IPUMS presents  awards for published and for student research each year.  Recently Dr Amy Johnson was announced  as the winner for the IPUMS Health Surveys award, along with 3 co-authors (Christopher Levesque, Neil A. Lewis Jr., and Asad L. Asad).  The article is entitled "Deportation Threat Predicts Latino US Citizens and Noncitizens’ Psychological Distress, 2011 to 2018"

The authors document increasing levels of anxiety and depression among Latinos between 2011 and 2018 and study how that varies by citizenship status. They measure the relative effect on psychological distress of dramatic policy changes (e.g., DACA announced, Trump’s first election) versus the general institutional and social environment of deportation threat (i.e., monthly DHS detainee requests and monthly Google searches on “immigration”), and they find the latter to be more impactful. This innovative study shows how joining harmonized NHIS data with other data sources can illuminate contextual influences on mental health.

See the full article here.

Defining who is "middle class" is not as straightforward as you  might think.  For a story entitled "Empowering a Thriving Black Middle Class" the Urban Institute interviewed Dr LaToya Council, who uses a broader definition than just typical measures of status.  She looks for economic security for generations.  The Black Family Thriving Initiative has similar thinking - they aim to "reframe the narrative of being Black and middle class in America."  Dr Council's own research focuses on middle class married couples and aims to deepen our understanding of how race and gender oppression impact Black middle-class couples, utilizing archival research and interviews. 

https://www.urban.org/stories/black-middle-class-wealth?utm_source=urban_social&utm_medium=linkedin&utm_campaign=black_middle_class&utm_term=pipeline_requests&utm_content=race_and_equity

Anthropology major Zenus Francis recently attended his first professional association to present on his research.  As part of a senior thesis project, supervised by Dr Armando Anzellini, Zenus researched social class, identity, and cranial modification in the ancient Andes.   He presented his findings in a poster session  the American Association of Biological Anthropologists annual meeting in Baltimore over spring break.

The research sought to investigate the relationship between cranial modification and eliteness across the Ancient Andes to determine if modification was a method of ascribing status. Zenus hypothesized that cranial modification would be more prevalent in sites where it was associated with eliteness than in sites where it was indeterminate of elite status. Methods: he conducted a meta analysis on the relationship between elite status and cranial modification from a data base of sites across the Andes region. I built a dataset that differentiated sites where cranial modification was associated with elite status and where it determined to not be associated and conducted statistical analysis comparing populations of unmodified and modified individuals. This analysis was conducted between sites, within sites, and across temporal periods to understand the dynamics and change of these patterns. Results: Using a chi-square test he was unable to show any statistical difference between eliteness and modification populations. Additionally, he was unable to observe a statistical difference in the unmodified and modified populations across all sites. Conclusion: Conducting a meta-analysis of cranial modification across the Andes region, he was unable to support the hypothesis that cranial modification was a tool for inscribing elite status. Conducting a meta-scale analysis of cranial modification can help us understand large geographical and temporal patterns of cranial modification, which can illuminate its relationship to social structure.

Zenus is a senior with a double major in anthropology and psychology.  After graduation this May, he will pursue a Masters in Anthropology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

The Critical Urban Anthropology Association selected Dr Samantha Maurer Fox's paper for the prestigious City and Society Best Paper Prize at this week's annual conference. The paper, "A City of newcomers: migration and solidarity in the former East Germany" was first published May 17, 2024 and "examines how urban temporalities have come to alternately foster and hinder migrants' incorporation in the larger social body."  Here's a link to the article: https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12484

Pictured with Dr Fox (center) are Kristin Monroe, editor of City and Society and the executive editor, Andrew Newman.  CUAA is  a section of the American Anthropology Association, which is holding its annual meeting in Tampa, Fl this week (November 20-23, 2024).