The Society for Economic Anthropology is pleased to announce the awardees of the 2014 award of $1000 for PhD research and a second award of $500 to supplement the costs of traveling to the SEA spring conference.

The awardees for 2014:

Andrea L. Rissing of Emory University’s Anthropology Department (Advisor Peggy Barlett): “Beginning Farmers and Agricultural Success in Iowan Sustainable Agriculture.” This project focuses on entrepreneurs running diversified, usually organic, vegetable operations who have been farming for less than ten years in Iowa.

Katie Orlemanski of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University (Advisor Dorothy L. Hodgson): “Poster (Girl)Child: Gendered Education Projects in Rural Tanzania.” This project looks at how and why the “girl-child” has become such a focus of interest (and resources) of international NGOs and donors, and how the reproduction and reification of that trope through various development and education efforts has shaped the lived experience and sense of self of young girls themselves.

Samuel Dira Jilo, Department of Anthropology at Washington State University (Advisor: Barry S. Hewlett): “Resilience: Learning to save and ‘Producing Big’ among subsistence producers in Ethiopia.” This project addresses cultural resilience and other applied economic anthropology issues, as well as coevolution, traditional ecological knowledge (TEK studies), and biocultural evolution.

The Rhoda Halperin Memorial Fund celebrates the life and scholarly work of Rhoda Halperin by supporting PhD students in anthropology who emulate her love of economic anthropology and her concern for people living on the social margin. In memory of Rhoda’s convivial colleagueship, the Fund also encourages student professional development through participation in the scholarly meetings of the SEA and AAA. To meet these goals, students engaged in economic research focused on social exclusion and poverty are provided small research grants and subsequent travel money to present their findings at the Society for Economic Anthropology annual conference.

The committee, composed of Martha Rees, Rudolf J Colloredo-Mansfeld, Patricia A McAnany, William Mitchell, Walter Little, and Suzanne Scheld, reviewed and ranked 29 applications in order to make the difficult decision about which projects to fund.

More information about the competition is here.