Ieva Puzo, Researcher With a Global View: “Anthropology Is the Right Way to Look at the World”

Social or cultural anthropologist Ieva Puzo has been a part of Rīga Stradiņš University (RSU) since 2016. She is lecturer and senior research at the RSU Faculty of Communication. Her interests are related to science and technology studies, the anthropology of work and research on highly qualified staff mobility.

'Today, our biggest problem is that we see human value only at work’, Ieva Puzo said at an interview for the LR1 (national radio broadcasting network) programme Monopols.

She has carried out research in Japan, Montenegro and Latvia. Currently, Puzo is conducting a postdoctoral research project at RSU, titled 'Mobilizing Science: Transnationally Mobile Researchers in Comparative Perspective'.

Puzo is the Head of the Social Anthropology master's programme. She has held study courses such as “Regional Ethnography: Japan, Kinship Systems and Knowledge Anthropology”.

‘Ieva treats her students, colleagues and fellow people with love,’ says Ieva’s colleague, social anthropologist Anna Žabicka.

‘It is like a present for Latvia and the field of anthropology in general, that Ieva has returned to Latvia to strengthen and contribute to this sector.’

However, social or cultural anthropology was Puzo's dream since childhood. ‘When I graduated from high school, I realised that I didn't want to study all the things that were popular at the time.’ Puzo graduated Japanese studies and then applied for a Fulbright scholarship to do her postgraduate studies in the USA. After receiving the scholarship, she went to the University of California, in Berkeley, to study Asian Studies and completed various courses in a number of programmes. ‘I excluded all the fields that would not really suit me. I knew that political science or literary science would not work for me and this is how and ended up with anthropology. After my master studies, I applied for a PhD in cultural anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh.’

Since 2017, Puzo has chaired the Latvian Association of Anthropologists.

What does anthropology study, and which area have you chosen?

Social or cultural anthropology is an area that studies human societies from a comparative perspective. This means that we look at people as social beings and think about how people seem to do the same self-evident things very differently in different places and at different times. We all go the same way – we come to the world, we eat, we drink, build relationships and at some point, we pass away, but the way we do it, is different. The comparative element is very important here. On the one hand, it is important to look at how people do things in other places and, on the other hand, to reflect on what we are doing and to understand that

the way we do things is not as obvious as it might seem, for example, the way we think about work, how we build family etc.

In any country and society there are different groups of people, social strata, ethnicity and religion that influence how people think and act.

What are you more focused on?

I am interested in the intersection between science as a field of research, work (how we think about work in today's world) and the movement of people across borders, which has always been a relevant topic and becomes even more widespread lately. This is why we need to think and talk about it more.

Does the anthropologist evaluate things or just announces the facts to the world?

Mostly it depends on the anthropologist, since it is important to us to keep in mind the idea of cultural relativism – that people do things differently in different places.

I guess we have to stop judging. Different people in different groups perceive things differently, and we need to try to understand why they do it and how they do it. It’s simple – we have to accept it. But in order to achieve it, we have to start listening to each other!’