The Human Show: Innovation through Social Science Paul Spain

Dace Dzenovskais Associate Professor in the Anthropology of Migration at the University of Oxford and the Principal Investigator of the EMPTINESS project. She holds doctoral and master’s degrees in Social Cultural Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley, as well as an interdisciplinary master’s degree in Humanities and Social Thought from New York University.
We are happy to have Dace with us speaking to her background and her experience and thoughts on isolation. She shares about her current research on emptiness and links it to isolation. Through fieldwork stories, she further details the condition of emptiness of which isolation is an element and explores what happens when this condition is seen as a site of opportunities. Lastly, she talks about what excites her the most about coming to the conference as well as her advice to those considering to attend. Listen to the episode to hear more about it.

Heli Rantavuo is an applied cultural studies and social sciences researcher based in Helsinki. For the past 15 years, she has worked in the technology industry in London, Stockholm and Helsinki, contributing and leading research in product and market strategy at Spotify, eBay, Microsoft and Nokia. Before working in the industry, she was a researcher at Aalto University, School of Media and Art where she graduated as Doctor of Arts, and at the Center of Welfare and Health in Finland. Heli is a founding member of the Human Sciences in Strategy association in Finland which brings together applied anthropologists and other human scientists who practise their craft outside academia.
We are happy to have Heli with us speaking to her background and her experience and thoughts on isolation. She shares some of the lenses she is considering to use to explore the topic of isolation, such as temporality, embodiment and capitalism.  Lastly, she talks about what excites her the most about coming to the conference as well as her advice to those considering to attend.  Listen to the episode to hear more about it.

We are happy to have Rafram with us speaking to his background as a visual artist and his experience and thoughts on isolation. In 2010, Rafram found himself imprisoned
in Lybia. He spent 6 months by himself in an extreme isolation unit, not knowing whether he would live or die. In this conversation he explores questions such as: 
What does it mean to be free?
What is the value of being with oneself?
What do inner conversations reveal and what effects can one experience after such a transformative event?
Rafram also speaks to the power of the artistic lens and how it can help cultivate self-inquiry and drive everyday choices from a space of personal freedom. 
Lastly, as a speaker of Why the world needs Anthropologists, The Power of Isolation, he
shares his thoughts on anthropology as well as his advice and thoughts to those considering attending the conference. Listen to the episode to hear more about it.

Erin B. Taylor & Melanie T. Uy: Anthropologists & Authors of Better Research, Better Design: How to Align Teams and Build a Human-Centric Company Culture.
Dr. Erin B. Taylor has a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Sydney and is the founder of Finthropology, a company specializing in insights into people’s financial behaviour. She specializes in how people’s financial behaviour is changing along with innovation in financial services, and has carried out ethnographic research in the Caribbean, Africa and Europe. Erin is especially interested in how culture and group belonging influence people’s actions and decisions.
Dr. Melanie T. Uy is a lifelong learner and known for unexpected questions. She is a ritual specialist focusing on the practices of social connection and disconnection and its impact on work and workplaces. Her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam researched how social detachment was essential to the work of migration brokers in China. She currently works as a user experience researcher in the Netherlands and previously ran consumer studies for the retail and healthcare market in the Philippines.
We are excited to have Erin and Melanie with us to share this joint research project. This project is intended as a toolkit for researchers and their colleagues to help them position the value of their work and bring it forth to a desired organizational level. We ask the authors how did the idea for the project come about? How did they organize the research and what were the unexpected insights that emerged from it? Melanie and Erin ask back whether they were right or wrong with their conclusions. Listen to the episode and feel free to reach out to the authors to share your feedback.
Mentioned in Podcast:
Better Research,
Better Design: How to Align Teams and Build a Human-Centric Company Culture by Erin B. Taylor and Melany.T.Uy
Active8 Planet
American Anthropological Association (AAA)
Applied
Anthropology Network (AAN)
EPIC 2022
Finthropology
Gillian
Tett
Moving Matters: People, Goods, Power and Ideas, University of Amsterdam
Response-ability Summit
The National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
UXInsight 
Social Media:
Erin: LinkedIn
Melanie: LinkedIn;...

Amina Alaoui Soulimani is a doctoral research fellow at HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa. Amina holds an MSc in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics. Her current anthropological doctoral work at the University of Cape Town focuses on the ethics of care, AI, and the future hospital in Morocco.
Gabriela Cabaña is a Ph.D. candidate at the LSE anthropology department. Gabriela is a transdisciplinary scholar originally trained in Sociology in Chile but also draws from political ecology and feminist theoretical perspectives. She is interested in the interplay between energy, bureaucracy, value, and degrowth. Her ethnographic work focuses on energy transitions in southern Chile.
Gabriela is part of Centro de Análisis Socioambiental (Centre of Social-Environmental Analysis); Red Chilena de Ingreso Básico (Chilean network of Basic Income) and the Basic Income Earth Network. 
This is a special episode, a Love letter to David Graeber. Gabriela was taught a course by David at LSE, while Amina got to know him as a thesis supervisor there. Through the lived experiences of Amina and Gabriela, we are exploring David's contribution and
legacy in action. What has stuck with them from the conversations they had with David and the academic interactions he created? Gabriela and Amina share beautiful examples from their individual encounters with David as an academic lead and a fellow human. Finally, we ask how to make someone like David possible in academia again and more?
At the end, they share their favourite readings. Listen to this conversation about a personal anthropological touch and the inheritance of David Graeber.
Social Media:
Amina: https://twitter.com/AminaSoulimani
Gabriela: https://twitter.com/gabi_cabana
Mentioned in Podcast
Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology by David Graeber
The Utopia of Rules by David
Graeber

David Prendergast is Head of the Department of Anthropology and Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Maynooth University in Ireland. Previously David worked at Intel where he was a principal investigator at the ‘Technology Research for Independent Living Centre’ and co-founder of the ‘Intel Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities’. He has also served as Visiting Professor of Healthcare Innovation at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at Trinity College Dublin. He is currently working on a book with colleagues Jamie Saris and Katja Seidel about the lives of 94 older adults in ten locations across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic.
We are happy to have David with us speaking to his background and current work at the intersection of academia and the applied sector. He shares his path into anthropology and his multiple research projects as well as gives insight into what motivated his choices to leave spaces of engagement or to take on new opportunities. As speaker at the Why the world needs Anthropologists conference
he shares how he will be contributing to the themes as well as his advice and thoughts to those considering to attend.
Listen to the episode to hear more about it.

Mentioned:
Why the World needs Anthropologists, Re|Generation,
September 2022 https://www.applied-anthropology.com/session/regeneration-talk-iv-2/
Social Media:
LinkedIn : https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidprendergast/