This talk addresses how methodologies employing apprenticeship and collaboration as structuring principles take place across diverse ethnographic and documentary projects in the Appalachian Mountains of the eastern United States. Folklorist and anthropologist Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth will discuss the potential of these methods to address inequities in power in the various stages of the social life of a project, as well as applications, outcomes, and futures rendered possible through his work in the states of West Virginia and Ohio. The talk will cover past and ongoing research with creative place-makers such as craft artisans, trail builders, local historians, and environmental activists while taking stock of successes and failures of collaborative research practices in and beyond institutional settings.
Biography
Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth is a cultural anthropologist and folklorist with interests at the intersections of craft, economy, and environment. He has researched musical and material craft traditions in global contexts through his work with the Smithsonian Institution’s Asian Cultural History Program and the University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology and Appalachian Center, where he earned his PhD in 2019. His recent research interests have involved craft economies and production in global mountain forests, with a focus on Carpathia and Appalachia and collaborative methods. His upcoming book, Finding the Singing Spruce explores the connections between the meaning of craft work and forest environments in the craft of musical instruments in West Virginia. At OSU, he has worked in partnership with former coal communities in Appalachian Ohio thinking through intergenerational, environment, and economic succession in place-making.
To register your interest, please visit https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJErdOytpzgsGNGcJErHhiM_NjiPhMEfqQBU