HRAF stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and other ongoing social movements around the world working to establish social justice and equality by ending systemic violence and discrimination against minority groups. To achieve these ends at this critical time, we must all take an active part in facilitating positive change and we must do so together. Please visit our homepage for a more detailed statement. We endorse the American Anthropological Association’sstatement against systemic discrimination.
In this edition of our newsletter, we focus on new research from HRAF, teaching and learning with the eHRAF databases, and highlighting our new member institutions.
A team of researchers from HRAF has recently published an article in the journal Nature Sustainability titled Resource stress and subsistence diversification across societies. They found partial support for the idea that subsistence diversity provides resilience to societies experiencing resource stress and environmental unpredictability. This researchwas part of a larger project on Natural Hazards and Cultural Transformation.
Many societies in the ethnographic or anthropological record have experienced climate instability, natural hazards, and resourceshortages in their histories.
Examining indigenous practices may help suggest practical sustainable solutions for food insecurity in response to climate change.
As we reflect on the 2019-2020 academic year, HRAF would like to extend a heartfelt welcome to our newest member institutions. We are especially pleased by the diversity and global reach of these members, which include community colleges, four-year universities, Native American institutions, international research establishments, and independent scholars.
A slideshow features each institution who joined us from July 2019 to June 2020. A list of members and their locations can also be found in our post.
As the depth and breadth of our membership continues to grow, we look forward to engaging with our new members and to following the progress of their research and teaching activities using eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology.
HRAF is pleased to share our latest post, Reflections on Teaching with eHRAF, which features the work of Matthew Longcore, our member services manager who also teaches as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Connecticut. We are especially fortunate that his UConn courses utilized both of our databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology.
Having a HRAF anthropologist teach introductory courses at a member institution provides us with valuable insight into teaching and learning with eHRAF. We are happy to have this opportunity to showcase these wonderful student papers and projects. We hope that instructors will find it immensely helpful to see the progress of these courses from start to finish. We also welcome submissions from other instructors teaching with eHRAF.
This month we are featuring one of our international members, the Universidad de Caldas, a nonprofit coeducational public higher education institution located in the city of Manizales in Caldas, Colombia.
Manizales, a city at the top of the Andes Mountains, is part of the Coffee Cultural Landscape of Colombia and has recently been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Universidad de Caldas is the oldest and most recognized university in the area, an institution which has greatly contributed to the academic, economic, cultural, and scientific development of the region.
