Why Nobody Gives a Damn About Anthropology

[A. Ashkuff]

Granted, the title’s controversial and overstated. But it got your attention, right? That’s called “contrarian marketing.” Humor me. You’ll see where I’m coming from. For full disclosure’s sake, you should know that I that started in religious anthropology, before moving into business anthropology, facilitating my own marketing committee, and approaching AAA with new marketing ideas.

 

So, how did I learn that “nobody gives a damn” about anthropology?

 

2009. Gainesville, FL. Dove World Outreach Ministries, an aggressive evangelical church, had gotten vandalized after causing larger-than-usual uproar in UF’s Turlington Plaza. Concerned about escalating violence, UF hosted a meeting to discuss countermeasures. As an anthropologist with years of experience among Turlington’s evangelicals, I came to speak as an expert opinion. I delivered a well-thought-out presentation, only to get dismissed as such: “You’re an anthropologist? Don’t you study bugs or something?” The following year, Dove World hosted International Burn a Koran Day, which incited deadly riots.

 

“Nobody gives a damn” about anthropology, because nobody knows what it is.

 

To varying degrees, other anthropologists understand this challenge. I’ve read similar woes in journals like American Anthropologist, and on blogs like Savage Minds. When Gov. Rick Scott criticized anthropology schools, USF responded with a presentation titled “This is Anthropology,” inescapably suggesting that people don’t already know what anthropology is. However, from a marketer’s perspective, a title like “This is Anthropology” only earns the attention of people who’re already interested in anthropology. Despite its thousands of views, Google reveals that “This is Anthropology’s” most relevant backlinks come from other anthropology websites. Essentially, it’s a presentation made by anthropologists, popular among other anthropologists.

 

So what can be done? Well, I'd like to discuss that here in the OAC forum. What do you think we can do?

 

For starters, I believe that anthropology needs mainstream interest, so we should market toward non-anthropologists. I’ve already conducted some market research, and deigned a tactic that motivates professors of *other subjects* to teach students about anthropology. Access my research, FOR ANYBODY TO CARE ABOUT ANTHROPOLOGY, THEY’LL NEED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS! for free via http://www.ashkuff.com/foranybodytocare More importantly, we should coordinate our efforts to bring anthropology mainstream, so email me at [e-mail] --- I get lots of email, so get my attention with the subject line “I GIVE A DAMN.”

 

--- regards, Ashkuff

[A. Ashkuff]

Well said, Izabel.
I have nothing to add, besides my applause.

 

--- Ashkuff | http://www.ashkuff.com | Bored with reading about others' adventures? Burning to venture out yourself? Let this applied anthropologist remind you how

M Izabel said:

It seems only the anthropologists in the academe believe that there is nothing wrong with how anthropology is currently practiced, but the ironic thing is that they are the ones who complain when it comes to the scarcity of research funding.

 

I have been rereading my old posts in Savage Minds to reminisce the old days when I had a nonconformist, devil-may-care attitude when it came to sharing my views about anthropology.  One versus the rest did not faze me but give me an opportunity to critique the stifling voice of many, cliques, and group thinking.  

 

I still consider the comments I posted under Human Nature in Savage Minds valid.  I still stand by my old views about the current state of anthropology.  Although my argumentative enthusiasm is waning, there are still things in my head that are not docile and pliable, one of which is why anthropology is becoming irrelevant every passing day.

 

This was my initial comment:

 

"Whatever you do with anthropology, please don’t encourage your students or assistants to waste their time on anthropology of elevators and anthropology of candy wrappers. Elevator manufacturers and candy makers will not hire them to work even for a minimum wage.

It is irresponsible for a university to waste their students’ time, effort, and money without giving them an assurance that they can find jobs related to their degrees after they graduate. It’s okay if these students are all trust fund kids; the university doesn’t have to worry their employability.

Train your students and assistants to become skilled, useful, relevant, and employable. Also, if you want to call yourself a political anthropologist, make sure you can negotiate conflict, you can perform political management, and do public policy. You will not learn these things through reading Rosaldo, his headhunting Ilonggots, and his postmodern critique of self-contained cultural patterns.

If researching, writing, and reading are what anthropology is all about, it is no different to comparative literature. The only difference is that the latter has no pretense of studying humans. I think anthropology is a misnomer. What we really have is a comparative anthropological literature."

 

 

[Martin Ruddock]

I'd quite like to know what constitutes an anthropologist in the first place - do you need some qualification, a simple claim, or a working methodology without any direct knowledge of anthropology?

 

I ask this because many people in the UK seem to think you need to be lecturer while in my work abroad i have met people that have an undergraduate degree (not always in anthropology but certainly at least one unit in anthropology) claiming to be anthropologists.  Meanwhile other people have no knowledge of the discipline but seem to have a coherent working methodology that could qualify them as exceptional anthropologists.

And I've met a few anthropologist lecturers who have had enough of being labelled as such and moved to more multidisciplinary universities.

 

I prefer the latter - to take the academy and career academics away from anthropology as much as possible.

 

Because part of the problem to me seems to be distance between 'us' and 'them'...

[Keith Hart]

Hi Martin,

Good question. I once founded an online network called the amateur anthropological association (small-triple-a), motto "amateurs do it for love". This was not to discourage professionals and students from joining, since inevitably a large number of people interested in anthropology will have a university attachment of some sort, but to ask them to leave their academic habits behind when participating in this network. The problem plagues networks such as the OAC. This is because anthropologists study everything and anything in ways that often don't bear close scrutiny, so that they tend to hang out exlcusively with other academic anthropologists and rarely address the geenral public.

Although I am a lifetime member of the profession, I share your view that the professionals have not made such a great job of connecting with the public and it would do us all good to interact as widely as possible in the name of "anthropology", whatever that is. [I say an anthropology is any systematic approach to the study of humanity as a whole, but the academics have more specialised, even sectarian versions of that.] I have always taken refuge in interdisciplinary approaches such as area studies, marxism, development, feminism etc. I have been employed as a sociologist and even as an economist.

So my general answer is the looser the better. Certainly the OAC should not be a quasi-professional association. But even those of us who would like to invite anyone who is interested into our discussions, the way we write may still seem off-putting to some. 

Martin Ruddock said:

I'd quite like to know what constitutes an anthropologist in the first place - do you need some qualification, a simple claim, or a working methodology without any direct knowledge of anthropology?

 

I ask this because many people in the UK seem to think you need to be lecturer while in my work abroad i have met people that have an undergraduate degree (not always in anthropology but certainly at least one unit in anthropology) claiming to be anthropologists.  Meanwhile other people have no knowledge of the discipline but seem to have a coherent working methodology that could qualify them as exceptional anthropologists.

And I've met a few anthropologist lecturers who have had enough of being labelled as such and moved to more multidisciplinary universities.

 

I prefer the latter - to take the academy and career academics away from anthropology as much as possible.

 

Because part of the problem to me seems to be distance between 'us' and 'them'...

[N Pollinger]

To add another dimension, below are the final words from (and a link to) a thought provoking chapter by Denny and Sunderland which ventures that anthropology is unloved/unknown in the US because of the hold of psychology on popular debate. They attribute this hold partly to the American Psychological Association's efforts to make the psychological take on phenomena in society the standard take. Clearly, this strategy serves the interests of APA members who, unlike anthropologists, work one-on-one with individuals and charge themselves out by the hour. Psychologists simply reach a much wider audience and crowd out anything interesting anthropologists may have to say (Mead and perhaps (with my digital hat on) Wesch being the exceptions that prove the rule).

"For anthropology to be successful in US arenas, an awareness of culture as a theoretical and native theory

must be brought to the fore. It is only in becoming part of a collective consciousness that

anthropology can hope to become part of an ongoing conversation about who we are in

our work and in our lives. In our own work this means making culture visible in

advertising’s ethnographic practice and in so doing, making it available to a scrutinizing

lens for our society at large."

http://www.practicagroup.com/pdfs/Sunderland_and_Denny_Psychology_v...

[Huon Wardle]

Psychology is successful because it provides workable tools for understanding the self. Albeit the tools are ahistorical and universalist, they still explain problems and quandaries we face. Anthropology could take a leaf from the psychologists' book perhaps orienting its skills as a toolkit of sorts. I was on a plane this morning, travelling to a conference on cosmopolitanism with a friend and colleague, Nigel Rapport. As we talked about the conference themes, it occurred to me that anthropology is potentially a kind of cosmopolitan therepeutics; the skills we gain from engaging in it help us understand how we all occupy the same planet but under radically different and changing social and intellectual conditions.

N Pollinger said:

To add another dimension, below are the final words from (and a link to) a thought provoking chapter by Denny and Sunderland which ventures that anthropology is unloved/unknown in the US because of the hold of psychology on popular debate. They attribute this hold partly to the American Psychological Association's efforts to make the psychological take on phenomena in society the standard take. Clearly, this strategy serves the interests of APA members who, unlike anthropologists, work one-on-one with individuals and charge themselves out by the hour. Psychologists simply reach a much wider audience and crowd out anything interesting anthropologists may have to say (Mead and perhaps (with my digital hat on) Wesch being the exceptions that prove the rule).

"For anthropology to be successful in US arenas, an awareness of culture as a theoretical and native theory

must be brought to the fore. It is only in becoming part of a collective consciousness that

anthropology can hope to become part of an ongoing conversation about who we are in

our work and in our lives. In our own work this means making culture visible in

advertising’s ethnographic practice and in so doing, making it available to a scrutinizing

lens for our society at large."

http://www.practicagroup.com/pdfs/Sunderland_and_Denny_Psychology_v...

[John McCreery]

Psychology is successful because it provides workable tools for understanding the self. Albeit the tools are ahistorical and universalist, they still explain problems and quandaries we face. Anthropology could take a leaf from the psychologists' book perhaps orienting its skills as a toolkit of sorts.

Huon has made some very important points here. I note, adding to what N Pollinger says, that Denny and Sunderland's Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research contains a discussion of trying to promote a cultural, as opposed to psychological, framework for research in a corporate context. It might be a useful starting point for thinking about what the anthropologist's toolkit should contain.

[Martin Ruddock]

is it not more a case that psychology is a discipline that was happy to fit in with the post 1945 dominant trends of militarsing and privatising the academy and social life - anthropology took on board some serious lessons of its role in previous stages colonialism and has had to pay ever since to some degree.

 

?

 

For some reason this lesson from outside the academy comes to mind - a classical trumpet player who might well have gone un-noticed marketed herself as jazz and was subsequently the centre of attention (popularity and money came her way but her act was no different).

[Keith Hart]

Martin Ruddock said:

is it not more a case that psychology is a discipline that was happy to fit in with the post 1945 dominant trends of militarsing and privatising the academy and social life - anthropology took on board some serious lessons of its role in previous stages colonialism and has had to pay ever since to some degree?

 

This raises important questions, not just about anthropology, but the universities generally since 1945. This period is conventionally divided into three decades of developmental states and social democracy (which included also the anti-colonial revolution) followed after the watershed of the 1970s by three decades of neoliberalism leading to the present world economic crisis which may become another political crisis. The Cold War shaped the 50s to the 80s and one-world capitalism since then.

It is hard to recall that universities which have been around for 1,000 years are in fact a twentieth century phenonemon: the disciplines we are familiar with being invented in the early decades of that century and expanded enrolments only taking place after 1945. The heyday of the modern university was the 60s and 70s. Things have been going downhill since, with increased privatization, corporate bureaucracy, academic demoralization and the rest.

Before 1945 the main job of academics, the few of them that were around, was to teach. But during the Cold War, research on armaments, food, pharmaceuticals, aerospace etc attracted big money from governments and corporations and came to supercede teaching as the measure of academic achievement. The social sciences and humanities, who had little to offer big money, nevertheless aped the real scientists by organizing their disciplines through research funding. Even so the main function of universities in the postwar decades stressed their public role in staffing an expanded services sector. This all changed with the pseudo-marketization of the last few decades. Academics have acquiesced in the subsequent privatization of intellectual property.

It is not obvious how long this system can survive or what might replace it. But clearly the digital revolution in communications of the last two decades has introduced radically new conditions to where and how the public can get the knowledge they want. Certainly the big money is pulling out of the universities and funding smaller, more innovative and flexible research organizations. How much longer will there be mass demand for teaching retarded middle class adolescents who seek an interlude between family life and real work?

Martin rightly points out that anthropologists went through a serious reorientation after the fall of empire. But this took place at the time of peak university expansion, so it was not too painful. It is the case that anthropology does not fit at all with the trends of the last three decades. We spend too long in the field, we are intellectually anarchic, do not follow rigorous scientific procedures and tend to identify with the underdogs. I like to say we are an anti-discipline. Postwar academic expansion has made it possible for us to write just for other anthropologists and our students, not for the public as before. We have created a self-defeating ghetto that looks certain to bring the collective enterprise down.

There are two saving features, however. Many people of all ages find our subject matter attractive, so perhaps there is a future for anthropology as a form of public education, if not as a research discipline. And there is bound to be a reaction against the current corruption of academic ideals which could lead to anti-bureaucratic endorsement of more holistic methods linked to life-time learning. Anthropologists could turn out to be pre-adapted to such a development.

For me the depressing feature of the contemporary malaise in anthropology and the universities generally is the absence of any historical perspective on our problems. We came from somewhere and we are going somewhere else. Instead of moaning about not getting what we think we deserve, we should be plotting a different future. The OAC could be one forum for debate and experiementation concerning such possibilities. It is odd that a man approaching 70 should be advocating this, while younger anthropologists just pine for a past golden age when the modern university flourished as a public institution serving common interests (well some of the time).

[Martin Ruddock]

Thanks Keith, clearly it is important to know how anthropology and academy have been 'weaponised' to help overcome obstacles and recognise barriers.

 

On your end note I should like to highlight two book series that I have greatly enjoyed over the past fifteen years - California Series in Public Anthropology and Ethnographic Alternatives.  Recognising anthropology's past and revealing where anthropologists can take the discipline - definite signposts for where I want to head. 

Paul Farmer seems to be the embodiment of this - solid anthropological foundations, practical application, with clear direction for the future.

 

[A. Ashkuff]

Hey, guys! Sorry I've been out of the conversation lately, but I'm glad it's keeping up without me. Great points, all around.

 

However, I'd like to add that, while I don't know what its like elsewhere (I hear it's different in Africa), most Americans don't know about or care about anthropology's colonial history. Nobody's making American anthropologists pay for anything, except perhaps, other anthropologists who enjoy the angst. Lol.

 

--- Ashkuff | http://www.ashkuff.com | Bored with reading about others' adventures? Burning to venture out yourself? Let this applied anthropologist remind you how.

 

 

[Elaine Forde]

Keith Hart said: (among other things)

...How much longer will there be mass demand for teaching retarded middle class adolescents who seek an interlude between family life and real work?

Love it!

But I must add that the model you outline about university-based research funding is possibly more a reflection of what's happening in the "hard" sciences. As an ex finance person at a University Science Faculty- and a bolshy teenager- I spent a lot of time deciding which aspects of work I would boycott on ethical grounds (Lockheed Martin springs to mind). It quickly became apparent that the science being produced was heavily dependent upon what industry wanted to find out, it was unusual to meet a scientist working for the love of it. During that brief stint, there wasn't a single phd student I can recall who paid their own way or designed their own project. Ten years later looking for my own research funding I had to apply directly to the UK research council, which is recycled government money. But I don't think this is just an issue for anthropologists, academic archaeologists I know have an even tougher time of it.

Things are different outside of universities, anthropologists- and especially ethongraphers- seem to crop up all over the place. Also, I meet a surprising amount of students and researchers with other disciplinary alliegances who use "ethnography" in their work and read anthropology (sociologists, archaeologists, geographers), something about anthropology does have an appeal. Perhaps just outside of academic circles our discipline and how we write about it might seem a little elitist- or as a research participant of mine told me- a long-winded way to state the obvious!

On a different note, Ashkuff, in response to this flippant comment

However, I'd like to add that, while I don't know what its like elsewhere (I hear it's different in Africa), most Americans don't know about or care about anthropology's colonial history. Nobody's making American anthropologists pay for anything, except perhaps, other anthropologists who enjoy the angst. Lol.

please take note of this story about Anthropology's colonial "history" which may, or at least ought to, be of interest to Americans and American Anthropologists

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/05/kabul_city_number_one...

http://www.aaanet.org/issues/AAA-Opposes-Human-Terrain-System-Proje...

The Human Terrain System embeds anthropologists within the US military, and in the case of Paula Lloyd, an American Anthropologist, she paid directly for America's attempts to conquer the "human terrain" in a most grizzly fashion.

The point I am making is twofold, firstly Anthropology's "colonial history" is a current affair not to be idly dismissed as a thing of the past or a European thing only, any researcher of any discipline producing knowledge for somebody else ought to be asking why? Colonialism is not a tactic which is limited to nations any more! Secondly in looking to make Anthropology popular/ useful outside of an amateur or academic setting we should be careful who we jump into bed with.

Finally, for the record, I have been asked more than once where I get all the ants from.

[A. Ashkuff]

I'm confused. It looks like you made my point for me, Elaine.

Although the example you provided features the US military,

* The incident itself happened outside the US.
* The first link you provided comes from outside the US.
* The second link you provided, though American, is a trade article for anthropologists.
* I'd wager that most non-anthropologists in the US know nothing about the Human Terrain program.

Ultimately, all this reinforces my statement that, "while I don't know what its like elsewhere, most Americans don't know about or care about anthropology's colonial history. Nobody's making American anthropologists pay for anything, except perhaps, other anthropologists who enjoy the angst." Although I thought it was already implied in the preface, perhaps I should amend "nobody" to "nobody in the US?"

--- Ashkuff | http://www.ashkuff.com | Bored with reading about others' adventures? Burning to venture out yourself? Let this applied anthropologist remind you how.