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Anthropology
As part of our ethnographic field training for anthropology majors, the Department has placed students with organizations such as Stone Soup Fresno and Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries (FIRM) to evaluate their organizational strengths and weaknesses.
Henry Delcore is currently working on two research projects in partnership with FIRM. In one project, Dr. Delcore is advising FIRM on the conduct of a photographic research project on the housing conditions of new Hmong immigrants; the second project involves collection of work history data from new immigrants to facilitate their movement into employment.
Hinds Hospice House of Fresno is a small, innovative non-profit firm specializing in end of life care. Hinds approached the Department and requested help in better understanding their own organizational culture. In spring 2006, an anthropology major will intern at Hinds and work toward an analysis of their organizational culture.
Dr. James Mullooly is currently working with the Lyles Center of Entrepreneurial Studies to increase awareness in the business community of the utility of an applied anthropology of entrepreneurship. One of the proposed fruits of this endeavor will involve getting business majors to conduct participant observation in their analysis of business enterprises In spring, 2006, Dr. Mullooly is teaching a version of Anth 105W (Applied Anthropology) which will focus explicitly on applied research of entrepreneurial activities.
Dr. James Mullooly is currently involved in a research project on the multi-faceted nature of change and development in the town of Mariposa. He has built partnerships with the Mariposa Chamber of Commerce and the Mariposa County Town Council. They are interested in the use of anthropological methods to help them understand their own community and the social, cultural, and economic changes underway in the entire Sierra foothills region.
See for example, “The Last Un-commercialized Town in the Sierra Foothills: Depictions of Change in a Landscape of Stability.” Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology. April 5-10, 2005. The research involves the discussion of a longitudinal study that will investigate how the opening a UC Merced will impact life (economic, cultural, etc.) of Mariposa.
Dr. Mullooly is working with Dr. Matthew A. Jendian of the Fresno State Department of Sociology and the Director of American Humanics Program and student Amro K. Suboh to investigate housing concerns in the Fresno. Dr. Mullooly and some of the students in his ethnography course will use the following report as the impetus for further investigation in the Fall 2006 - Spring 2007 academic year.