Special Announcement
Dr. Rosita Worl Receives 2008 Kimball Award
Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology
American Anthropological Association
For further information, please go to:
http://www.aaanet.org/about/Prizes-Awards/Solon-Kimball-Award.cfm
The Solon T. Kimball Award Committee and the American Anthropological
Association (AAA) Awards Committee are honored to announce that Dr.
Rosita Worl, President of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, has been
selected as the recipient of the 2008 Solon T. Kimball Award for Public
and Applied Anthropology.
This award, designed to recognize extraordinary recent accomplishment in
the practice of public and applied anthropology, fits the exemplary
achievements of Dr. Worl's long and stellar career in applying
anthropology to public life in Alaska and beyond. She is of Tlingit
descent on her mother's side, and traces her roots to the Chilkat
Tlingit village of Klukwan in Southeast Alaska. She provides an
extraordinary model of how a person of deep personal commitment to their
heritage and identity can utilize the tools and perspectives of
anthropology to comprehend, explain and ultimately strengthen the
cultural practices of her group. Through anthropological method and
theory she provides exceptional contributions to the public
understanding of what "cultural heritage" means and how it has material,
not just mental, representation and grounding.
Dr. Worl's extensive knowledge testimony and publications in the area of
Inupiaq culture, particularly the whaling culture, has impacted
international, national and state policies regarding whaling quotas and
hunting restrictions. She is frequently asked to provide research and
give testimony before a wide variety of institutions and agencies. Her
efforts with the Smithsonian Institute, the Sealaska Heritage Institute
and the Sealaska Foundation in Alaska have incorporated the holistic
cultural approach to educational systems, as well as community and
economic development and public policy.
Dr. Worl serves on significant local, regional, national, and
international committees. Her tireless service on so many committees
gives native and indigenous people around the world a strong,
well-informed voice in political and economic arenas. She has provided
extraordinary service on the national level in the establishment of the
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) and
subsequently in the development and display of a major exhibit
concerning contemporary Tlingit and Haida culture in Southeast Alaska.
She continues to be called upon for her vision and expertise in
developing new directions for NMAI.
One of her current initiatives focuses on a project to analyze how the
creation of Alaska Native business corporations (spawned by the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971) transformed institutional
arrangements between Alaska Natives, state governments, ecosystems, and
regional-global economies, and how these corporations have contributed
to particular outcomes in indigenous groups' biocultural health as
measured by the sustainable livelihood assessment model.
For further information about this award, please go to:
http://www.aaanet.org/about/Prizes-Awards/Solon-Kimball-Award.cfm