Melissa Maceyko, Author at The Anthropology Career Readiness Network

About Melissa Maceyko (Edit profile)

Melissa Maceyko, PhD is a full-time scholar-practitioner who focuses on the role that interpersonal conversations play in impactful DEI initiatives, effective social change, and political action, domestically and globally. Since 2016, she has held the position of Lecturer in Anthropology, Linguistics, Gender Studies, and Political Science at California State University, Long Beach. From 2021-2022 she served as the Chair of the President’s Commission on the Status of Women and currently serves on the California State Board for the American Association of University Women in the role of co-chair of Public Policy. She has published her work in American Anthropologist and as a contributor and editor of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology column in Anthropology News. Previously, she also served as Executive Director of the Allyship Center for the National Diversity Council, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization.

How do Anthropologists Continue to Work in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Today’s Fraught Political Environment?

There is a targeted uptick in public and legal attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the United States today. So, how do anthropologists continue to work in the DEI space? These attacks are pervasive, built into a broad conservative political-legal strategy; a backlash against efforts to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion. This backlash is, unfortunately, not historically unique. Rather, we have seen that amidst such challenges, diversity professionals have and will continue to reimagine how to conduct DEI endeavors. We continue to argue that anthropologists are particularly well-equipped to engage in DEI work, through their study of culture, systems, [...]