Conference: Biological Normalcy: A Workshop Investigating Relationships Between Statistical Norms and the Normative: Santa Fe, NM, October 2019

该奖项为将于2019年10月由FE新墨西哥州圣塔特市高级研究学院主办的为期数天的研讨会提供支持。讲习班的参加者将利用一系列案例研究，了解人类种群内生物变异的统计规范和规范的社会观点之间的关系，以及这些关系的更广泛影响，从而形成“生物常态”的概念。通过揭示用于描述人类生物变异的规范(通常是种族生物中心)语言，研讨会的目标是揭露和减少有关生物变异的讨论中的偏见，并开发描述生物变异的新方法。用于描述人类变异的语言与临床和公共卫生直接相关，在这些领域，治疗和政策的目标可能是将被视为“非正常”、“异常”或病理性的生物措施“正常化”。为了最大限度地发挥这次讲习班的影响，最后阶段的时间将专门用于为每个参与者和小组制定传播计划，重点放在学术、应用和公共宣传上，强调沟通和教育以及公众参与。生物常态是从生物文化的角度更好地理解和描述人类生物变异的概念框架。这次研讨会的成果将通过阐述这一强调生物学和文化之间的双向关系的框架来推动人类学中的生物文化研究。在过去的25年里，生物文化人类学家已经了解了很多关于社会或文化因素如何影响生物学的知识，但关于生物特征在种群中的分布如何影响社会规范的研究相对较少。运用生物常态框架，解开了正常的两层含义，揭示了两者之间的关系，揭示了民族-生物中心论在人类生物变异话语中的可能存在方式。工作坊安排为三天的密集课程，每天有个人陈述、小组讨论和小组研究。参加者将侧重于统计规范和规范观点之间关系的原因和后果，每一种观点都提供关于特定生物或生物行为特征(如生长、身体比例、睡眠、饮食等)的材料，并调查种族生物中心论在关于这些特征的讨论中可能存在的方式及其在人群内部和群体之间的差异。基金支持不同职业阶段的参与者往返新墨西哥州圣达菲高级研究学院的旅费。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.