Applied Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Dawn Rivers, Business Anthropologist

Dr. Dawn Rivers, Applied Business Anthropologist

 

Believe it or not but businesses have a long history in employing anthropologists, and there are many reasons why.  Anthropologists are useful in marketing and identifying customer wants and needs; designing better, more efficient products; understanding workplace environments; and more.  There are many business anthropologists out there who either work for specific companies or work as independent contractors, and the featured applied business anthropologist actually has done both.  This post will address the experience of Dr. Dawn Rivers, a small business owner turned applied business anthropologist.

 

Dawn Rivers was a successful business owner for over a decade.  She managed her own publishing company, which produced a regular periodical dedicated to discussing microbusinesses, which are businesses with five or fewer employees.  She collected all the information for the content of her publication, which included interviewing business owners and their employees (as applicable), producing the content, marketing the periodical, and distributing it.  Her hard work provided her readers and herself greater insights into the motivations, community memberships, and challenges small business owners and employees faced.

 

It also inspired her to formally study these topics.  She entered anthropology and economic programs at Hartwick College, where she earned high marks and graduated with her Bachelor of Arts in 2014.  Upon completion of her degree she worked within workforce development for two years.  This exposed her to the challenges that workforce development personnel face, along with the barriers working class individuals deal with in their professional and personal lives.

 

She returned to school two years later to earn her graduate degrees in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She earned both a master’s and Ph.D.  Her master’s research focused on self-employed individuals, specifically addressing the challenges self employed individuals face both professionally and personally, and how self-employment changes individuals’ social behavior.  She switched perspectives a little with her doctoral research, which examined employer owned businesses wherein only one person (the owner) was employed. 

 

Upon graduating with her PhD she entered into the workforce, taking up employment as a consultant for a company that works with businesses in learning on how to improve their relationships with vendors, business partners, workers, or customers.  The purpose of this is to help the client business realize that working with any of these entities requires relationships, and Rivers’ job is to instruct the client business on how to facilitate stronger relationships where all parties feel satisfied.  As the client business improves satisfaction and fosters better relationships with their stakeholders (be it their employees, vendors, partners, or customers) they reap higher profits and decrease their risk.  Rivers says that she uses ethnographic methods to understand where the relationships are and where the weaknesses are within those relationships.  Once she identifies the problems she follows up by broadening her anthropological skills to strategize ways of improving communication and those necessary relationships.

 

Over her career Rivers has worked for various public business organizations and private businesses, but she is currently an independent contractor.  She remains active in the field of anthropology, maintaining membership in various anthropological organizations.  She presents her research at various conferences, as well as expands her network with both academic and applied anthropologists.   This helps keep her skill sets and anthropological knowledge current, which serves her clients and makes her a valuable asset for those who she contracts with.

 

Works Cited

Introducing Dawn Rivers. Dir. Society for Economic Anthropology. Perf. Dawn Rivers. 2023. Electronic.

Rivers, Dawn. "Dawn Rivers." 26 July 2016. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Electronic. 8 June 2023.

—. Dawn Rivers, Ph.D.: Development Consultant. 2022. Electronic. 8 June 2023.

—. Dawn Rivers: LinkedIn Profile. 2023. Electronic.

Anthropologist Profile: Dr. Paul Mullins, Applied & Research Historical Archaeologist

Paul Mullins (Source: American Anthropological Association)

 

There is a popular saying that gets batted about frequently: history is written by the victors.  This phrase conveys that the powerful in a society or cultural group control the narrative about what is written and spoken about the past.  This notion, however, is being upended in various ways, not just within the discipline of history itself, but also by contributions of archaeologists.  A previous blog post addressed the role of archaeology in uncovering the truth of the Tulsa Race Riots, and today’s blog post is dedicated to discussing an archaeologist who dedicated his career to making right previous and current historical injustices.  This blog post will discuss the contributions of historical archaeologist, Dr. Paul Mullins.

 

Dr. Paul Mullins was a historical archaeologist who was employed by Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.  He started working as a faculty member at this institution in 1999 and continued until his death in April 2023.  During his tenure at the university he served as Department Chair, associate editor for Historical Archaeology,  and President of the Society of Historical Archaeology.  He also received a number of awards and accolades, including the Society of Historical Archaeology’s John Cotter Award (2000), which is awarded to early career historical archaeologists who made an outstanding contribution to the field, and was a 2016-2017 Charles R. Bantz Chancellor’s Community Fellow, alongside his colleague Susan Hyatt. 

 

Mullins and Hyatt received this fellowship due to their collaborative work showcasing misrepresentations of African American history in Indianapolis, which are the foundations for prejudice and racism against not only African Americans but other minorities throughout the city.  This was just a small part of Mullins dedication to righting historical injustices.  He dedicated much of his career to studying the intersections of material culture and race.  He concentrated on better understanding the roles of racism and urban renewal in razing African American neighborhoods throughout Indianapolis and how this led to the foundations of misrepresenting their history.  He conducted archaeological excavations, historical research, and collected oral histories all to provide an accurate history of vibrant African American neighborhoods that previously existed throughout Indianapolis.  He also did not shy away from revealing his institution’s role in these injustices.  His work was praised by several African American community members, who stated that they finally felt heard and valued after decades of having their communities taken from them.

 

Mullins’s work did not just include racism as it related to urban renewal.  He was also instrumental in correcting the historical record when it came to the death of George Tompkins.  Tompkins was buried in an unmarked grave due to presumption that he committed suicide, but the reality was far more sinister than that.  He had actually been lynched in 1922, but his murder was erased from the historical record.  Or so people thought.  Mullins uncovered this injustice and pushed for a correction, leading to a memorial being erected to accurately convey what happened to Tompkins.

 

Mullins’s work was widely published in scholarly books and articles, but he made sure his work was accessible to the public.  He published two blogs for the public.  One was dedicated to archaeology and materiality, and the other was focused on urban renewal, race, and prejudice in Indianapolis.  As Mullins’ son, Aidan, stated: “He was a scholar and an advocate.  He viewed his work is being necessary to not just document and understand the past, but to recognize these injustices that had been done ... so that we can begin working towards rectifying them.”

 

Mullins passed away in early 2023 after a long battle with brain cancer.  His life and contributions to righting historical wrongs will live on in his work and among the students, colleagues, and community members he mentored, worked with, and inspired.  His contributions are a testament to how one individual can make a huge difference.

 

References

Mullins, P. (2011). About. Retrieved from Archaeology and Material Culture: https://paulmullins.wordpress.com/about/

No Author. (n.d.). Featured Scholar: Paul Mullins, PhD. Retrieved from IUPUI: Translating Research Into Practice: https://trip.iupui.edu/Translational-Scholars/Featured-Translational-Scholars/Featured-Scholar?id=cc347d3e-1fdd-4778-88f0-3c64bdcd1c08

Rafford, C. (2023, April 18). 'He's changed my life:' IUPUI professor remembered for commitment to Black community. IndyStar, p. 1.

Schablitsky, J. (2023, April 17). Paul Mullins (1962-2023). Retrieved from Society for Historical Archaeology: https://sha.org/announcements/paul-mullins-1962-2023/

 

 

 

 

What is Sociolinguistics?

Have you ever heard something along the lines of the following: “It is not just about what you say but how you say it?”  This phrase is very relevant to the topic that is going to be discussed in this blog post: sociolinguistics.  While it has never been outright addressed in this blog series there are various posts that have fallen under the umbrella of sociolinguistic study.  This is why this topic is being addressed today.  This post will address what sociolinguistics is and how it relates to anthropology and the study of culture.

 

Sociolinguistics is an interdisciplinary area of study that draws upon various disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, sociology, anthropology, and more importantly linguistics.  It is defined as the study of how cultural values, beliefs, ideas, etc. affect communication patterns and language use.  Sociolinguistics also acknowledge that language use is a reflection of culture, meaning how we speak, what we say, and all aspects of language use conveys cultural rules, standards, expectations, and more for our individual selves and the cultures we occupy.  This makes sense when you remember and/or realize that language is a key aspect of culture.

 

We can see the cultural values imbued in communication and language in various ways, which is why sociolinguistics is such a broad area of study.  Sociolinguists study language ideology, code switching, gender differences in language, racial and/or ethnic differences in language use, the creation of pidgin and creole languages, focal languages, lexicon (e.g., various meanings of words or how word choices impart specific meaning, e.g., salutations), syntax (sentence structure), phonology (e.g., dialects and pronunciation), and more.  Any way in which either a social situation affects language use or a language demonstrates individual or group identity falls under the umbrella of sociolinguistic study. 

 

Sociolinguists must have a keen understanding of the culture they are studying in order to discern the cultural and social aspects of the language(s) used by the cultural group.  Therefore, sociolinguists use a variety of ethnographic methods in their studies.  The most common are surveys/questionnaires, as well as direct observations.  Ultimately, studying language in its various forms, be it through written or oral communication, provides those necessary insights for sociolinguistic study.

 

This also makes sociolinguistics a widely used area for applied anthropological work.  As previously discussed on the blog there are various sociolinguists who are actively working in various fields.  This includes Dr. Sarah Carson, who applies her linguistic expertise to helping women in politics, and Dr. Mackenzie Price, a sociolinguist who has worked for various public and private organizations.  There are also examples of past sociolinguists who have made their marks in bilingual education and linguistic profiling within housing, which have been used to improve educational settings and rental policies.  All in all, an understanding of sociolinguistics is important to any and all career fields since communication is essential in any position.

 

Works Cited

Eble, Connie. "What is Sociolinguistics? Sociolinguistics Basics." 2005. Do You Speak American? PBS. Electronic. 7 June 2023.

Welsch, Robert L., L. Vivanco and Agustin Fuentes. Anthropology: Asking Questions About Human Origins, Diversity, and Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Print.

Wolfram, Walt. "Sociolinguistics." n.d. Linguistics Society of America. Electronic. 7 June 2023.