Teaching “Anthropology for Liberation” in 2025 with “The Good Ancestor Game” by Tina Ngata and Tāwhana Chadwick
Playing this game in class was the highlight of my 2025 teaching year.
Author: lorenagibson
Teaching “Anthropology for Liberation” Part 2: Redesigning assessments
This is the (overdue!) second part of a series reflecting on changes I made to my undergraduate course Anthropology for Liberation at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington…
Teaching “Anthropology for Liberation” in 2025, Part 1: What reading lists communicate
This year I taught my undergraduate course Anthropology for Liberation at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington after a two year break. As readers of this blog will…
Advice for PhD students approaching the examination process in Aotearoa New Zealand (or other contexts featuring external examination of theses), by Dr April K. Henderson
I am delighted to share this invaluable resource from my friend and colleague, Dr. April K Henderson. April has written the most thoughtful and practical advice I’ve seen…
Ethnographic writing intensive: Five activities for the fieldwork-to-writing transition
Recently I have been thinking about how I learnt to transition from fieldwork to writing. Like many graduate students, mid-way through my thesis research I found myself with…
Developing a ‘Cultural Anthropology Pathways Explorer’ for a university Open Day
If you work at a university, you’ll know that Open Days are an important recruitment event. Universities here in Aotearoa are facing increasing financial challenges (a result of…
Using GenAI to think critically about grading in a Cultural Anthropology class
In 2019, my friend and colleague Grant Otsuki started experimenting with Generative AI (GenAI) – GPT-2 by OpenAI – to see how well it did at writing an…
Drawing with Lynda Barry’s “Syllabus” in a creative ethnographic practices class
A few years ago, my friend Caroline Bennett gave me Lynda Barry’s 2014 book Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor and this term I decided to use some…
How an interview request about Gen X sparked a teaching moment in an anthropology class
Last week Jogai Bhatt from RNZ approached me to do an interview about Generation X for a mini-series they are airing in the lead up to Generation X:…
Further reflections on writing ethnographic fieldnotes
The most popular post on my blog describes the fieldnote template I developed during the early stages of my PhD research with community-based NGOs running educational and economic…
Teaching ‘how to anthropology’ alongside ‘how to university’ in an introductory cultural anthropology class
I have taught our large introductory cultural anthropology course (ANTH 101) on and off since 2014, and every couple of years I redesign it based on conversations with…
Anthropology for Liberation assessments
Over the past few years I have been sharing the readings I assign for an undergraduate course I teach at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Anthropology for…
Anthropology for Liberation readings 3.0
2021 marks the fourth year I have taught Anthropology for Liberation, an undergraduate course in the Cultural Anthropology Programme at Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. The course…
Book review: Citizen Designs (2021) by Eli Elinoff
The University of Hawaiʻi Press has been publishing some excellent books lately, including Eli Elinoff’s first monograph, Citizen Designs: City-Making and Democracy in Northeastern Thailand (20…
Anthropology for Liberation readings 2.0
In 2017 I taught a new course for the first time: Anthropology for Liberation. Here’s the short course description: How can Anthropology advance human emancipation from racism, gender…
Christchurch Mosque Attacks: A Public Syllabus
My colleague Catherine Trundle is working with students and staff from our School at Victoria University of Wellington on this important syllabus about the Christchurch Mosque Attacks. The…
Welcome to The New Outrigger!
This is a new website initiative from ANU Pacific Studies PhD students Bianca Hennessy (who I met in 2017 when she visited Va’aomanū Pasifika at Victoria University of…
East Side Orchestras: Music and Social Change
I am currently working on a research project that looks at the social impacts of Arohanui Strings, Porirua Soundscapes, and Virtuoso Strings. These groups provide free, Sistema-inspired orchestral mus…
New Zealand-born and internationally raised
I am delighted to welcome writer Cileme Venkateswar to anthropod. This is the third post in my series on doing fieldwork with kids, and in it Cileme (who…
Doing fieldwork with kids: Part II
Thanks to some amazing role models in the School of People, Environment and Planning at Massey University, where I studied, I have always known that it is possible…
What we’ve been writing: public anthropology from vic
Check out some recent work by my colleagues in the Cultural Anthropology programme vicanthropology It’s been a while since we’ve posted on vicanthropology, but everyone’s been busy elsewhere.…
Anthropology for Liberation readings
Next trimester I’m teaching a new course, Anthropology for Liberation. Here’s the course description: How can anthropology advance human emancipation from racism, gender inequality, class …
Pacific Reading PDFs Update (12/20/16)
I have just found this amazing resource/blog – highly recommend checking it out if you are interested in Oceania. Beauty of Oceania LINK TO PACIFIC READING DROPBOX These…
Anthropology under my skin
What follows is the text of the presentation I gave as part of the the Reclaiming Anthropology panel during the Anthropology in Aotearoa Symposium held at Victoria University…