Diana Marsh led a project to digitize the field notebooks of S. Ann Dunham, economic anthropologist and mother of Barack Obama---and to launch them on Smithsonian's Transcription Center for the public to transcribe.
Smithsonian Magazine article, “Help Transcribe Field Notes Penned by S. Ann Dunham, a Pioneering Anthropologist and Barack Obama’s Mother” by Courtney Sexton describes how Diana Marsh, University of Maryland postdoctoral fellow and incoming College of Information Studies faculty member, contributed to a project to digitize the field notebooks of S. Ann Dunham, economic anthropologist and mother of Barack Obama—and to launch them on Smithsonian’s Transcription Center for the public to transcribe.
As a female in a traditionally male-dominated field, Dunham “dedicated her career to elevating the role of women in societies throughout the developing world.”
Marsh shares that, “I think if you’re not an anthropologist, even just her methodology of spending a really long time with people and living with people and getting to know everyone and working closely, is something that lends itself to intercultural appreciation and communication and knowledge that we all can be reminded of. Any field note, any set of field notes gives you a window into what those relationships look like and I think that will be really valuable.”