Applied Anthropologist Profile: Anuli Akanegbu, Scholar Practitioner, Social Media Consultant, and Producer & Host of the BLK IRL Podcast

It is with great pleasure that I get to discuss the projects and success of applied anthropologist and doctoral student, Anuli Akanegbu, Scholar Practitioner, Social Media Consultant, and Producer & Host of the BLK IRL Podcast.  Akanegbu is not an anthropologist by training, but she is currently pursuing her doctorate in sociocultural anthropology at New York University.  Her doctoral research, which is about the intersections of race, class, ethnicity, and gender in “influencer culture” in social media, was both inspired by and currently draws upon her extensive marketing background where she worked closely with many multinational corporations (e.g., Unilever and Ebay).  Her goals are to use her doctoral research to add not only to the academic scholarship but also be applied directly to and for individuals, particularly Black and other people of color, interested in breaking into this industry. 

 

Aside from pursuing her doctoral research Akanegbu is dedicated to producing and hosting her podcast, BLK IRL.  The name was derived from conversations she had with friends wherein they discussed the commodification and fetishization of Black people within American popular culture.  She was further inspired to create the podcast to showcase how people live two different lives/identities.  She noticed how people may convey one identity online, particularly through social media, but act in different manner or maintain a dissimilar lifestyle in real life.  Rather than discuss this contradiction solely in the academic literature Akanegbu took to podcasting.  She felt familiar with this medium from her previous marketing experience, but also feels strongly in the reach of the platform to larger and largely nonacademic audiences.  She sees podcasting as an effective means of storytelling, which can and does include providing informative content to the audience.  The listeners can and often are more connected to the information provided through listening to the speaker’s words, tone, and pitch.  The melody of the voice can keep the listener’s attention and create and foster a deeper connection.

 

Akanegbu remarks often that there are several parallels between the work she previously did in marketing and the work she is now completing as an anthropology student.  She notes how the methods used by both are extremely similar-both have to study their subjects carefully to know where best to begin producing new content/information/products.  For a marketer understanding consumer trends requires research about people, their cultures, their values, their beliefs, etc., which is very much the same as anthropologists seeking to understand a group of people and/or their culture.  She states that the connections between her marketing experience and anthropological scholarship enable her to best utilize her skills and knowledge to better realize her doctoral research and her podcast production. 

 

Works Cited

Akanegbu, Anuli. "An Interview with Anuli Akanegbu about Podcasting and BLK IRL." Practicing Anthropology 2021. Electronic.

—. Anuli. 2022. Electronic. 9 March 2022.

—. "Podcasts as a Form of Scholarship." 29 April 2021. American Anthropologist. Electronic. 9 March 2022.

 

 

Inked: Oldest Known Tattooing Instruments Discovered

Figure 1: Turkey bones established as tattooing instruments (Source: Deter-Wolf et al. 2021)

 

Tattooing has existed for several millennia and found cross culturally around the globe.  The motivations for tattooing vary by culture, as do the images immortalized on individual’s bodies.  There has been a great deal of study of both past and present tattooing traditions, but there remain gaps in our knowledge, particularly pertaining to ancient tattooing practices.  Fortunately, a recent study has provided some filling of some of those gaps by identifying the oldest tattooing devices thus far discovered.

 

In 1985 excavations at the multicomponent site of Fernvale in central Tennessee yielded what was initially considered a rather unremarkable discovery.  Found nearby the burial of an adult male (25-55 years of age) was a tool kit containing six turkey bones (Figure 1) and several shells covered in red and black pigment.  This took kit was wrapped in a Canidae skin and intentionally buried with the deceased male.  No further analyses were done on the artifacts, and they were recorded in the initial inventory as being a ”tool kit”, associated with the age of the site of somewhere between 5,520 and 3,620 years ago.

 

Reanalysis of these artifacts, however, yielded a rather remarkable discovery.  The reanalysis took the form of three separate analyses: microscopy, involving the microscopic analysis of the wear patterns on the turkey bones; elemental analysis, meaning a chemical examination of the residues on the bones; and contextual assessment, a review of the original placement of the artifacts when initially discovered.  This three pronged approach demonstrated a three fold support for the researchers’ final conclusions: they had discovered an ancient tattooing tool kit, complete with tattooing instruments. 

 

The microscopy analysis relied on an experimental archaeological study wherein deer bones were modified and used to tattoo pig skin (a practice novice tattoo artists use when learning and honing their craft).  The wear patterns on the deer bones matched those found on the turkey bones, providing the first line of evidentiary support.  The elemental analysis confirmed the presence of red and black pigments on the turkey bones, along with their presence on accompanying stained shells.  This provided the second line of evidence.  The location of the tool kit, being both in a burial and placed in a significant position in relation to the deceased’s body, further supported the conclusion that this was a tattooing tool kit and that these were tattoo instruments. 

 

This alone was a monumental discovery since so few tattooing instruments have been found in antiquity.  Because most (if not all) of these ancient tools would have been constructed from organic materials their likelihood of preserving in the ancient archaeological record is greatly reduced.  Furthermore, it is difficult to appropriately identify tools as tattooing instruments if one does not have a model to go off of.  But what makes this find even more remarkable is that the date for when tattooing began was pushed back a thousand years, making this the world’s oldest tattooing instruments!

 

Bibliography

Bower, B. (2021, May 25). The oldest known tattoo tools were found at an ancient Tennessee site. Retrieved from Science News: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/oldest-tattoo-tools-tennessee-native-american

Deter-Wolf, A., Peres, T. M., & Karacic, S. (2021). Ancient Native American bone tattooing tools and pigments: Evidence from central Tennessee. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 1-10.

No Author. (2021, May 26). Tennessee’s Tattooing Tools Dated to More Than 5,500 Years Ago. Retrieved from Archaeology Magazine: https://www.archaeology.org/news/9717-210526-native-american-tattoo