The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) Annual Meeting will take place in Portland, Oregon from March 25 to 29, 2025. Founded in 1941, SfAA is dedicated to advancing interdisciplinary research. SfAA members come from disciplines including anthropology, sociology, economics, business, law, medicine, and other social and behavioral sciences. The theme of this year's meeting is "Revitalizing Applied Anthropology." 

HRAF staff members and affiliates will be making the following presentations:

Michael Fischer and Sridhar Ravula will present "Ethnographic Models: Parametrizing Simulations From Ethnographic Data Using Generative AI."

Samantha King, Anj Droe, Cynthiann Heckelsmiller, and Carol Ember will present "Context Matters: Understanding the Ethnographic Dimensions of Hazards."

Carol Ember, Ian Skoggard, Jacqueline Heitmann, and Seb Wang Gaouette will present "To Share or Not to Share?: Resource Stress, Natural Hazards, and Beyond-Household Sharing Customs."

Eric Jones will present "A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Relevance of Ecological Dimensions of Hazards for Political Leadership."

Ann Nguyen and Eric Jones will present "Political Participation and Community Cohesion as Mediators of Wellbeing Following Hazard Events."

Ian Skoggard, Louise Toutée, and Isana Raja will present "Effects of Warfare and Natural Hazards

on Religiosity."

Click here to learn more about the SfAA Annual Meeting

After the success of the First International Conference on Love Studies, organized by the Institute of Love Studies in January of 2024, researchers from around the globe expressed interest in having a second conference focused on research on love.

The Second Conference on Love Studies took place from March 14 to 16, 2025. The online conference presented pre-recorded talks, followed by the Zoom livestreaming of thematic panel sessions.

The mission of the Second Conference on Love Studies was to bring together researchers and practitioners from various disciplines as well as non-academic professionals to speak about their research projects and findings.

The diverse themes of the conference included love as internal experiences and expressions as well as interpersonal relationships. The conference considered love in the varieties of its meanings, cultural models, social forms, and individual types. All kinds of love were pertinent to this conference. The Institute of Love Studies is open to different methodologies from different fields of research.

The advisory board of the conference includes scholars representing various disciplines and many countries of the world. HRAF Research Anthropologist Ian Skoggard is a member of the advisory board.

Ian was the chair of a panel session titled "Evolutionary and Cultural Perspectives on Love" which included six researchers and one discussant, Jessica Symons from Visioning Lab in the United Kingdom. Ian presented "Love Motifs in Taino and Pueblo Art."

Click here to read about the Conference on Love Studies

In honor of our 75th anniversary, we are pleased to feature video recordings from members of the broader HRAF community. This month we are featuring a video from Michelle Gelfand, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Under her direction, the Culture Lab studies the strength of cultural norms, negotiation, conflict, revenge, forgiveness, and diversity.

Professor Gelfand holds a Ph.D. in Social/Organizational Psychology from University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign. She incorporates interdisciplinary perspectives into her research. Gelfand works with anthropologists, computer scientists, neuroscientists, political scientists, and biologists to understand all things cultural.

Gelfand has been working with interdisciplinary teams including individuals at HRAF for over ten years. The thrust of much of this research has been on trying to understand the effects of natural hazards on culture using ethnographic data from eHRAF World Cultures.

Here is a HRAF post that describes some of the collaborative work on Tightness and Looseness in Non-industrial Societies.

For more information on collaborative research projects, please visit hrafARC.

Click here to watch the video from Michelle Gelfand

HRAF is pleased to announce that you can now find us on Bluesky @hraf755.bsky.social

We have decided to no longer publish on the X Platform (formerly Twitter).

In addition to Bluesky, you can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram.



Ned Potter, faculty engagement manager at the University of York, is the author of The Library Marketing Toolkit. Potter is also the author of The Researcher's Guide to Bluesky.

In an article titled Time to switch? A university's guide to Bluesky published by Times Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, Potter writes:

"Bluesky’s growth offers academics, departments and institutions the chance to build engaged communities.

For universities, this presents a unique opportunity to rebuild communities that have become harder to reach elsewhere: huge numbers of academics and researchers are now on the platform, which has led to an influx of departmental accounts being created.

The aim is to cultivate community rather than just broadcast your departmental news." 

Click here to visit the HRAF Bluesky account