Women farmers are less likely to own land and have limited access to credit, extension services, producer organizations and market information.  In this talk, Sarah Lyon explores current innovations in the speciality, high-quality, coffee market aimed at supporting women farmers, including new financial products and training programs, micro-batching of women's coffee, identifying and supporting "hidden influences" and developing gender "scorecards."  She will discuss the impact of some of these innovations in Oaxaca, Mexico, where 42 % of registered organic coffee farmers are now women.

• Dr. Jennie Burnet, Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, received the 2013 Elliot Skinner Award from the Association of Africanist Anthropology for her book, “Genocide Lives in Us: Women, Memory, and Silence in Rwanda,” (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012). The association described the book as “an outstanding piece of research and writing (that) makes a great contribution to anthropology, African studies, gender and the treatment of violence.” Her research interests center on Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Africa, and the United States, where she examines structure, agency, and human subjectivity and such topics as race; ethnicity; gender and sexuality; violence, genocide, and peace; and development studies. (Dr. Monica Udvardy is contactperson)

Dr. Lyon’s work is situated at the juncture of development studies, economic anthropology and food studies. She is particularly interested in how alternative food networks such as fair trade work to create and sustain diverse economies in the United States and Latin America.

Dr. Barrett will talk about Maya understandings of the dead, funerary practices, and ways of communicating with the ancestors, and then discuss the emergence of rock and hip hop music performed in Mayan languages and the ways they emphasize the ancestors in their music. 

El Dr. Barrett explicará como los Mayas se comunican con sus ancestros, las prácticas funerarias que los mayas tienen y sus pensamientos en cuando a los muertos. También hablará sobre como los ancestros tienen un rol en la inspiración de la música Maya y como el rock y hip hop ha influenciado a esta cultura.