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Showing posts from May, 2020

29 May 2020: Decolonizing Paleoanthropology

Dunsworth, Sterling, and Athreya and Ackermann have done great work at bringing to light the issue of colonial mindsets in modern anthropological research in their respective fields and articles. Athreya and Ackermann specifically mention the concept of "otherization," or the process of marginalizing and devaluing concepts having to due with minority populations. This is a word I had never heard about until their article, Colonialism and Narratives of Human Origins in Asia and Africa, and a word that I think is very helpful in explaining the way that minority, or non-white, populations are treated and more specifically the way that their narratives and experiences are put on the back burner to be ignored and forgotten about.  I also believe that it is incredibly unfortunate that many people in science have retained the colonialist mindset without even knowing it. It is something that can be drilled into people, starting when they are kids and continuing throughout their entir