About Robert A. Hackenberg (1928-2007) and Beverly H. Hackenberg (1928-2022)

At its 1998 annual meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) bestowed its highest honor, the Bronislaw Malinowski Award, on Robert and Beverly Hackenberg. They are the only professional couple to receive this recognition. Their Malinowski Award Lecture, “You CAN Do Something! Forming Policy from Applied Projects: Then and Now,” appeared in Human Organization 58:1-15. Together they spearheaded the creation of the Del Jones Student Travel Award.

Robert Hackenberg, known as Bob or Rob to his many friends, received his B.A. in psychology in 1950 and his M.A. in sociology and anthropology in 1951 from the University of Minnesota. In 1953 he joined the University of Arizona as assistant director of the Bureau of Ethnic Research (now the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology). Hackenberg directed the creation of the Pima and Papago population registers–comprehensive computerized genealogical databases, still in use by tribal offices, that trace population growth, migration, out-marriage, resettlement, and health problems. Beverly (“Bev”) earned an associate of arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley (1948), a BA in anthropology (1964) and an MA in sociology and demography (1968) from the University of Arizona. She was awarded a certificate in epidemiology from the Centers for Disease Control in 1986.

Beverly and Robert married in 1963. They moved to Boulder, Colorado, in 1966, when Bob joined the University of Colorado as professor of anthropology and director of the Population Research Program at the Institute for Behavioral Science. As research associate in the Population Research Program, Beverly played a central role in its field research and analysis, as well as its National Institute of Mental Health Research Training Program in Culture Change (1968-1980). She was instrumental in creating the Papago Population Register, a computer-based comprehensive genealogical record of the entire tribe, which formed the basis of numerous scholarly articles, doctoral dissertations, and a special issue of Human Organization, “Modernization Research on the Papago Indians” (Vol. 31, Summer 1972).

In 1967, the Hackenbergs chose Davao City, Philippines, as a field station for applied research and doctoral training. Research, service, and action projects on fertility, migration, health, and agricultural change followed until 1983, when pressures from the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship forced their departure. In the mid-1980s and late 1990s, the Hackenbergs directed USAID projects on regional development in western Panama and training women to deliver primary health care in rural Paraguay. In between, they directed a comprehensive restructuring of the Tohono O’Odham (formerly Papago) Health Department to provide local empowerment, goal-setting, and diabetes prevention.

Robert served as associate editor of Human Organization from 1970 to 1976 and again from 1999 through 2004, where he wrote a series of feature articles under the heading “Advancing Applied Anthropology.” The High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology awarded Robert the 1997 Omer C. Stewart Memorial Award for exemplary achievement.

Robert Hackenberg was primary graduate advisor to 60 some professional anthropologists. He and Beverly taught them more than the theories and methods of anthropology–they taught them how to be anthropologists. Reflecting on his career, Robert wrote “My own backward glance reminds me that I have spent more time in more places engaged in more field projects than most of my contemporaries. Hopefully, the results have benefitted a commensurate number of indigenous people in the Southwest, the Philippines, Panama, Paraguay, and Hispanic migrants in the US. If so, I would choose it as my most significant achievement.” No doubt, Beverly Hackenberg, his wife of 44 years and his professional partner and pal for all that time and more, would say the same.