The preliminary program for this year’s annual meetings of the Society for Applied Anthropology in Santa Fe has just been released. Although the theme of this year’s meetings is Heritage, Environment, and Tourism there are, as usual, a variety of interesting sessions for people interested in things like methods, CMC, ICTs, and intervention programs and planning. Especially because of the fiasco regarding last month’s AAA meetings, these SfAA meetings are chock full and should be well attended.

I am a huge advocate of the SfAA, and I encourage everyone to check it out. Applied anthropology is one of those fields that is still relatively unknown, but there’s something in it for everyone. Anywhere that anthropological methods or theories are applied outside the discipline of academic anthropology – that’s applied anthropology.

I am also continuously baffled that anthropological inquiries into ICTs, CMC and the like are not more common at anthropology meetings like the AAAs and SfAAs. Anthropologists, in my experience, can be a technologically ignorant group of people. Those of us who bridge the gap between anthropology and information should participant as much as possible.

Joe Hall and I are giving a paper on photo-journaling and photo-elicitation in the study of information behavior during a two part session called “Innovations in Applied Research Methods” which I have also (somehow) been slated to chair.

Our session:

• ANTIN, Judd and HALL, Joseph Lorenzo (U of California-Berkeley) Capturing Everyday Life:
  Using Digital Photo-journaling and Elicitation in the Study of Everyday Life Information Behavior

And a few more highlights:

• LEE, Juliet P., KIRKPATRICK, Sean and JOHNSON, Tamar (Prevention Rsrch Ctr/PIRE)
  Higher Office: The Cohesive Effect of Local Officialdom in an Immigrant Community Coalition
• JACOB, Beth, OLIN, Kyle and WILLIAMS, Amy (U of Memphis) Bridging Service Gaps with Digital Technology: Steps toward Interconnected Community Information Portals (Poster)
• PERIN, Jodi and PAVRI, Eric (U of Arizona) Incorporating GIS into Qualitative Research:
  Mapping Perceptions of Climate and Livelihood Vulnerability in the Southwest U.S.
• ILAHIANE, Hsain (Iowa State U) and SHERRY, John (Intel Corp) Mobile Phones, Globalization and Economic Productivity in Urban Morocco
• SHERRY, John W. (Intel Corp) MNCs, NGOs, ICTs and People Without Alphabets: Village Computing in India CARRASCO, Anita
• STURGES, Keith (U of Texas-Austin) Subjects, Objects, and What Happens in Between: “Scientific” Evaluation of a Middle School Computer Immersion Program

And a whole slate of posters and papers from my fantastic former colleagues and professors at the University of Maryland College Park.:

• PAOLISSO, Michael (U of Maryland) The Right to Work the Water
• PAOLISSO, Michael (U of Maryland) It’s Not About the Boat: Skipjacks, Heritage and Tourism on the Chesapeake Bay
• CHAMBERS, Erve (U of Maryland) Ecologies of Descent: Some Thoughts about Treating Nature as Heritage
• WHITEHEAD, T.L. (U of Maryland) From African to African American Family and Kinship Systems
• WHITEHEAD, T.L. (U of Maryland) Panelist: Understanding Race and Human Variation: the Role of Anthropology and Anthropologists as Culture Brokers
• ARONSON, Robert E. (U of N Carolina-Greensboro) The Black Church as an Extension of the Black Family
• WARING, Sarah (U of Maryland) How Do Consumers Value the Environment? (Poster)
  HORA, Matthew Tadashi (LTG Associates) and JOHNSON, Tamar Marie (Prevention Rsrch Ctr) Methodological Practices in the Investigation of Food Store Accessibility In Baltimore, Maryland
• GADSBY, David and CHIDESTER, Robert (Ctr for Heritage Resource Stud) Heritage in Hampden: Participatory Research Design for Public Archaeology in a Working-Class Neighborhood, Baltimore, MD