Claremont, Calif. (November 25, 2014)—Pitzer College Professor of Anthropology Claudia Strauss and two co-principal investigators received a Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropological Conference Fund grant from the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Psychological Anthropology to hold a workshop on “Culture and Political Subjectivities” at Columbia University in May 2015. The two-and-a-half day workshop will cover anthropological approaches to political subjectivities— the thoughts, feelings, motivations, identities and memories surrounding political activism, public policy and the social distribution of power, status and money.
The workshop will bring together psychological anthropologists and experts in related fields who are interested in the complex processes that influence political subjectivities. Culture and Political Subjectivities participants have conducted ethnographic research on a wide range of topics, including skepticism about climate change in Oklahoma, xenophobia in Scandinavia, the development of Rastafarian political identities in Jamaica, how middle-class transsexuals in India become public activists, and the political outlooks of the long-term unemployed in the US.
Claudia Strauss is a scholar of social policy issues, such as immigration and economic justice. Her current research focuses on the life stories and political outlooks of the unemployed and underemployed in the US. Strauss’ co-PIs for the Culture and Political Subjectivities workshop are Jack R. Friedman, researcher at the Center for Applied Social Research at the University of Oklahoma, and Katherine Ewing, professor of religion at Columbia University.
A section of the American Anthropological Association, the Society for Psychological Anthropology was founded in 1977. SPA is a broad, multidisciplinary organization of individuals interested in cultural, psychological and social interrelations. The Lemelson/SPA Conference Fund is made possible by a donation from The Robert Lemelson Foundation.
