Dr. Cheryl Rodriguez, professor and anthropologist in the USF College of Arts and Sciences School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies, has earned the Dr. Ira E. Harrison Legacy Award from the Association of Black Anthropologists (ABA).
The ABA, a section in the American Anthropological Association, awards this honor to anthropologists for “their significant contributions to research, scholarship, and service to communities of African descent in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora.”
“Being recognized by a national group of colleagues is a tremendous honor. I knew Dr. Ira Harrison and I greatly respected his commitment to anthropological research and scholarship,” Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez, who has been an anthropologist for more than 30 years, says she pursued the field of anthropology because “I felt that ethnographic research methods—which can involve participant observation and interviewing—are effective methods for understanding the human condition at a very deep level.”
She has recently been involved with several projects focused on issues related to African American neighborhoods in Tampa, Fla.
“I felt that ethnographic research methods—which can involve participant observation and interviewing—are effective methods for understanding the human condition at a very deep level,” said Rodriguez.
“These projects bring together history and local issues of importance to those communities,” she said. “I am very proud of my collaborative publications with international scholars, including a volume of scholarly essays, ‘Transatlantic Feminisms: Women and Gender Studies in Africa and the Diaspora,’ that I co-edited with colleagues from the University of Ghana.”
She’s also currently collecting data on a National Science Foundation-supported project entitled, “How do histories of violence shape affect and experience?” to examine histories of racial violence in Florida and the ways in which residents in various counties are choosing to remember those difficult histories.
“[Anthropology] is a fascinating field of study that illuminates the intricacies of the human experience,” she said.