NSF, Wenner-Gren Funding for Michael P. Jordan

I have been waiting for his official paperwork to be completed, but I have been really looking forward to the chance to congratulate my friend Michael P. Jordan on his receipt of doctoral dissertation research grants from the Cultural Anthropology program of the National Science Foundation and from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. These two grants are the gold standard for anthropologists (folklorists, ethnomusicologists, linguists, etc.) seeking to undertake major ethnographic research projects worldwide. Getting one is a big deal, being awarded both is extraordinary. A doctoral student at the University of Oklahoma and a researcher at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History, Michael has developed an important project in which he will be continuing his long-term collaborative work among the Kiowa people of Southwestern Oklahoma. His particular focus for this project is an examination of formal descendants’ organizations (groups organized by lineal descendants to commemorate their nineteenth century ancestors) and their emergent role in Kiowa social life. His project engages with larger debates concerned with kinship, historical consciousness, intellectual property, material culture, cultural performance, and ethnonationalism and his methods will include formal interview techniques, collaborative ethnography, and the analysis of artifacts, public discourses, social networks, and cultural performance events.

Congratulations to Michael and to his adviser (and my OCDI collaborator) Daniel C. Swan. They have done done a great job crafting a project that has proven compelling to so many peer-reviewers and program officers.

See an earlier post here for a post on two other awards supporting Michael’s project.