The Power of Words with Professor Marcia Mikulak

Dr. Mikulak is accomplished in several fields. First, she is a concert pianist with an MFA in music performance, with a number of solo piano recordings to her credit. Prior to her Ph.D, Dr. Mikulak created and directed Santa Fe Research, an organization dedicated to the investigation of learning and potential in children, examining ways in which children diagnosed with ‘learning disabilities’ could reach their unique potentials. This work has been cross-culturally informed and supported by private grants and fellowships, with research in Zimbabwe and Mali, Africa on the culture of ‘childhood.’It is her concern with children that eventually moved her from music to anthropology. In the fall of 2002 Dr. Mikulak received her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of New Mexico. Her doctoral research began in Rio de Janeiro in 1998 and was supported by a Tinker Foundation grant, research grants from the Latin American Studies Institute, a Challenge Grant, The Frieda Butler Lectureship Award, and other grants from UNM, a grant from Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Committee, and the Johann Jacobs Foundation Young Investigator Grant in Switzerland. Her doctoral fieldwork in Minas Gerais, Brazil with street and working children incorporated innovative musical projects that included the design and construction of experimental musical instruments, improvisational techniques, theater, and story telling. She has been a Brazil country specialist with Amnesty International since 2007, and is currently a Brazil consultant for Amnesty International.Dr. Mikulak has extensive research experience in sexual assault and domestic violence. In 2002 she worked with New Mexico Department of Health, Injury Prevention, and Emergency Medical Services Bureau on the first state-wide assessment on violence against women in the state of New Mexico and authored of final qualitative report. She has worked closely with diabetes training programs for Native Americans across the United states, based on traditional Native American healthy life-styles, and teen tobacco use among Hispanic, Mexican American, and Native American youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the Center for Disease Control. He long time research with the Xukuru Nation in Pernambuco, Brazil has assisted in achieving a land mark human rights case won in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), finding the Brazilian government in violation of inter-continental human rights agreements.Dr. Mikulak has several publications, her most recent is her book titled “Childhood Unmasked: The Agency of Brazil’s Street and Working Children published in 2015 with Cognella Academic Publishing. She is currently Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of North Dakota in the Department of Anthropology.In this episode, Dr. Mikulak answers these questions and touches upon:Why did she become a linguistic anthropologist?What is a linguistic anthropologist?How does language influence our identity?How do words take on meaning in our culture?Does language have power?How does culture influence the interpretation of words?How gender is a social construct.How the word senior can be a pejorative word in our culture. the word senior repulsive to some but acceptable to others.And so much more...Practical Tips:Rather than the usual mind-body-spirit tip, here are my conclusions from this episode.Words have power because we give it to them. Therefore, we have the agency to change their meaning. We start by noticing what we are saying, how we are processing the power of language in our lives, and how words impact the people around us. That takes empathy.So I would like to have a dialogue with you, about the power of words. Follow the prompts on all of my social media channels, FB, LI, and IG (look for Yogi MD)...