News

Cheryl Yin, assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton, presented a paper on October 25 at the 2025 Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies Conference in Victoria, B.C. on a panel that she also organized. Her paper, “‘They Said we Were all Equal’: competing Ideologies Surrounding (Linguistic) Equality under the Khmer Rouge,” analyzes two stereotypical figures associated with the Khmer Rouge: the communist revolutionary and the cruel torturer. Yin’s panel addressed the conference theme, “Pursuing the Common Good,” through a discussion of language.

Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg, Broom Professor of Social Demography and Anthropology at Carleton, presented a paper titled, “Un/commoning Kinscription: Financial and Emotional Economies of Bamileke (Cameroon) Reluctance toward Child Fostering” at the German Association of Social and Cultural Anthropology (DGSKA) in Cologne, on September 30. To her delight, a Carleton SOAN alum,— Andrew Haxby ’03, now in a post-doctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology — was on the same panel.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, published an opinion essay with co-author Dana Sawchuk titled, “Gen X may be the first to need a universal basic income after late-career job loss,” in The Hill.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, published an op-ed for Fortune on August 24 titled, “We interviewed 62 older Minnesotans who lost white-collar jobs later in life. Nearly 75% refused to move, and 3 big problems kept them locked in place.” The essay is co-authored with Dana Sawchuk of Wilfrid Laurier University.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and professor of sociology at Carleton, published a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal on July 15. The letter summarizes findings from her research on late-career job loss in response to the July 8 WSJ news article, “Late-Career Job Losses Are Blurring: What Retirement Looks Like in America.”

SOAN alum Hannah Burcaw ’19 and husband Shane were interviewed by Mpls.St.Paul Magazine for their new book Interabled: True Stories About Love and Disability. Hannah and Shane have 2 million followers on their YouTube channel Squirmy and Grubs, where they document their interabled marriage—Shane was born with spinal muscular atrophy; Hannah is a nondisabled former college athlete (she swam at Carleton). They rank in the top three of Minnesota’s most popular YouTubers.

SOAN major Ellis Kondrashov ’25 was among 14 Carleton students who received Fulbright Awards, which give college students and recent graduates the opportunity to conduct research, pursue graduate study, or teach English in a host country of their choice, facilitating cross-cultural respect and dialogue. Kondrashov will travel to Kyrgyzstan to work as an English teaching assistant.

Annette Nierobisz, Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Carleton, was featured in the Carleton News for a Q&A about her and co-author Dana Sawchuk’s book American Idle: Late-Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era. The book explores findings from interviews with 62 mostly white-collar workers who experienced late-career job loss in the wake of the Great Recession.

Cheryl Yin, assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton, presented a five-minute lightning talk titled, “Cutting Family Ties: Disownment Announcements in Cambodia” on at the 2025 Society for Linguistic Anthropology Conference. Occasionally, Cambodians will publicly disown family members in newspaper ads and on social media. Yin shared preliminary data on her research, hypothesizing that announcements prevent the spread of shame, debt, and other responsibilities within the family.

Cheryl Yin, assistant professor of anthropology at Carleton, has been selected as a Mellon Periclean Faculty Leader. Support from Project Pericles will allow Yin to redesign the course “Southeast Asian Migration and Diasporic Communities” to center the voices of Cambodian elders through the collection and preservation of oral history interviews. The revised course will provide Carleton students with the opportunity to learn from Cambodian refugees who have resettled in Minnesota and to explore ways to address and advocate for the needs of the Cambodian American community.