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If there’s one lesson that Ben Burdick learned from his dad, John, it’s that there’s strength in community.

John Burdick, an anthropology professor at Syracuse University, spent his life serving communities around the world, from Syracuse’s Westside neighborhood to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He devoted his life to bettering the communities he came to know through research, activism and community organizing.

“It’s hard to find someone who knew him who he didn’t impact in a positive way,” Ben said. 

Burdick died from kidney cancer July 4. He was 61. 

At SU, Burdick — who worked at the university since 1992 — specialized in political, religious and urban anthropology. His research focused on community organizing in the United States, the African diaspora in Latin America and the politics of religion. 

He believed in using his research to create social change, both in Syracuse and around the world, said Azra Hromadzic, an SU anthropology professor who worked with Burdick. 

“He believed that anthropology is not something you can just teach in a classroom,” she said. “You have to be out there and you have to do it in a way that makes you humble and makes you listen and respond, instead of imposing.”

As chair of the anthropology department from 2012 to 2017, Burdick listened to and respected everyone’s opinions, even if they were different from his, Hromadzic said. He often held meetings to make sure his colleagues could feel comfortable expressing concerns to him, she said.

Robert Rubinstein, an anthropology professor at SU who served alongside Burdick on multiple university committees, described Burdick as “a great conciliator” who always strived to resolve tension between his colleagues.  

“I’ve never heard him say no to a request for being on a university committee or participating in a program,” he said. 

A long-time member of the Syracuse Peace Council, Burdick was a prominent activist in the city of Syracuse and beyond. When peaceful protests against racism and police brutality swept across Syracuse this year, Burdick wanted to participate, even though he couldn’t walk due to his illness, said his daughter, Molly Burdick.

Her dad taught her to use her passion for the fine arts to advocate for justice in the current political climate. He encouraged her to keep pursuing her hobby of writing, as it’s a political act that can change a person’s life, Molly said.

“My biggest fear was that I wasn’t going to do enough with my life,” she said. “He said that what I’m doing is going to change the world.”

Burdick taught his daughter to use her passion for the fine arts to advocate for justice in the current political climate. Courtesy of Molly Burdick

Burdick blurred the line between activism and academia by using the Syracuse community as his classroom. In 2009, he and his students helped form the Westside Residents Coalition, an advocacy group consisting of residents from the city’s Westside neighborhood. 

The organization served as a way for Westside residents to participate in community service and interact with city officials, such as police officers, who often overlook their neighborhood, former WRC member Susan Hamilton said.

“(Burdick) was just an incredibly warm, loving person who wanted to see people come together and who wanted to see them happy,” she said. “He was also humble. He never took credit for himself. He was always trying to show that it was part of a group effort.”

Burdick cultivated relationships with many residents in the communities he studied, some of which became close family friends. Courtesy of Rolf Malungo de Souza

He co-founded the Syracuse Social Movement Initiative, a project that brought students into the Syracuse community to conduct research with local community organizations. He also held a symposium at SU in 2008 that featured workers in the city, including university staff members, and allowed them to present their concerns at a major university event. 

Diane Swords, a member of the Syracuse Peace Council, said Burdick taught her that academia can be a part of social movements.

“People talk about academia as being an ivory tower, meaning it’s just a place that people hide away and study,” Swords said. “(Burdick) was the polar opposite of that.”

The professor’s unique blend of research and advocacy reached far beyond central New York. For the past 35 years, Burdick, who was fluent in Portuguese, spent the majority of his time conducting research in Brazil. He cultivated relationships with many residents in the communities he studied, some of which became close family friends, Ben said. 

After his passing, Folha de S.Paulo, one of the most popular newspapers in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, published an obituary for Burdick. 

Burdick’s most recent research project in Brazil involved housing rights in Rio de Janeiro. For the project, he recruited a research team consisting of experts from the U.S., Great Britain and Brazil to study several housing projects throughout the city.

During his research, Burdick produced videos to promote the fight for housing rights, said Rolf Malungo de Souza, an anthropologist and professor at Universidade Federal Fluminense who had been friends with Burdick since 1996.

“One of the things we always had in mind was that our research would not only serve our academic lives, but that it would also make a difference to the people with whom we would come in contact in the field,” de Souza said in an email.  

Rubinstein said Burdick was looking forward to recovering from his illness so that he could return to Brazil, where he had planned to continue the housing project and hold several community workshops.

Alongside his research, Burdick also taught English classes in Brazil and participated in demonstrations. He brought students, including former SU anthropology graduate student Valerie Singer, to Brazil to conduct research.

People in the communities Burdick studied trusted him and viewed him as a friend, Singer said.

“He was one of the people that those folks really looked to for help,” she said. “He was really making a difference in thousands of people’s lives and in a very modest, quiet way. He talked about (his projects) in terms of his research, but he never bragged about it.”

People in the communities Burdick studied trusted him and viewed him as a friend. Courtesy of Rolf Malungo de Souza

During Singer’s time at SU, Burdick was not only her adviser but also one of her greatest supporters. Burdick was a great listener who students could turn to when they felt stressed, she said.

When Singer became an anthropology professor, she modeled a lot of her instruction methods after Burdick.

“He really was dedicated to helping graduate school be the experience for each student that they wanted it to be. He wasn’t trying to make us all fit into the same mold,” she said. “Personally, he was a friend and he was a mentor.”

Burdick frequently talked about his family and his desire to be a grandfather, de Souza said. “His family was his compass, his north,” he said.

Ben’s dad didn’t take life for granted. When he wasn’t advocating for Syracuse community members or conducting research, he loved to grill—no matter what the weather was like.

“It was kind of emblematic of how he thought about life in a lot of ways,” Ben said. “You have to enjoy the time you have and you have to enjoy what you’re doing. And if the time that you wanted to grill is raining, well then you better enjoy grilling in the rain.”

Published on August 2, 2020 at 3:11 pm

Contact Abby: akweiss@syr.edu | @abbyweiss_21