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Anthropology Revitalized: Public Anthropology and Student Activism Eric
Haanstad Abstract: Eric Haanstad argues that public engagement can be an active part of the learning process for student anthropologists. Student activism can change and revitalize anthropology by subverting the assumption that public-oriented work is detrimental to an academic career. Moreover, public anthropology can function as a conceptual bridge between the unfortunate disciplinary gap between applied and academic anthropology. During the 1999 AAA annual meeting presidential symposium, "A Public Anthropology!!!" a number of discussants expressed the difficulty of engaging in public work, whether in public media, debates or policy, while continuing to pursue an academic career. Research universities continue to do little to encourage non-academic work among academic anthropologists in the tenure and salary structures. A similar complaint was echoed by the participants of a 1997 AAA Task Force on Public Policy who pointed out the lack of support for policy related research and the ambivalence of "theoretical" anthropologists towards public policy research. The assumption that doing publicly engaged anthropology at an academic institution is difficult, underacknowledged and possibly detrimental to an academic career continues to be widely held. However, as student anthropologists, we are in a unique position to subvert this dominant assumption. Students have the most to gain from active engagement in public issues by fulfilling the necessity of career enhancement and by honoring our responsibility to the people and groups we work with. Student mobilization towards critical engagement with public work offers an opportunity to progress towards nothing short of disciplinary, political and societal transformation. Bridging The Disciplinary
Divide: Academic vs. Applied Several months prior the 1999 AAA Presidential Symposium, a call for participation to the session notably encouraged student questions as the primary focus of discussion among panelists, which included Dr. Paul Farmer and Dr. Laura Nader. Students were encouraged to present questions previously discussed as most interesting to their respective departments. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison students had a number of meetings to discuss the issue of "public anthropology" and the questions we wanted to ask. A number of major issues arose as we tried to envision the possibilities of the concept. One of the major questions was whether public anthropology was to be distinguished from the well-established concepts of activist and applied anthropology. This question was a major point of discussion during the annual meeting session and the debate over the next year in online and printed anthropological forums. Many anthropologists, especially those working in predominantly applied fields, such as Merrill Singer, feel that the concept of public anthropology negates the long history of public work of applied/practicing anthropologists. Singer views the focus on public anthropology as "inventing new labels that usurp the role of public work long played by an already existing sector of our discipline" (Anthropology News. Sept. 2000 p. 7). It is true that the concept of public anthropology, as it is most often discussed, tends to focus on academic anthropologists who take roles as public intellectuals. However, the perception that public anthropology excludes applied/practicing anthropology need not be true, or at least can be proven untrue as public anthropology develops as a concept. I agree with Singer that public anthropology can be included "as a subfield of applied anthropology concerned with mobilizing anthropological research, concepts and approaches to inform public discussion of contemporary issues" (6), if that is what is necessary to put the concept into action. More appropriately, public anthropology should be conceived as a concept that leads to observable action and change rather than a limited sub-discipline or school of thought. Public anthropology can function as a bridge between the contested border of applied and academic anthropology. Following last year's session, the University of Wisconsin-Madison was chosen to edit this inaugural issue of the Graduate Student Journal. As this issue attests, students can be and are using their research to inform public issues in a way that blurs the line between academic and applied anthropology. For example, Penny Owen uses anthropological theories of symbolism and "ritual space" in a third grade classroom to create a more accommodating classroom environment for students with different needs. Tina Lee points out the numerous ways that anthropologists can contribute to the issue of welfare reform through their unique engagement with people living in poverty. Jim Schechter and Angela Thieman Dino discuss a program created and administered by students that trains refugee students from area high schools in ethnographic interviewing and participant observation. The journal shows how students training in academic environments can do work that could be called both "public anthropology" and "applied anthropology." The label is, of course, less important than the results: students engaged in public issues beyond the scope of cloistered academic research or minute specialization. Public engagement in anthropology prepares students for work in both applied and academic sectors reducing the disciplinary tension between the two areas. Not only does work in public areas revitalize students' academic work, it also creates critical dialogue between the fields. Furthermore, public engagement highlights the limits and possibilities of academic concepts as new theories are played out in public programs, debates and forums. The Necessity of Political Engagement Another major issue raised by the current debates concerning public anthropology among students is the apparent conflict between who is served by public engagement. Specifically, are anthropologists self-servingly attempting to maintain job security via the public spotlight or are they using their unique perspective to highlight critical aspects of public issues? Eric Lassiter identified this issue on a recent ANTHAP listserv discussion (www.iupui.edu/~anth/public.htm) as the conflict between "ideas and people" vs. "the discipline." Two distinct strategies for making anthropologists more involved in public areas emerge: (1) Using anthropological theories and methods to become active in issues of concern for groups anthropologists work with, or, (2) Marketing anthropology for its own sake. It seems clear that to maintain credibility and fulfill responsibilities to the people we rely on to make a living, anthropologists must privilege political engagement with those who we study over self-serving interests of our discipline or career. As students become more involved in using anthropological perspectives to inform activism, discipline-wide goals of public recognition can be welcome fringe benefits rather than goals in themselves. Determining goals for anthropology results from individual goals we set as students for the purpose of our work. My goal, which I suspect I share with many students, is simply to help create positive social change in the world. I want to move towards economic and social equality whether through opening the minds of students, informing public policy or exposing social problems. Individual goals like these can't be fulfilled through the academy alone. Similarly, the necessarily selfish goal of career advancement is not exclusive of public activism. Advocating for positive change and sustaining a career can work together even if self-promotion is subservient to the underlying motive of political change. A similar delicate relationship between advocacy and academic narcissism is present at a disciplinary level as well. There have been several calls for "marketing strategies" where anthropology itself is promoted through methods of encouraging name recognition and image creation. Anthropologists have lamented that better public images of ourselves do not exist beyond Indiana Jones, or that anthropological concepts (such as "culture" or "ethnicity") are not recognized as coming from anthropology. Rather than these surface issues, which are essentially ones of labeling and shallow representation, we should concern ourselves with the debt we owe to those we rely on for our livelihood: the communities and people we research. One of the major issues raised in the discussions resulting from the 1999 "A Public Anthropology!!!" session, as well as in this journal and in the 2000 annual meeting invited student session (organized by Tyrone Siren and sponsored by the National Association of Student Anthropologists) is the role of anthropology in K-12 education. Encouraging the development of K-12 programs and curriculum, which make use of anthropological concepts, easily fits within the realm of public anthropology. One of the major projects I worked on at an internship with AAA in 1997 was assessing the status of anthropology within K-12 education on a state-by-state basis. I found that many states included curriculum suggestions in their social studies standards that could be considered "anthropological" - the culture concept, world cultures courses, etc. - but this curriculum was rarely called "anthropological." In the 2000 annual meeting NASA session, Jennifer Johnson pointed out similar trends in Canada. Moreover, only a few states suggest the inclusion of high school anthropology elective courses as compared to many more states that offer sociology, economics and psychology electives. In the case of K-12 education, anthropologists must also take care to focus on the primary issues and people involved rather than promotion of the discipline on its own. Anthropological curriculum should not mindlessly promote itself to young students, but rather use its perspectives to highlight the world's diversity, social problems and sensitive solutions. As students, we are in the unique position to make activism and advocacy an integral part of the research process for anthropologists. As activism among academics becomes more commonplace and sophisticated, past academic sanctions against it will fade. Are we to believe that creating a political action group or publishing in mainstream media based on our anthropological research will not help our careers? Certainly there is a feeling of fear or apathy behind such claims. These changes cannot be accomplished, however, if our fundamental goal is increasing our public image rather than improving the lives of those we study. We should view ourselves as students and servants of society with unique skills rather than as salespeople and image marketers for an obscure product called "anthropology." Creating Positive Social Change When approaching our responsibility of advocacy for the people we study, it might be easy to become discouraged at the amount of work apparent in accomplishing these goals while fulfilling traditional academic expectations. The strain of these two agendas can be overcome by merging them into similar arenas. I can use my planned research as an example. Because one of my major research interests is police groups, I don't anticipate making it a research goal to advance the political agenda of organizations that are inherently politically powerful. However, there are many opportunities for public advocacy in police issues and the questions raised by anthropological work can become the issues of political activism. For example, ethnicity, political power and civil society are integrally related to policing through such police practices as racial profiling, prison industry expansion and riot control techniques. By examining these issues from an activist standpoint utilizing academic, mainstream and policy-oriented media, my research can be used to support, for example, the proposed Law Enforcement Trust and Integrity Act. This act provide funds for pilot programs to improve police performance, including support of civilian review boards to examine claims of police misconduct, training programs covering matters such as the use of lethal force. Ethnographic evidence, citizen interviews and police observation can be used to support initiatives like these. By merging academic questions with applied issues through practicing public activism, students can create new standards for anthropology within academia. As we develop the possibilities of public anthropology we should also aim for its obsolescence. By making public engagement in anthropology the rule rather than the exception (from simply writing a letter to a local newspaper providing an anthropological perspective to a local issue, to taking an active part in creating and shaping social policy and programs) students can create a more vital and engaging discipline. As the fellow students who I am honored to share this journal with demonstrate, student activism and engagement in public issues is increasingly prevalent and accepted. Making public anthropology an active part of the learning process will result in a critical student contribution towards positive development in our discipline and society.
Eric Haanstadt is a Ph.D. candidate in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin Madison who specializes in Thailand. He is currently the president-elect of the National Association of Student Anthropologists. He is living in Thailand this year for preliminary dissertation research on Thai police and security groups.
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