HRAF News Vol. 2021-12
Season's Greetings from the Human Relations Area Files
Please join us in congratulating our HRAF Global Scholars for 2022. Keep an eye on our future newsletters to learn more about each of the recipients as we feature their work throughout the upcoming year. We look forward to our second National Science Foundation (NSF) grant-funded Summer Institute for Cross-Cultural Anthropological Research in Summer 2022. The application deadline is March 1, 2022. Matthew Longcore, HRAF Member Services Manager, reflects on his experience teaching with the eHRAF Workbooks this semester and shares an example of a successful student team presentation. Finally, we are grateful to all who attended our booth at last month's AAA Annual Meeting in Baltimore in-person or virtually. For AAA attendees who are currently on a trial and/or wish to take advantage of the new member offer that we shared at our booth, please contact hraf@yale.edu. HRAF wishes you a happy and healthy holiday season!
New eHRAF World Cultures application updates
Many thanks to all who have provided feedback on the latest version of our eHRAF World Cultures database. In response to feedback from teaching faculty, the current eHRAF will not be replaced with the new version until Fall 2022. Users may still opt to switch now if preferred. Once you have explored the new design, we would love to know what you think. Our feedback survey gift card giveaway ends December 31, 2021.
HRAF is pleased to announce the recipients of the HRAF Global Scholars Program for 2022. This program provides scholars around the world with one year of complimentary access to our research databases, eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology.

Applications for the program were received on behalf of individuals and academic institutions in low- or middle-income countries, as defined by the World Bank. For 2022, we have five scholars participating in the HRAF Global Scholars Program. The countries represented by these scholars include China, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Mexico.

In the months ahead, we will feature the work of these scholars in our newsletter, as well as in posts on our homepage and social media. Congratulations to all!

The National Science Foundation, in a grant to HRAF, is supporting three years of Summer Institutes for Cross-Cultural Anthropological Research. Summer Institutes will train faculty, researchers, and advanced graduate students in the theory and state-of-the art methods for conducting regional and worldwide comparative research. The aim is for these methods to be incorporated into educational courses and cross-cultural research using anthropological data.

The program will include lectures, discussion, hands-on exercises and each participant will design and execute a pilot project during their time at an institute. If you are interested in applying, view the application form and instructions. Applications are due March 1, 2022 by 17:00 EST.

HRAF staff members Carol Ember, Matthew Longcore, Ian Skoggard, and Sri Ravula attended the 2021 American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. It was great to reconnect with friends we have known for years, and also a pleasure to meet many new people. Giveaways at our exhibit booth included HRAF tote bags, bookmarks, and database trials.

Carol and Matthew provided demonstrations of the eHRAF databases and showcased the eHRAF Workbooks for teaching and learning. Ian participated in a panel on altruism sponsored by executive board members of the Society for Anthropological Sciences (SAS) and he also joined a mentoring roundtable of SAS members focused on research methods and coding of ethnographic data for cross-cultural research. Sri provided updates on the progress of our NSF-funded iKLEWS Project that promises exciting future advances for HRAF, including enhanced data services for researchers beginning in 2023.

HRAF member services manager Matthew Longcore, who is also an adjunct faculty member at the University of Connecticut, has been teaching with the eHRAF Workbooks this fall semester. Student teams have made presentations based on the eHRAF Workbooks for Cultural Anthropology. Workbook topics covered include kinship, sex and gender, social stratification, politics, art, and globalization.

The Blue Team from the Honors section of the course did an outstanding job with their presentation based on the Sexuality: Premarital Sex workbook. As indicated in the textbook, the list of cultural universals from George Peter Murdock includes sexual restrictions. The team analyzed the degree of restrictiveness or permissiveness about premarital sexual relations among several societies in eHRAF World Cultures.

If you are an instructor who teaches with eHRAF, we would love to hear from you. Please contact us at hraf@yale.edu.

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