CHAIR: MORRIS, Richard W. (MGI)

SINGH PUNI, Tirath and MILLER, Christine (SCAD) Breaking Barriers: Applying Ethnographic Tools and Service Design to Integrate Community-Based Research in Medical Education

HERMANNS, Kwela (SCAD) and GAGE, Marty (Lextant) What Industry and Education Really Want: Lextant & SCAD Partnership on User-Centered Design Research Training

MORRIS, Richard W. (MGI) Towards a Method for Scaling Ethnography by Integrating Anthropology and Engineering

DISCUSSANT: EDBERG, Mark (GWU)

For centuries ethnography has offered insights into culture, human behavior, language, social systems, and technology. Yet, they have often encountered barriers in translating their findings into policy and practice. In contrast, other disciplines (engineering and medicine) have proven methods for moving know-how into practice. Here the transfer of ethnographic findings into practice will be treated as a problem of scaling to practice, i.e., showing what applies to one or a few may also apply to many. Participants will report lessons learned and what works from their direct experience in scaling ethnography for business, education, public health, and product development.

SINGH PUNI, Tirath and MILLER, Christine (SCAD) Breaking Barriers: Applying Ethnographic Tools and Service Design to Integrate Community-Based Research in Medical Education. This study examines how ethnographic tools, applied through the lens of Service Design, can assist the medical school leadership of a satellite campus of a state university medical school to redesign their curriculum to incorporate community-based participatory research (CBR). By using mixed methods approaches such as contextual interviews, surveys, and co-creation workshops combined with journey mapping and blueprinting, the leadership can develop actionable strategies to integrate community research, fostering a deeper connection between academic structures and community needs. This approach highlights the potential for scaling ethnographic insights to reform curricula and educational institutions training future medical doctors.

HERMANNS, Kwela (SCAD) and GAGE, Marty (Lextant) What Industry and Education Really Want: Lextant & SCAD Partnership on User-Centered Design Research Training. A collaboration between SCAD and Lextant resulted in 1) curriculum re-designs to reflect actionable research and analysis approaches developed by Lextant in-house, 2) the creation of a textbook and 3) a stand-alone Certification in Design Research & Insight Translation for students. The session proposal falls into the panel’s focus on Educational Policy and Practice: Scaling ethnographic insights. The collaboration included shadowing and on-site participatory co-creation. The resulting curriculum redesign enables students to contribute to real-world problem solving in diverse sectors. This large-scale learning intervention constitutes a unique education / industry partnership within the US.

MORRIS, Richard W. (MGI) Towards a Method for Scaling Ethnography by Integrating Anthropology and Engineering. Here the author will identify recurring themes and assess them through the lenses of applied anthropology, praxis theory, and the Engineering Design Process (EDP), i.e., identify a problem, research solutions, pick the optimal solution, build a prototype, test-evaluate, implement pilot solutions, monitor and redesign (as needed), expand what works. Drawing from cognitive anthropology and discourse analysis, the author will evaluate the methods for scaling according to expressivity, precision, accuracy, relevance, endogenous acceptability, exogenous validity, and reduction to practice. He will propose a method for scaling ethnography to policy and practice.

• Richard Morris, MGI
• Kwela Hermanns
• Christine Miller, Savannah College of Art and Design, Professor of Design Management
• Mark Edberg, George Washington University, Professor

CHAIR: PAZ LEMUS, L. Tatiana (Vanderbilt U)

PAZ LEMUS, L. Tatiana (Vanderbilt U) Rethinking Childhoods and Childhood Obesity Through a Cultural Contexts of Health Approach

CUJ, Miguel (Vanderbilt U) Feasting on Knowledge: Exploring Guatemala’s Maya Food Groups in a Global Approach

KOSS, Sophia (Vanderbilt U) The Cultural Context of Heat: Addressing Heat in the U.S.

DISCUSSANT: HARVEY, T.S. (Vanderbilt U)

This session explores how many obstacles to health and wellbeing are grounded in colonial-legacy frameworks that privilege specialized scientific inquiry and give ‘individual autonomy’ and ‘personal responsibility’ outsized roles in their contribution to health outcomes and life chances. These papers will discuss the application of a Cultural Contexts of Health (CCH) approach to issues such as conceptions of childhood, pain, heat, and nutritional science. Building more just and equitable health futures requires addressing how unresolved colonial legacies in Guatemala, the US, and across the globe impact health and wellbeing.

PAZ LEMUS, L. Tatiana (Vanderbilt U) Rethinking Childhoods and Childhood Obesity Through a Cultural Contexts of Health Approach. This paper explores the application of the Cultural Contexts of Health approach to the conceptions of Childhoods and Childhood Obesity in Global Health. Based on the WHO’s Behavioral and Cultural Insights Unit model, the Vanderbilt Cultural Contexts of Health and Wellbeing initiative aims to show how accounting for cultural contexts and lived experiences can help identify upstream sources of health inequalities. In this paper, I aim to map out the colonial legacies in producing scientific knowledge about childhoods and childhood obesity, and the challenges of including medical humanities and children’s epistemologies in public health policy.

CUJ, Miguel (Vanderbilt U) Feasting on Knowledge: Exploring Guatemala’s Maya Food Groups in a Global Approach. This paper explores how the K’iche’ Maya people in Guatemala interact with the country’s food guidelines, regional food policies of classification, and nutritional global classification of food. The nutritional global and regional classification of food also influences recent food patterns of ultra-processed products in Guatemalan Indigenous communities. This biomedical approach dismisses Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies of food which classifies food according to relational taste and context. By analyzing contextual data, observing, and speaking with K’iche’ Maya ixoq’ib’ (women) in their food preparation and consumption practices, this paper highlights the cultural values of appropriate food that go unrecognized in food guidelines designed by global health experts.

KOSS, Sophia (Vanderbilt U) The Cultural Context of Heat: Addressing Heat in the U.S. As current heat waves affect different regions of the US, it is necessary to address how these impacts of heat are mostly human-created. As our bodies react to create environments and conditions that make us more vulnerable, exposure to heat can increase disparate health and wellbeing outcomes. This paper explores different angles where a cultural contexts of health approach can provide insights for heat and health policy in the US. By looking at global and local examples, I hope to highlight the potential importance of a cultural context approach to heat and health

• L. Tatiana Paz Lemus, Vanderbilt Cultural Contexts of Health Initiative, Program & Research Manager
• Miguel Cuj, Student
• Sophia Koss, Vanderbilt University
• T.S. Harvey, Vanderbilt University, Associate Professor of Medical and Linguistic Anthropology

CHAIRS: ROBERTSON, William (U Memphis) and FLEURIET, K. Jill (UTSA)

ROUNDTABLE PARTICIPANTS: FLEURIET, K. Jill (UTSA), LAMBERT-PENNINGTON, Katherine and ROBERTSON, William (U Memphis)

Many students gain hands-on experience and training in applied anthropology through the dozens of field schools offered around the world. Field schools are incredibly helpful for revitalizing applied anthropology because they present the next generation of applied anthropologists with opportunities for reflection on the discipline’s past while they help to build our discipline’s future. This roundtable brings together applied anthropologists who have established field schools around the globe to share insights and advice on how to begin a new field school as well as how to run a field school once it is established.

• William Robertson, University of Memphis, Assistant Professor
• Katherine Lambert-Pennington, University of Memphis Full-time , Director School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy and Associate Professor of Anthropology