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JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “What the Black Swamp Wants: Harm, Data, and the Shape of History in Lake Erie” with Gebby Keny, PhD Candidate, Rice University, on Thursday, April 24, at 12:00pm via Zoom.

Join the Rice Anthropology Department and @SarahBesky tomorrow 12pm! . Sewall 570 or Zoom. Register link below.

She also co-edited How Nature Works: Rethinking Labor on a Troubled Planet (SAR Press, 2019) with Alex Blanchette. Sarah’s currently working on a new book on the countryside, colonialism, and agrarian crisis in Kalimpong, West Bengal.

She is the author of The Darjeeling Distinction: Labor and Justice on Fair-Trade Tea Plantations in India (University of California Press, 2014) and Tasting Qualities: The Past and Future of Tea (University of California Press, 2020).

Sarah Besky is Professor of the Anthropology of Work at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. Her research uses ethnographic and historical methods to explore questions of labor, environment, and capitalism in the Himalayas and India.

Banerjee’s opening is profoundly uneven. The intensification of retreat raises questions for Nepalis and Indigenous Bhutia and Lepcha communities in the hills about how to stay settled on their land.

. leisure economy, whereby Bengali urbanites from Kolkata can more easily, and cheaply, escape climate crisis—the increasingly unbearable heat and pollution of the city. These tourists stay not in hotels but in “homestays” in the houses of villagers in Kalimpong.

At the same time, the state has rolled out rural development programs aimed at not only remaking an agrarian economy in the hills, but also at foreclosing the possibility of future subnational agitations. Most significantly, the opening of the hills involves an expanded. .

Besky's paper describes changing land tenure relations in the Himalayan district of Kalimpong, West Bengal, India in the wake of the Gorkhaland agitations of the early 2000s. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has declared the hill region “open for business".

To register for the Zoom meeting, click here: To read more about the event, read below.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Home Values: Land, Labor, and the Economy of Retreat in the Eastern Himalayas” with Sarah Besky, Prof of the Anthropology of Work, the IRL School, Cornell University, on Friday, April 18, at 12:00pm in Room 570, Sewall Hall and via Zoom.

. team at The AI Institute in Cambridge, Mass. Dr. Lynch was Dean of Faculty at Olin from 2021-2023. She wrote Retirement on the Line: Age, Work, and Value in An American Factory, and Juki Girls, Good Girls: Gender and Cultural Politics in Sri Lanka's Global Garment Industry.

Caitrin Lynch is Professor of Anthropology at Olin College of Engineering, outside of Boston, where she teaches courses in anthropology, design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. In 2024-25, she is on sabbatical as a Visiting Researcher on the Robotics, Ethics and Society. .

. the Boston area in 2024. This talk analyzes how older adults and their care teams (family, paid, institutional) weigh the promise and perils of technology, automation, and robotics, as they make sense of their own value systems, experiences, successes, and strains.

. that are ethically designed and implemented, culturally appropriate, respectful of social practices of diverse populations, and deployed in an equitable manner? This talk shares findings from ethnographic research among older adults, their families, and caregivers in. .

As societies plan to support the aging population, there are increasedcalls for the development of technology to address care needs. The rush to “techno fixes” begs the question of how to create supportive systems, including technological systems. .

The world is experiencing a demographic transition and populations across the globe are aging. At the same time, governments, medical professionals, and policymakers have identified a workforce shortage of care providers for the burgeoning older adult population.

To register for the Zoom meeting, click here: For more info about the event, read below.

JOIN US for a Brown Bag Lecture “Eldercare and Technology: Visions of Positive Futures” with Caitrin Lynch, Professor of Anthropology, Olin College of Engineering, on Tuesday, April 8, at 12:15pm in Sewall 570 and via Zoom.