Julianne Walsh and Ty Kawika Tengan
(The Issue's Editors)
jwalsh@hawaii.edu    ttengan@hawaii.edu

Anthropologists have recently been forced (again) to carefully consider the ways in which their work circulates in and is appropriated by the public. At the 99th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) entitled "The Public Face of Anthropology" (San Francisco, November 15-19, 2000), the discipline itself became the object of a much more powerful and all-knowing gaze as the cameras of CNN panned thousands of anthropologists trying to figure out the implications of Patrick Tierney’s Darkness in El Dorado (2000) on the profession. While the two special sessions on the Yanomami were certainly the most visible sightings of anthropology’s public face (façade?), there were a number of other sessions which sought to wrestle with anthropology’s engagement (or lack thereof) with the public.

In the 2000 Annual Meeting Program, there were eleven sessions indexed under the topic of "Public Anthropology," four under "Public Archaeology," and thirteen under other "Public" categories. These included a host of other related workshops (not counting overlaps) under "Public Policy" (seven), "Public Sphere" (three), "Public Interest" (two), "Public" (one), "Public Access" (one), "Public Appreciation of Archaeology" (one), "Public Dialogue" (one), "Public Ethnography" (one), "Public Health" (one), "Public Knowledge" (one), "Public Processes" (one), "Public Space" (one), and "Publics" (one) (p. 251). Additionally, there were a handful of other sessions specifically taking up the issue of public interface under the topics "Applied Anthropology," "Advocacy," "Activism," and "Activist" (p. 246).

In his review of the poster session, "Engaging a Localized Public Anthropology" (session 2-052), co-organized with Samuel R. Cook, Ball State professor Luke Eric Lassiter notes that "much of our discussion about public anthropology...has revolved around how ‘public anthropology’ is different from (or similar to) applied anthropology. For the most part, the session participants find this distinction uninteresting" (Lassiter 2001:7). Instead, Lassiter stresses the need for an anthropological praxis informed on all levels by a model of community-based collaboration, partnership, and communication. This model of praxis applies to all communities in which one works (as students, professors, or practitioners), including the community of professional peers. It is by maintaining such model of partnership, communication, and collaboration that the lines between research, pedagogy, and applied work, as well as those separating sub-fields, may begin to be blurred (7-8).

These ideas resonate with the sentiments expressed by graduate students in the session "Students Awake! Public (Anthropology) or Perish" (3-016). Commenting on the papers given, discussant Laura Nader urged students to remember that public anthropology was not a separate subfield but rather a way of doing all anthropology. Discussant Robert Borofsky commended the participants for their courage, noting that it requires a great amount of courage to go beyond the hegemonic constructs of the discipline (and the academy) to practice a public anthropology which truly works for positive social changes.

Yet despite (or because?) of this increased interest in a "public anthropology", there was a great deal of ambiguity in ways that it was defined and/or discussed. Not only was this evidenced in the different types of papers or posters given in any given session, but also in the various ways that certain sessions were cross-listed: e.g., Public Anthropology/Activism (session 2-052) Public Anthropology/Activist Anthropology (3-016), Applied Anthropology/Activism (2-096), Public Anthropology/Public Policy (2-117), Public Ethnography/Public Policy (3-027), and Public Archaeology/Applied Anthropology (3-029) (pp. 246, 251). There were also sessions that dealt quite explicitly with anthropology’s relation to the public but were not listed under any of the aforementioned categories; an important example was session 2-109 "Public Spaces, Native Places", reviewed by the Anthropology and Environment Section and listed in the index under "Native American" (and not, interestingly, under any of the topics dealing with the environment or environmentalism) (pp. 145, 250). This seemingly peculiar practice of indexing sessions highlights the ambiguous, contingent, and contextual nature of how one defines the "public," as well as which "publics" are privileged above others.

It is this diversity and plurality of approaches to the practice and theorization of public anthropology that we seek to explore in this second issue of Public Anthropology. Rather than taking "public anthropology" as a clearly definable set of practices or a distinct subfield in anthropology, we see it as a contested term in need of interrogation and elaboration. The goal of our issue is to bring to light the various ways in which we as practitioners of anthropology are thinking about and dealing with the ways our work does or does not engage in the public. The public can be defined on a number of different levels: the community in which we do our fieldwork and research; the location of our university in which we study or teach; or the larger public in which our work is read and disseminated. Each of these positionings are fluid and may overlap in terms of the level we chose to locate the public (e.g., the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa is in the district of Manoa, in the city of Honolulu, in the [colonial] State of Hawai‘i, in [possession of] the United States, in the global community). The positioning of the ‘public’ as a distinct object implies a separation from the ‘private’ (or the university as the case may be). We find this dichotomy untenable and thus seek to offer examples of the ways anthropology may be made more relevant, accessible and useful both within and outside the academy.

In offering these examples and ideas, we (five graduate students at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and one graduate student at the University of Oregon) critique a number of contemporary methodological and theoretical practices and call for increased exploration and experimentation in the methods and theorization of research, representation, collaboration, and exchange. The contingent and relational nature of how each of us discusses "public anthropology" is better understood when one looks at the positionalities represented here. The six contributors to this issue include four Anglo-American women and two indigenous men, one a Kanaka ‘Oiwi Maoli (indigenous Hawaiian) and the other a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon. Of these six authors, one is an archaeologist, four are cultural anthropologists, and one is an environmental/ecological anthropologist. Each of us are graduate students; four of us are Ph.D. candidates, and two are M.A. students. Notably absent is the presence of white men. While it is merely a speculation, we would suggest that the ‘situated’ (often marginalized) knowledges that each of us possesses have worked to engender in each of us a keen desire to critique and transform the hegemonic structures of our discipline and the academy (cf. Haraway 1991).

Such was the impetus for a series of colloquia in the department initiated by Ty Kawika Tengan and Lynette Cruz, both ‘Oiwi Maoli (see Tengan, this issue). These fora stirred discussion that led other participating students to recognize shared concerns and criticisms of anthropology as practiced in their particular spheres of research and involvements: How does the university reward/penalize faculty involvement in the local community? Why are there so few applied courses? What options exist for students who feel strongly that anthropology without public engagement is at best, mere navel gazing, at worst, neo-colonialist?

Despite the increased recognition of the colonial history of Hawai‘i, as well as the dictates of the discipline, anthropology students at the University of Hawai‘i are under no obligation to be aware and informed of the impacts of anthropology on Kanaka Maoli. Non-native scholars are not required to listen or respond to the critiques of anthropology voiced by Kanaka ‘Oiwi. We view this as a critical gap in anthropological training, given the incredible opportunity for a deepened awareness of the relations between anthropology and indigenous peoples as experienced by Kanaka Maoli.

As Tengan writes in his article, the exploitation of ‘Oiwi Maoli, which has been perpetuated in the institutional structures and activities of the University, requires critical evaluation. Anthropological practitioners based at the UH have historically done very little to actively interrogate these colonial structures that have served as the contextual frames of their anthropological studies; indeed, a good deal of their work was complicit with these hegemonic structures, a predicament which is further maintained by anthropology’s general disengagement with the public. To conveniently ignore the colonial history of this academic institution is to carry out work uninformed by a model of collaboration, partnership, communication, accountability, and responsibility. This leads anthropologists to participate (if only complicitly) in the further subjugation and exclusion of native voices and native rights.

An understanding of the colonizing histories of institutions, academic disciplines, and academics, and their relation to larger hegemonic structures, is imperative to all anthropological work undertaken in places such as Hawai‘i where indigenous peoples are currently engaged in struggles over land, resources, identity, and power. The fact that so few graduate students at UH responded to our call for papers in this project highlights the dissension inherent in topics of collaboration and engagement with local communities. These opinions resurface in debates over the level and degree of involvement and commitment realistic for full-time faculty and the threat of community obligations infringing upon scientific research priorities. The most troublesome discussions are those in which long-term commitments to communities of research are considered optional rather than obligatory, or worse yet, undesirable.

This journal issue recognizes that those commitments are at the heart of anthropology. We argue that academic institutions would do well to acknowledge and reward those faculty who are most engaged with the communities in which they work, those communities upon which academic careers and institutional hegemonies are built. The following articles convey the declarations of students, both graduate and undergraduate, who interrogate anthropological ‘tradition’ and seek to push contemporary boundaries and practices to new realms of inclusiveness, integration, collaboration, and meaning. The contributions to this issue of Public Anthropology offer ideas, examples, reflections, suggestions, and questions about the ways anthropology may truly reach and positively impact public life, knowledge, affairs, and interests. This directive is intimately linked to the holistic nature of the discipline. Without a community-based venue for our work to be developed, directed, critiqued, and circulated in, and without a greater purpose than simply writing for the academy, we as anthropologists will perpetuate an ultimately PRIVATE enterprise in which community voices are first exploited and ultimately excluded from dialogue.

It is thus no surprise that the so-called "Native anthropologist" must come to wrestle with these issues immediately upon beginning any type of work. Both Tengan and Lewis acknowledge their positionalities as ‘native anthropologists’ and work towards making a positive impact on the communities in which they live and work. Lewis uses his skills as a researcher to assist the Tolowa people of California in their efforts to reclaim their traditional cultural properties. Tengan writes of his joint efforts with Lynette Cruz to establish an ‘Oiwi Maoli presence in the UH department which has historically been very detached from the Kanaka Maoli community. The experiences of colonialism, racism, economic exploitation, and other forms of domination undergone by their peoples have led these researchers to look for a way in which a public anthropology will help to heal some of those historic wounds. .Other papers are written by Anglo-American women working in communities deeply impacted by both native and foreign hegemonies. Exploring how a non-native voice might engage in collaboration with local native communities reveals challenges of a different sort. Long-term fieldwork and community activism are possible means of offering services and support, though these are dependent upon the types of relationships the researcher has forged with the community. Striking a balance between a commitment to community collaboration and the demands of the academy is difficult. This is especially true of scholars in American academic institutions. Thus, two papers, LeeRay Costa’s and Julie Walsh’s, call for a closer integration of field and academy, public and private lives, student and ‘expert’ status of anthropologists for ethical and professional reasons. Costa’s contribution offers the example of Thai academics/activists as one way in which scholars may lead a richly rewarding and socially relevant academic life. Walsh’s article calls attention to the ways anthropologists may contribute to the communities in which they work, to offer an exchange of personal as well as professional resources. She argues that without this type of exchange anthropological research participates in and perpetuates historic exploitative relationships, such as that existing between the United States and the Marshall Islands.

Regina Luna’s essay offers an example of community-inclusive research, in which she participates. She describes the mutual benefits of community members’ collaborative participation, as the research becomes more valid, relevant, and accessible to the community of research. Collaborative work such as this enables access to places, people, and understandings while it also empowers locals to contribute to their own lives and community life in new ways.

Julie Field’s review of student perspectives on the Kennewick man debate (cf. Lewis, this issue) touches upon the multiple perspectives and motivations of a public anthropology. Noting the official position of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) on the ethics of research and public education, Field found that her students’ responses to the Kennewick man case ran counter to those formulated in SAA guidelines. Nearly all of the students involved sought to return Kennewick man’s remains to his descendents, despite the "scientific" value of further study. These undergraduate students pushed the boundaries and definitions designated by the SAA to balance scientific and native interests and concerns.

As we hope you will find, the views expressed in this collection of essays and articles reflect a growing desire for an anthropology that is meaningful beyond the academy, and to a larger public. The papers offer relevant models, examples, and activities of successful, relevant, useful, and accessible public anthropology. The nature of the an electronic journal is consistent with these goals as well, for it brings issues to broader audiences, engages others outside the academy in discussion and debate, and, even more importantly, listens to those voices. We not only invite but eagerly await your feedback.

Works Cited

American Anthropological Association (AAA). 2000. Program: 99th Annual Meeting. American Anthropological Association. San Francisco. November 15-19, 2000. Arlington: American Anthropological Association.

Haraway, Donna. 1991. Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature. New York: Routledge.

Lassiter, Luke Eric. 2001. Engaging a Localized Public Anthropology. Anthropology News 42(2) February 2001:7-8

Tierney, Patrick. 2000. Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. New York: Norton and Company.

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