As some of you folks know, I recently changed my last name. For lots of academic people, and especially women, the name game is one you can’t actually win. There is so much to say about women, about names, about cis-heteronormativity, history, tradition and patriarchy, about children and bodies and personhood, lots more than I could squeeze into a little comic, but it’s a start. You can read the whole original, terribly honest, profanity-laced (and rightly so) work here.

This past May we were lucky enough to have Prof. Dr. Renate Kosuch visit to present our students with a short lecture on the Conflict-Focused Interview. This interview, and the analytic strategies one might apply to resultant data, are unique in qualitative inquiry because it borrows from psychological technique. The applications for researchers across disciplines are inspiring. Because of all things covid, the interview itself was presented online, however that means we have this beautiful recording to enjoy after the fact.

Im vergangenen Mai hatten wir das Glück, dass Prof. Dr. Renate Kosuch zu Gast war, um unseren Studierenden einen kurzen Vortrag über das Konfliktfokussierte Interview zu halten. Dieses Interview und die analytischen Strategien, die man auf die resultierenden Daten anwenden könnte, sind einzigartig in der qualitativen Untersuchung, weil sie sich an psychologische Techniken anlehnen. Die Bewerbungen für Forschende aus allen Disziplinen sind inspirierend. Wegen aller Umstände wurde das Interview selbst online präsentiert, aber das bedeutet, dass wir diese schöne Aufnahme im Nachhinein genießen können.

You can watch it here/schau es dir hier an: https://th-koeln.sciebo.de/s/4qV0PkaiPUBDax3

An additional stable link can be found here/schau es dir hier an: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1euWyuszj8qPQIMpYUhEnqBWVCRKiDslo/view?usp=sharing

Kosuch, R. (2022c). Data Collection and Analysis of Internal Conflicts: The Conflict-Focused Interview. Lecture held for Ph.D. students at the College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (hosted by Prof. Sally Campbell Galman, Ph.D.)  sciebo (28.11.22)

Way back before the pandemic, so very long ago in the before times, I wrote and illustrated a book chapter to appear in this book: https://utorontopress.com/9781487524418/cool-anthropology/

The purpose of the book is really quite special: it’s about rethinking how we engage people in doing the work of anthropology, and how we push back against the idea of exclusivity. Everyone can be a thinker, and a knower, and diverse publics can be engaged in meaningful ways. Here’s the blurb:

“Through a series of case studies by leading anthropologists, Cool Anthropology highlights the many different approaches that scholars have used to engage the public with their research. Editors Kristina Baines and Victoria Costa showcase efforts to make meaningful connections with communities outside the walls of academia, moving anthropological thinking beyond the discipline. Through their focus on collaborative efforts, contributors push against the exclusivity of “knowledge production” to ask how engaging communities as both producers and consumers of academic research helps to promote anthropology better and do anthropology better.”

Here is the absolutely fantastic website the authors have put together: Wow! http://coolanthropology.com/book/

I am not sure I qualify as a leading anthropologist, but I am so pleased to have my work included. It seems strange to see something from the before times, both before the pandemic and the summa horrore of the past year but perhaps that is proof of continuity, found in the idea that anyone can and should engage in this important work, not just those of us walled up in academia.

My chapter, titled “Let Us Do More Than Hope” talks in concrete terms about how I use the arts– specifically illustration and comic art– to do this work. And of course it is illustrated.

Look for me having the last word in chapter 14!