This award provides support for a multi-day workshop to be hosted by the School for Advanced Research in Santa, FE New Mexico in October 2019. Participants in the workshop will develop the concept of "biological normalcy" by using a series of case studies to understand the relationships between statistical norms for, and normative social views of, biological variation within human populations, and the broader implications of these relationships. By bringing to light the normative (and often ethno-biocentric) language used to describe human biological variation, the goal of the workshop is to expose and reduce bias in discourse about biological variation and develop new ways of describing it. The language used to describe human variation has direct relevance to clinical and public health, where treatments and policies may be aimed at "normalizing" biological measures that are viewed as "non-normal," deviant, or pathological. To maximize the impact of this workshop, time during the final phase will be dedicated to developing dissemination plans for each participant and the group, with an emphasis on academic, applied, and public outreach that will emphasize communication and education as well as public engagement.
Biological normalcy serves as a conceptual framework to better understand and describe human biological variation from a biocultural perspective. The outcomes of this workshop will advance biocultural research in anthropology by elaborating this framework, which emphasizes the bidirectional relationships between biology and culture. Over the past twenty-five years biocultural anthropologists have learned much about how social or cultural factors influence biology, but relatively little about how the distribution of biological traits in a population influence social norms. Using the biological normalcy framework, the two meanings of normal are untangled, revealing the relationships between the two, and the ways that ethno-biocentric views may exist in discourse about human biological variation are exposed. The workshop is structured as a three day intensive session, with each day having a mix of individual presentations, group discussion, and small group research. Participants will focus on the causes and consequences of relationships between statistical norms and normative views, with each providing material on specific biological or biobehavioral traits (such as growth, body proportions, sleep, diet, among others), and investigate the ways that ethno-biocentric views may exist in discourse about these traits and their variability within and across populations. Funds support travel costs for a diverse group of participants in various career stages to and from the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe, NM.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
