Representation, Access, & Participation
Actively building a welcoming, inclusive, supportive, and equitable space
The University of Tennessee’s Department of Anthropology will actively work to redress harms among ourselves and in the world at large. As a community of predominantly White scholars, we have the privilege to help dismantle and rebuild this system. Therefore, the Department of Anthropology unequivocally commits to actively building a welcoming, inclusive, supportive, and equitable space for BIPOC communities. (from our Department Statement on Anti-Racism, September 4, 2020)
Council for Representation, Access, & Participation
Anneke Janzen | Assistant Professor | ajanzen@utk.edu
Steven Lautzenheiser | Assistant Professor | slautzen@utk.edu
Raja Swamy | Associate Professor | rswamy1@utk.edu
Kaley Kelly | MA student | kkelly41@arileysmith
Alice Yan | MA student | ayan3@vols.utk.edu
Academic Associations and Resources
AAA Dissertation Fellowship
The American Anthropological Association invites minority doctoral candidates in anthropology to apply for a dissertation writing fellowship of $10,000. The annual Dissertation Fellowship for Historically Underrepresented Persons in Anthropology (formerly the Minority Dissertation Award) is intended to encourage members of racialized minorities to complete doctoral degrees in anthropology, thereby increasing diversity in the discipline and/or promoting research on issues of concern among minority populations.
Association of Black Anthropologists
The Association for Black Anthropologists (ABA) was founded in 1970 by a small group of intellectuals who sought to break down barriers that impeded their full participation in the discipline of Anthropology. By creating scholarship that linked anthropological theory to struggles for social justice, these elders transformed anthropology and helped create generations of intellectual leaders. ABA seeks to ensure that people studied by anthropologists are not only objects of study but active makers and/or participants in their own history. In a larger sense, we intend to highlight situations of exploitation, oppression, and discrimination.
Society for Black Archaeologists
SBA was created with five goals in mind: To lobby on behalf and ensure the proper treatment of African and African Diaspora material culture; To encourage more people of African descent to enter the field of archaeology; To raise and address concerns related to African peoples worldwide; To highlight the past and present achievements and contributions that people of African descent have made to the field of archaeology; and To ensure the communities affected by archaeological work act not just as objects of study or informants but are active makers and/or participants in the unearthing of their own history.
Association of Indigenous Anthropologists
The Association of Indigenous Anthropologists (AIA) was largely founded upon the study of American Indians, both present and past, and until the last few decades there were few professional anthropologists able to claim tribal enrollment. Although the number today remains miniscule, the AIA does exist to provide support, encouragement, and mentoring for Natives interested in anthropology.
Association for Feminist Anthropology
The Association for Feminist Anthropology (AFA) aims to foster the development of feminist analytic perspectives in all dimensions of anthropology. Feminist Anthropology includes but is not limited to the study of gendered power and the production of gendered subjects and categories, as well as dealing with questions relating to sexuality, kinship, race and racialization, caste, citizenship, social reproduction, materialism, and embodiment.
Association for Queer Anthropology
AQA serves the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other queer and allied anthropologists in the American Anthropological Association. AQA promotes anthropological research and education on homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender/transsexuality, and other sexual and gender identities and expressions, and their intersections with race, class, disability, nationality, colonialism and globalization.
Association of Latino/a and Latinx Anthropologists
ALLA’s mission is: To support student and early career scholars working toward excellence in anthropological research and practice by, with, and about Latinx peoples in the US, however they are identified; To highlight scholarship and practice that is ideologically, epistemologically, and methodologically substantive and diverse; and To enable a sustained diverse analysis of contemporary issues facing Latinx communities in the US and those with whom they share common experiences, histories, or languages.
Resources
The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander
How to be an Antiracist, by Ibram X. Kendi
White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
When They Call You a Terrorist, by Patrisse Khan-Cullors
Together We Lift the Sky, a New-To-Abolition Study Guide
American Anthropological Association’s Anti-Racism Resources
Anthropology Courses that Promote Access
- ANTH 130/137 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
- ANTH 303 Biology and Society
- ANTH 309 Principles in Biological Anthropology
- ANTH 313 Cultures of Mexico and Latin America
- ANTH 314 Latinos in the United States
- ANTH 315 The African Diaspora
- ANTH 320 American Cultures
- ANTH 325 Migration and Transnationalism
- ANTH 364 – African Archaeology
- ANTH 370 Gender and Globalization
- ANTH 411 Queer Anthropology
- ANTH 416 Engaged Anthropology
- ANTH 410 Principles of Cultural Anthropology
- ANTH 413 Dynamics of Health and Illness
- ANTH 414 Political Anthropology
- ANTH 419 Anthropology of Human Rights
- ANTH 421 Refugees and Displaced People
- ANTH 422 Anthropology of Global Inequality
- ANTH 423 Anthropology of Gender
- ANTH 425 Humanitarianism
- ANTH 454 Archaeology of the African Diaspora
- ANTH 459 Public Heritage and Community Archaeology
- ANTH 471 (583) Human Paleopathology
- ANTH 510 Method and Theory in Anthropology
- ANTH 531 Ethnographic Field Method
- ANTH 571 Forensic Anthropology I
- ANTH 690 Ethics and Professionalism in Forensic Anthropology
Lodge a Concern or a Complaint
If you would like to register a concern or a complaint about a particular case of harassment, discrimination, or mistreatment, please contact your advisor, the Department Head (Dr. Barbara Heath at bheath2@utk.edu), or UTK’s Office of Ombuds Services.
Additionally, you can contact the Office of Investigation and Resolution, which “receives, assesses, and investigates and/or otherwise resolves reports of violations of university policy in a prompt, thorough, and impartial manner.”