Edges In: A Theoretical Perspective of Cultural Preservation through Photo Documentation

Photo of ylanh-ylang worker by Aaron Atencio

Aaron R. Atencio, PhD
Research Curator of Cultural Sciences
Milwaukee Public Museum

 Friday March 15, 2024 @ 3:30 pm
Sabin Hall G-90, UW-Milwaukee

(Some photographs in this presentation will show distressing subjects.)

A Collaborative Future:
Changes and Trends in Museum Practice

Molli A. Pauliot, M.S.W., M.A.
PhD candidate, Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Friday, February 23 2024 @ 3:30 pm, Sabin Hall G-90, UW-Milwaukee

Molli Pauliot is a doctoral candidate at UW-Madison in the Department of Anthropology. Ms. Pauliot is a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Buffalo clan. She has professional experience on collaborative projects with tribal, county, state, and federal officials addressing critical social needs in the state of Wisconsin. Ms. Pauliot’s research interests within anthropology include Native American populations in the Great Lakes Region, material culture, Native American art, museum anthropology, indigenous resilience, climate change, and United States American Indian policy. Ms. Pauliot has a PhD minor in art, and she is an accomplished designer and bead worker.

Ms. Pauliot holds a BA in Sociology with a Human Services emphasis with a Psychology minor coursework in drug and alcohol counseling from Viterbo College, La Crosse Wisconsin. She holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities with an emphasis in child welfare. At UW-Madison, she has completed a graduate certificate in Material Culture and a Masters of Anthropology.

The Scarcity Slot: Excavating Histories of Food Security in West Africa

Professor Amanda L. Logan
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Northwest​ern University

Friday, February 3, 2023 @ 3:30 pm 
Sabin Hall G28 (3413 North Downer Avenue, Milwaukee)

Abstract: African foodways have been viewed through the lens of ‘the scarcity slot,’ a kind of Othering based on presumed differences in resources. Combining archaeological, historical, and environmental data with food ethnography, I illustrate how a longue durée approach can combat these stereotypes. Drawing on a case study in Banda, west-central Ghana, I show that people maintained high food security during the worst drought on record in the last millennium, lasting from 1400-1650, in part through diverse economic strategies. Seasonal chronic food insecurity increased in severity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in association with changing labor dynamics and market economies further institutionalized under British colonial rule. This long-term view challenges notions of the African continent as a forever food scarce place, and suggests that the past can act as an inspiration for food secure futures.

Amanda Logan is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, Northwestern University with affiliations in the Program of African Studies, Program in Environmental Policy and Culture, and the Buffett Institute for Global Studies. She studies how underdevelopment and other political and economic shifts have helped create food insecurity across the African continent. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. She is the author of The Scarcity Slot: Excavating Histories of African Food Security (University of California Press 2020) and articles in American Anthropologist, African Archaeological Review, among many other journals