The Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association begins in just a couple of weeks (17th-21st November). Here we have gathered some of the highlights from our members whether you are in Baltimore or tuning in online. Do leave a comment if we left anything out!

Interest Group business meeting, Nov 9th 12-2pm EDT

Please join us at the annual open virtual business meeting of the Aging and the Life Course interest group on November 9^th from Noon-2pm EDT in association with AAGE. Mark it on your calendars, and please click here to join.

Taking place a few days before the start of the AAA meetings, it will give members of both groups an opportunity to reconnect with colleagues and friends, hear about new publications in the field of aging, and get a preview of relevant panels at the conference! Among other things the meeting will have an update about the Anthropology & Aging Journal, honor the winners of the 2021 Climo Student Travel award and preview the AAGE December year-end meeting.

Jacob Climo Award silent auction

As in past years, we will also be hosting a virtual book auction to support AAGE’s Jacob Climo student travel award. The auction will run from October 30, 9AM to November 9, 2PM. Please check out https://www.32auctions.com/climo21AAA AND begin bidding on October 30!

AAA Meeting Events

Wednesday Nov 17th

(1-0181)Smartphones and the Fine Line between Care and Surveillance

4:30 PM-6:15 PM Virtual Roundtable

The aim of this roundtable is to exploit the discursive format to develop a comparative anthropology that can contribute towards broad anthropological insights through the application of specific ethnographic findings, in this case regarding digital responses to Covid-19.

Participants: Laura Haapio-Kirk, Xinyuan Wang, Pauline Garvey, Charlotte Hawkins, Daniel Miller, Shireen Walton, Maya de Vries, Laila Abed Rabho, Patrick Awondo (Role: Discussant)

Thursday, Nov 18th

10:15 AM-12:00 PM

Paper by Verónica Sousa  – “Pointing Fingers and Dodging Guilt: The Politics of Responsibility and Culpability of Nursing Home Care During the Pandemic in Portugal”

Friday Nov 19

(3-1850) THRESHOLD FORMS: BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS OF LIFE  Part I 

10:15 AM – 12:00 PM Oral Presentation Session (In-Person), Society for Medical Anthropology

Mara Buchbinder, Ashish Premkumar, Risa Cromer, Megan Crowley-Matoka, Elyse Singer, Lydia Dixon  

(3-2530) Aging in Contexts of Im/Mobility Regimes

8:00 AM-9:45 AM Oral Presentation (Virtual) Society for Medical Anthropology

Tanja Ahlin “With Their Eyes to the West: (Im)mobility Regimes and Intergenerational Care in Indian Transnational Families”
Mérida Rúa “Migrations to Elderhood: The Art of Becoming and Being Old Puerto Ricans”
Brooke Jespersen  “Moral Maps of Aging: Space, Time, and Value in Older Puerto Rican”
Nicole Newendorp  “Contemporary Chinese Senior Retirement Migrants’ Global Lifeways”
Discussant:  Cati Coe

 (3-2492) Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing: Exploring the future of multimodal-digital ethnography

10:15 AM-12:00 PM Virtual SPECIAL EVENT

Jay Sokolovsky and Maria Cattell will interview Danny Miller, Charlotte Hawkins and Xinyuan Wang  – Co-Sponsored by the Senior Anthropology Section of AAA

This conversation will bring to the meeting Professor Danny Miller (Univ College London), director of a newly completed multisited global ethnography study, the Anthropology of Smartphones and Smart Ageing (ASSA – https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/assa/about/), and two post-doctoral researchers from the project, Xinyuan Wang and Charlotte Hawkins. This conversation ultimately explores three grand issues: 1. As a successor to the global “Project A.G.E.” (Age, Generation and Experience), carried out in the 1980s, how does the ASSA Project move forward a comparative, cross-cultural understanding of older adulthood in the 21st Century? 2. Can the methodological efforts of the ASSA project properly transcend what Gabriele de Seta calls “the three lies of digital ethnography”? These are: illusions of the networked field-weaver, the eager participant-lurker and the expert fabricator. 3. How do the methods of the ASSA project inform anthropology about the possibilities of fieldwork and research dissemination in the age of COVID?

(3-2130) Multiple Dementias and Regimes of Care – PANEL 1: Multiple dementias (panel 2 on Sunday)

8:00 AM – 9:45 AM Oral Presentation (Virtual), Society for Medical Anthropology

Participants: Niklas Petersen, Janelle Taylor, Lawrence Cohen, Melissa Park, Junko Kitanaka, Annette Leibing, Marlaine Figeroa Gray 

(3-2221) Home away from home: reconsidering expectations of the “Chinese family life”

10:15 AM-12:00 PM Virtual Roundtable

Claudia Huang, Chair; Roundtable Presenter

(3-2540) Age, Difference, and the Other: Making Value through Life Course Categories

10:15 AM- 12:00 PM Oral Presentation (virtual) American Ethnological Society

Sam Grace, Kathryn Wright, Juliana Valente, Lawrence Cohen, Julia Kowalski, Jessica Robbins, Erin Thomason, Sam Grace, Elana Buch

(3-2380) Death in a Foreign Land: End-of-Life Issues in Immigrant and Refugee Communities

2:00 PM – 3:45 PM Oral Presentation (In-Person) Society for Medical Anthropology

Rupa Pillai, Cortney Hughes Rinker, Kim Shively, Osman Balkan

Saturday, Nov 20th

(4-2872) INVITED ROUNDTABLE OF THE AAA INTEREST GROUP ON AGING AND THE LIFE COURSE – Precarious Connections: Exploring Social Disconnection Across the Life Course

10:15AM – 12:00 PM (Virtual) Society for Cultural Anthropology

Participants: Aaron Seaman, Janelle Taylor, Jolanda Lindenberg, Celeste Pang, Elizabeth Fein,
Daina Stanley

(4-2620) Unfinished Business! Part One

10:15AM- 12:00 PM Oral Presentation (In-Person) Association of Senior Anthropologists

Laura Zimmer-Tamakoshi, Ralph Bolton, Jeffrey Ehrenreich, Judith Kempf, Moshe Shokeid, William Mitchell, Ralph Bolton, Susan Kenyon

(4-3111) Facilitating Anthropology’s Engagement and Impact in Medical Schools

2:00 PM – 3:45 PM Roundtable (Virtual) Society for Medical Anthropology

Margret Jaeger, Iveris Martinez, Sue Estroff, Angela Jenks, Seth Holmes, Suzanne Heurtin-Roberts

Sunday, Nov 21st

(5-3540) Multiple Dementias and Regimes of Care – Panel 1: Regimes of Care

10:15 AM – 12:00 PM Oral Presentation (Virtual) Society for Medical Anthropology

Lone Groen, Melissa Park, Shvat Eilat, Keven Lee, Natashe Lemos Dekker, Janelle Taylor, Jessica Robbins, Elana Buch, Aaron Seaman

(5-1850) THRESHOLD FORMS: BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS OF LIFE  Part II 

10:15 AM – 12:00 PM Oral Presentation (Virtual) , Society for Medical Anthropology 

 Mara Buchbinder, Elise Andaya, Kimberly Arkin, Scott Stonington, Elyse Singer, Elana Buch

Asynchronous Content

(0-0080) When Kinship Is Not “Warm and Fuzzy,” Part 1: Ambiguity of Care (Podcast)
Sandra Bamford, Tracie Canada, Jason Danely, Danilyn Rutherford

(0-0370) Retirement Truths, Savings and Being in the USA (Talk, Virtual)
Karen Richman

(0-1490) (Re)shaping the aging body: elder care with assistive device in a nursing home (Talk Virtual)
Yeori Park

(0-1070) Ethnography of Contemporary Weaving Practices in NY: Women’s Creativity and Aging Individual Poster (Virtual) – Kaori Chen