushered in the scientific revolution in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Interested in checking out Charles' new book Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 years of Consciousness? We've got copies to give away!
Music: Epidemic Sounds
Intro - Jazz Bars - Dusty Decks
Outro - Up & Down - Toby Tranter
Editing: Craig Stanton
Research: Kiera Myles
Production: Adam Gamwell
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.57 min - Podcasting and the Other Side of Storytelling - Reflecting on TAL's 8th BirthdayThis Anthro Life turned 8 years old in October 2021. That's a long time for a podcast. When recently invited to share what I've been working on for a newsletter, TAL's 8th birthday got me thinking about what I've learned working between anthropology and podcasting for almost a decade.
I've fancied myself a public anthropologist for a while, but it has been podcasting, and working in an unusual medium (for anthropology) that has taught me some of the most important lessons for what public anthropology actually is.
Music - Epidemic Sounds
Lenzer - A Fork Fight
Yomoti - Fansi Pan
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.8 min - Learning Forensics, Applying Anthropology with Gabriella CampbellIt's not everyday I get to talk with other anthropology podcasters, and even more infrequently that I get to talk with undergraduate anthropology podcasters. I'm joined on the show today by Gabriella Campbell, Gabriella is a senior at University of California Santa Barbara where she focuses on forensic anthropology, both contemporary and ancient. She's also the creator and host of That Anthro Podcast, a weekly interview show that explores the world of bioarchaeology, bones, forensics and more. Gabriella and I dig into what it's like to work in forensics while learning the trade. This includes some crucial and fascinating forensic recovery work she’s doing in response to the Monteceto mudslides.
We dig into:
- Applying forensic anthropology to the Montecito mudslides
- Contemporary forensics vs ancient forensics
- How to teach anthro earlier in kids' education, early education projects
- On podcasting, creativity and learning to trust our instincts
- Advice for undergrads - from an undergrad
Check out:
That Anthro Podcast
That Anthro Podcast Instagram
Music:
Duracell - Jontha Links
Epidemic Sounds
Episode Art: Adam Gamwell
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.56 min - Learning Forensics, Applying Anthropology with Gabriella Campbell
It's not everyday I get to talk with other anthropology podcasters, and even more infrequently that I get to talk with undergraduate anthropology podcasters. I'm joined on the show today by Gabriella Campbell, Gabriella is a senior at University of California Santa Barbara where she focuses on forensic anthropology, both contemporary and ancient. She's also the creator and host of That Anthro Podcast, a weekly interview show that explores the world of bioarchaeology, bones, forensics and more. Gabriella and I dig into what it's like to work in forensics while learning the trade. This includes some crucial and fascinating forensic recovery work she’s doing in response to the Monteceto mudslides.
We dig into:
- Applying forensic anthropology to the Montecito mudslides
- Contemporary forensics vs ancient forensics
- How to teach anthro earlier in kids' education, early education projects
- On podcasting, creativity and learning to trust our instincts
- Advice for undergrads - from an undergrad
Check out:
That Anthro Podcast
That Anthro Podcast Instagram
Music:
Duracell - Jontha LinksÂ
Epidemic Sounds
Episode Art: Adam Gamwell
---Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thisanthrolife/message56 min - Don't Sell Yourself Short: How to Create a Career PlanA job search strategy is essential, but what if you don’t even know what to look for or what you want to do? A career plan is something you can do before job searching to define the kind of work you want to do and how to engage with like minded people, so you’ve got opportunities and pathways to work you’ll find fulfilling and meaningful, regardless of industry.
While some old-school academics might see creating a career plan as selling out, Career Coach and Strategist Amy Santee and Design + Business Anthropologist Adam Gamwell, say you’re selling yourself short if you don’t. In this seminar we’ll share stories from our experiences and walk you through creating your own plan across defining your values, mapping your journey, finding your people and trying your voice.
Whether you’re a student and looking for your first job, a mid career professor or industry insider and curious about what else is out there, a career plan is relevant for anyone.
We’ll dig into defining your values as a starting point, mapping a vision of your future by looking at your past, how to take action on your plan, and learning to trust your intuition as much as the data you gather. Today's episode is a slice from a workshop series Adam Gamwell put together with Prof Jonathan Anjaria of Brandeis University.
Amy Santee Career Coaching
Amy's LinkedIn
Jon Anjaria
Brandeis University Anthropology
Episode production and art: Adam Gamwell
Music Epidemic Sounds:
Sweet Talk - Tyra Chanty
Zanzibar - Jones Meadow
About This Anthro Life:
This Anthro Life is your podcast for thought leadership at the intersection of culture, work, and storytelling. We bring you interviews and insights for business leaders, design thinkers, researchers, and anyone curious about how culture shapes our lives.
Explore more episodes and subscribe to our newsletter at thisanthrolife.org and join our Substack community at thisanthrolife.substack.com.38 min
About This Anthro Life
From the publisher's feed
Unearth the creative potential of humanity with This Anthro Life, a podcast exploring culture, design, business, and technology. Spearheaded by acclaimed Anthropologist Dr. Adam Gamwell, This Anthro…
Life equips leaders, individuals, and organizations to shape a more human and compassionate future. TAL helps broaden perspectives and decision-making skills through a profound understanding of culture and the transformative power of storytelling.
With curated conversations and thought-provoking discussions featuring humanity's top makers and minds, prepare to have your perspective transformed. This Anthro Life delves into various facets of human society—from examining the complexities of cultural identity to understanding the influence of technology on our everyday lives.
🌍 Change Your Perspective
Explore the complexities of life in a simple and engaging way. From AI and robotics revolutionizing the nature of work to emojis changing how we communicate, we delve into the forces shaping our world. No topic is off-limits—fossil fuels and their impact on our planet, the race to find alternative energy solutions, and so much more.
🎙️ Captivating Conversations
Go beyond surface-level discussions with deep dives into fascinating topics. Dr. Adam Gamwell's interviews are thought-provoking, enlightening, and always entertaining. Carefully crafted questions ensure engaging conversations that are free from jargon, making them accessible to listeners of all backgrounds.
✨ Key Takeaways
Gain valuable insights from each episode that you can apply to your own life. Discussing wisdom gained from the edges of society, we extract impactful quotes and actionable ideas from our guests. Expand your horizons and develop a fresh perspective on the challenges we face as individuals and as a global community.
🔊 Join the Community on Substack
Subscribe to "This Anthro Life" now for a weekly dose of eye-opening conversations. Share the podcast with friends and family who crave intellectual stimulation and diverse discussions. Be a part of the movement to change how we approach design, culture, business, and technology.
Beyond offering an engaging outlook on human experiences, This Anthro Life lends its anthropological expertise to businesses, organizations, and individuals. We help them navigate challenges with effective communication techniques and innovative problem-solving strategies rooted in a nuanced understanding of human behavior and social structures. Get in touch.
Join us on this captivating voyage of storytelling at the crossroads of culture, design, technology and business. We're excited to collaborate with you in shaping a more compassionate world through an enriched narrative of the human experience. Experience breakthrough perspectives on human experiences and come away equipped to make enriched decisions that contribute positively to your sphere. Join us as we shape a more connected, hopeful narrative - one human story at a time.
With curated conversations and thought-provoking discussions featuring humanity's top makers and minds, prepare to have your perspective transformed. This Anthro Life delves into various facets of human society—from examining the complexities of cultural identity to understanding the influence of technology on our everyday lives.
🌍 Change Your Perspective
Explore the complexities of life in a simple and engaging way. From AI and robotics revolutionizing the nature of work to emojis changing how we communicate, we delve into the forces shaping our world. No topic is off-limits—fossil fuels and their impact on our planet, the race to find alternative energy solutions, and so much more.
🎙️ Captivating Conversations
Go beyond surface-level discussions with deep dives into fascinating topics. Dr. Adam Gamwell's interviews are thought-provoking, enlightening, and always entertaining. Carefully crafted questions ensure engaging conversations that are free from jargon, making them accessible to listeners of all backgrounds.
✨ Key Takeaways
Gain valuable insights from each episode that you can apply to your own life. Discussing wisdom gained from the edges of society, we extract impactful quotes and actionable ideas from our guests. Expand your horizons and develop a fresh perspective on the challenges we face as individuals and as a global community.
🔊 Join the Community on Substack
Subscribe to "This Anthro Life" now for a weekly dose of eye-opening conversations. Share the podcast with friends and family who crave intellectual stimulation and diverse discussions. Be a part of the movement to change how we approach design, culture, business, and technology.
Beyond offering an engaging outlook on human experiences, This Anthro Life lends its anthropological expertise to businesses, organizations, and individuals. We help them navigate challenges with effective communication techniques and innovative problem-solving strategies rooted in a nuanced understanding of human behavior and social structures. Get in touch.
Join us on this captivating voyage of storytelling at the crossroads of culture, design, technology and business. We're excited to collaborate with you in shaping a more compassionate world through an enriched narrative of the human experience. Experience breakthrough perspectives on human experiences and come away equipped to make enriched decisions that contribute positively to your sphere. Join us as we shape a more connected, hopeful narrative - one human story at a time.
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