Roundtable

Reviewed by: General Anthropology Division

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities

Primary Theme: Technology

Secondary Theme: Inclusivity

(6-0125) Podcasting and Adapting Public Anthropology for the 21st Century

Many anthropologists feel compelled to share anthropological knowledge and sensibilities with a wider public, and yet we are working in a communications environment hampered on one side by the excruciatingly slow processes and painfully narrow readership of academic publishing, and on the other by enormous quantities of fake news, clickbait, and hot takes, which make it difficult for good work that is academically rigorous and also lay accessible to stand out. Podcasting is an important part of our response.

This roundtable discussion brings together producers and presenters from many of the most popular and important anthropology podcasts, to create a community of practice, share challenges and best practices, and make the case for podcasting as a key tool for communicating with various audiences, including students, scholars, educators, policy makers, and the curious public.

Presenters will explore topics including resistance to new media from within the academy; the technical challenges of production; the unglamorous and unrecognized work of promotion, fund seeking, and public engagement; problems of diversity, inclusion, and representation in podcasting; and theorize methods for communicating ethnographic data and analysis for all audiences.

Organizer(s)

• Ian Pollock

  Doctoral candidate
  Australian National University, The Familiar Strange podcast/blog

Chair(s)

• Carie Hersh

  Associate Teaching Professor / Podcaster
  Northeastern University / Anthropologist on the Street podcast

Presenter(s)

• Carie Hersh

  Associate Teaching Professor / Podcaster
  Northeastern University / Anthropologist on the Street podcast

• Anar Parikh

  PhD Candidate
  Brown University

• anne-marie turcotte

  Concordia University

• Pauline Hoebanx

  M.A. Student
  Concordia University

Discussant(s)

• Ryan Collins

  Lecturer
  Brandeis University

• Timothy Neale

  Alfred Deakin Postdoctoral Research Fellow
  Deakin University

Chair(s)

• Adam Gamwell

  Design Anthropologist + Media Producer
  This Anthro Life Podcast + Missing Link Studios

Organizer(s)

• Adam Gamwell

  Design Anthropologist + Media Producer
  This Anthro Life Podcast + Missing Link Studios