Conference in Santa Fe this week will try to solve humanity's problems
Mar. 23—How can Santa Fe reduce social isolation among youth? How can organizations or governments draw on social science to prepare for disasters?
If you've ever wanted advice from a social scientist, Santa Fe's Eldorado Hotel & Spa is the place to be Tuesday.
The five-day annual meeting of the international organization the Society for Applied Anthropology could bring up to 2,000 social scientists to the venue. It will kick off Tuesday with a day of New Mexico-focused presentations and workshops free to the public — including a new "Ask a Social Scientist Advice Booth" staffed throughout the day.
The free "Local Day" and several sessions in the following days of the conference will emphasize the work of applied social scientists — people drawing the concepts of social science to address real-world problems — in New Mexico and the U.S. Southwest, said organizer A.J. Faas, an anthropologist and professor at the University of South Florida.
The theme for 2024, the society's 84th annual meeting, is "Enchantment and Transformation." Presenters will include not only academics from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University, New Mexico Highlands, PIRE-Southwest and universities in Texas and Arizona, but also people working in the public, private and nonprofit sectors in New Mexico and across the globe, such as employees of the Environmental Protection Agency and international nongovernmental organizations, Faas said.
On Local Day, some panels will examine New Mexico's past, such as Japanese American internment in the state, while others will touch on "very contemporary" topics like repatriation of Native American remains and New Mexico emerging as a haven for gender-affirming care and LGBTQ+ rights, Faas said.
Several programs will also delve into water rights and climate change in the Southwest. A panel Tuesday afternoon, for example, will discuss region-specific findings of the Fifth National Climate Assessment, released by the federal government in November.
The Southwest has long been a hub for anthropological work, in part because of collaborations between anthropologists and tribes in the region, Faas said.
Santa Fe also happens to be a popular place for anthropologists to retire, he added: "I'm not kidding; there's an awful lot of them."
The society's conference moves around among North American cities each year and has returned to Santa Fe five times since 1970, more frequently than any other city, because the location has proved such a draw, Faas said.
One unique thing about the conference is its interdisciplinarity.
"That's the fun thing about coming, is you get to really see all the different forms that [applied social science] takes," Faas said. "A remarkable thing about the SFAA, as we call it, is just that's it been able to sustain and promote this diversity of approaches. ... There's a lot of important programming that I hope people will find appealing and consider attending."
