Episode 12: Parenting

09/23/18 • 34 min

AnthroAlert: An Anthropology Podcast

# AnthroAlert

## Episode 12: Parenting

Originally aired 11 August 2017 on bullsradio.org

In this episode, we examine the anthropology of parenting.

Our guest, Anna Davidson Abella, will help us to discuss anthropological approaches to understanding parenting.

Anna received her B.S. in Anthropology from USF in 2004 and went on to complete a joint M.A. in Anthropology and Women’s and Gender studies from Brandeis University in 2006. She returned to the Tampa area to work in the non-profit sector as a program director for an organization that provided social and emotional education programs to youth throughout Hillsborough County. After five years in this field, Anna returned to USF to pursue her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology. Her focus of study ultimately became oriented around parenting, as both professional and personal experiences converged to open up new insights into social implications of parenting. She is currently in the writing stage of her dissertation with plans to graduate in December 2017.

The purpose of this research is to understand local definitions of what it means to be a “good” parent. The mixed-methods approach combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and electronic survey shows that parents rely heavily on children’s developmental milestones as markers around which parenting strategies should be oriented and as a pathway to being a more nurturing and loving parent. The practices embodied by the parents – most of whom are middle class stay at home mothers - reflect widespread professional ideologies of child development that focus on the importance of parenting a particular way in the early years in order to mitigate future risks. Spending focused time with children was also a motivating factor for many of the mothers who chose to stay home to raise their children. Parents’ beliefs in nurturing their children’s developmental abilities are consistent with notions of concerted cultivation, which are drawn from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital. This work therefore explores implications of who “good parenting” is accessible to, and how structural supports in our society may be reimagined to allow all parents to realize their ideal approaches to parenting.

## Podcast link

## Video link

https://youtu.be/p5LqjcpRH-0

## Album art photo credit:

Oliver Thompson

https://flic.kr/p/9zVPYB

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Daddy and Levi by Tammy McGary

https://flic.kr/p/aT1MJn

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

## Intro music credit:

Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba

http://ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/33345

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

# AnthroAlert

## Episode 12: Parenting

Originally aired 11 August 2017 on bullsradio.org

In this episode, we examine the anthropology of parenting.

Our guest, Anna Davidson Abella, will help us to discuss anthropological approaches to understanding parenting.

## Podcast link

## Video link

https://youtu.be/p5LqjcpRH-0

## Album art photo credit:

Oliver Thompson

https://flic.kr/p/9zVPYB

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Daddy and Levi by Tammy McGary

https://flic.kr/p/aT1MJn

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

## Intro music credit:

Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba

http://ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/33345

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Episode 11: Heritage Studies

# AnthroAlert

## Episode 11: Heritage Studies

Originally aired 4 August 2017 on bullsradio.org

In this episode, we discuss how anthropology helps us to better understand culture and national identity.

Our guest, Vivian Gornik, will present on heritage and museum studies.

Vivian is a PhD Candidate in applied anthropology at the University of South Florida.

She has a BA in Anthropology and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Florida. As a cultural anthropologist she combines her interest in anthropology and museum studies by studying the people who visit museums and heritage sites.

Vivian just completed the fieldwork for her dissertation project, which explores how heritage and national identity are linked at two sites in England: Glastonbury in Somerset and Tintagel in Cornwall. The goal of this research is to better understand the role that heritage sites and museums play in the production of national identities, especially in today’s global society where conceptualizations of national identity are becoming more difficult to define. The post-Brexit United Kingdom is a particularly strong example of a nation going through an identity crisis. What does it mean to be British? Do heritage sites in the U.K. represent a specific kind of national identity? Or is there the potential for these sites to engage with the U.K.’s multicultural reality?

By better understanding the ways in which current heritage narratives are produced and consumed, suggestions can be made for how heritage can become more inclusive and representative.

## Podcast link

## Video link

https://youtu.be/wxLQ0PgCH6I

## Album art photo credit:

Oliver Thompson

https://flic.kr/p/9zVPYB

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Sitting on top of forever by Nelo Hotsuma

https://flic.kr/p/dagF8m

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

## Intro music credit:

Urbana-Metronica (wooh-yeah mix) by spinningmerkaba

http://ccmixter.org/files/jlbrock44/33345

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Next Episode

Episode 13: Druze Identity

# AnthroAlert

## Episode 13: Druze Identity

Originally aired 18 August 2017 on bullsradio.org

In this episode, our guest, Chad Radwan, will present on how expanded educational resources focused on Druze history might strengthen collective notions of community and Druze particularism.

Chad Radwan is a recent graduate of the Department of Anthropology at the University of South Florida. As well, he earned his Bachelor’s degree in anthropology at USF in 2006 and his Master’s degree in applied anthropology in 2009. His thesis is titled Assessing Druze Identity and Strategies for Preserving Druze Heritage in North America, and he worked to apply his findings through the oldest Arab-American mutual aid Society. For his dissertation research, Chad traveled to Lebanon in 2014 where he studied how educational resources focused on doctrine and history might strengthen the ethnoreligious Druze community. His dissertation is titled The Sweet Burden: Constructing and Contesting Druze Heritage and Identity in Lebanon and he has presented on his research at a number of Druze conventions, both domestically and internationally, and at academic conferences. Chad’s upcoming article, Economic Adversities and Cultural Coping Strategies: Impacts on Identity Boundaries among Druzes in Lebanon, will be published in the early 2018 issue of Economic Anthropology and he is currently writing an article focusing on the social obligations and financial pressures that shape modern weddings among young Druze. Chad has worked on a variety of research projects in Public Health and in the Information Management Systems Engineering and helped to create and disseminate the largest single health assessment of an older adult population. This research resulted in a paper titled, Villages of Opportunity: Increasing Health and Quality of Life in Older Adults, coauthored with the Dean of the College of Public Health at USF, Donna Petersen, which was awarded the American Public Health Association’s prestigious Erickson Foundation Research Award.

The Druze are a ethnoreligious community that mainly preside in Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Northern Jordan. They practice a strict form of endogamy and neither proselytize nor recognize a method of conversion. Their inner-teachings of their faith are require a knowledge that is passed down among male and female sheikhs, who represent a fraction of the worldwide Druze community, living relatively modest lives ideally devoted to the attainment of spiritual knowledge. Among a number of other factors, the majority of Druze individuals in the countries of origin and in the diaspora have a pronounced gap in their knowledge of their history and the basics of their doctrine. I conducted research to understand how expanded educational resources focused on Druze history and the elementary tenets of the faith might strengthen collective notions of community and Druze particularism. The research identified a number of gaps where formal resources are lacking and how existing seminars, study groups, community events, etc. might be increased, improved, or made more accessible. As well, having conducted 91 qualitative interviews, research informants discussed how a collective belief in reincarnation, shared political interests, and their minority status, shaped their Druze identity and sense of community in Lebanese society, which is often divided along sectarian and confessional lines.

## Podcast link

https://anthroalert.tumblr.com/post/168640542395/anthroalert-episode-13-druze-identity

## Video link

https://youtu.be/VCpCJi6Gj-Q

## Album art photo credit:

Oliver Thompson

https://flic.kr/p/9zVPYB

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

The market at the Druze village Daliyat al-Karmil. by Shiran Pasternak

https://flic.kr/p/ccCwFw

CC License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

## Intro music credit: