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Contact: Paul Nuti May 4, 2004 Anthropological Association Receives Large
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) has been awarded its largest grant ever, a three year, nearly $3 million continuing grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The funding supports development of a comprehensive, learner-focused public education program on Understanding Race and Human Variation to clarify what race is and isn't and to help individuals understand the origins and manifestations of race and racism in everyday life. The AAA is the world's largest organization of anthropologists, with offices just outside Washington, D.C. in Arlington, VA. The National Science Foundation award, effective May 1, 2004, is for $339,410 for the first year and will continue for three years for a total of $2,964,744. The grant was approved on the basis of scientific and technical merit. Planning for AAA's Understanding Race project was made possible with $1 million funding support from the Ford Foundation granted to the AAA in September 2001. The NSF grant makes this project an overall $4 million undertaking, including contributions from the Association's own budget. AAA's Understanding Race program is designed to reach the general public. It will consist of a traveling museum exhibition; a comprehensive web site; educational materials for teachers, students, families, scientists and scholars; conferences and related activities. Development of the program draws on the latest scientific and scholarly research conducted across a wide range of academic disciplines. Scheduled to open to the public in Fall 2006, the 5,000 square-foot museum exhibit is being developed by the Science Museum of Minnesota. The exhibit will include interactive experiences for visitors to learn the history of race, the role of science in that history and the subtle and obtrusive expressions of race and racism in institutions and daily lives. The exhibit will tour for at least six years and is expected to reach some three million visitors in cities across the US. An interactive web site, being developed by S2N Media, Inc. in New York, will include a virtual tour of the exhibit as well as online activities, experiments and materials for scholars, children, teachers and families. "Anthropologists have studied the concept of race for over 100 years" says William Davis, Executive Director of the American Anthropological Association. "We consider it a great opportunity to be a catalyst in bringing what science and scholarship have learned about race and human variation over those years to the wider public through this program." The Understanding Race exhibit will help visitors come to realize that while human variation is an aspect of nature, "race", as the term is commonly used, is not a biological phenomenon. but a dynamic and sometimes harmful cultural construct. This project will encourage appreciation and respect for human commonality and difference, and will seek to promote an informed dialogue among scientists and scholars, individuals, families, communities and institutions "It is more important now than ever to understand what race means in this society," says Yolanda Moses, chair of the project's Advisory Committee. "People see differences in how others look and they think of those differences as "race". But many people also attribute behavior, and cognitive and physical abilities to different races, and this is where they are wrong" she says. "The underlying premise of this project is that race is not the scientific or biological entity that people assume it is; it is a powerful social and cultural construct that shapes how we see others and ourselves and how others see us," maintains Peggy Overbey, project director of Understanding Race and AAA's director of government relations. "Once you remove the legs of science and biology from the concept of race, you see that it's a learned way of perceiving human differences that often results in bias and discrimination, some of which you may be aware of, some not." AAA has a track record in addressing issues of race since the 1940s. This project builds on the AAA's 1998 Statement on Race; its efforts in 1997 to assist the federal government in revising race and ethnicity categories used in the census; and its continuing publications and Annual Meeting sessions which frequently focus on race and human diversity. Media Note: For comments and background, feel free to contact the members of the project's Advisory Board listed below: Yolanda Moses (cultural anthropologist, University of California,
Riverside), For more information, please contact Paul Nuti, communications director (above) or in her absence, contact Peggy Overbey by dialing 703-528-1902, ext. 3006. |
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