Toward Engaged Anthropology PDF
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Toward Engaged Anthropology Toward Engaged Anthropology (cid:1)(cid:2) Edited by Sam Beck Carl A. Maida Berghahn Books New York • Oxford Published in 2013 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2013 Berghahn Books Originally published as two special issues of Anthropology in Action, volume 16, issues 2–3. All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without wri(cid:308) en permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Toward engaged anthropology / edited by Sam Beck, Carl A. Maida. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-85745-910-7 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Anthropology—Methodology. 2. Anthropology—Philosophy. 3. Anthropology—Fieldwork. 4. Participant observation. 5. Applied anthropology. I. Beck, Sam. GN33.T68 2013 306.01—dc23 2013004351 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Printed in the United States on acid-free paper ISBN 978-0-85745-910-7 (paperback) Contents Introduction: Toward Engaged Anthropology 1 Sam Beck and Carl A. Maida Expert and Lay Knowledge in Pacoima: Public Anthropology and Essential Tension in Community-based Participatory Action Research 15 Carl A. Maida Norwegian Anthropologists Study Minorities at Home: Political and Academic Agendas 36 Thomas Hylland Eriksen Dow Chemical’s Knowledge Factories: Action Anthropology against Michigan’s Company Town Culture 55 Brian McKenna Producing Knowledge for Public Use: New Challenges in the U.S. Academy 75 Judith Goode Notes on a Dialogical Anthropology 99 Udi Mandel Butler Mapping Solidarity: How Public Anthropology Provides Guidelines for Advocacy Networks 118 Raúl Acosta Lessons from Vicos 132 Billie Jean Isbell Notes on Contributors 158 Index 162 Introduction Toward Engaged Anthropology (cid:1)(cid:2) Sam Beck and Carl A. Maida What if we use theory and method to benefi t the people we study by partnering with them to move towards a just world, one where inequities are reduced and there is greater access to knowledge gained from anthropological research? To reach this goal anthro- pologists must play a more intentional and responsible role in working with people, communities and movements – the stake- holders with whom research is carried out. While anthropologists continue to act as decoders of cultures that are diff erent and look diffi cult to understand or appreciate by society at large, it is criti- cal for us to become more instrumental. We must participate in generating and bringing about change. We must be engaged in protecting the most vulnerable from oppression and exploita- tion and support the empowerment of communities to improve people’s lives. This is a role not comfortably taken by tradition- bound anthropologists; however, an engaged stance moves the ap- plication of anthropological theory, methods and practice further along towards action and activism. At the same time, engagement moves anthropologists away from traditional forms of participant observation towards a participatory role by becoming increasingly a part of those communities or social groupings that we normally study. The chapters in this book suggest the roles anthropologists are able to play to bring us closer to a public anthropology charac- terized as engagement. Engagement is a concept now used by universities to address decades-long criticism from business and government sectors. 2 Toward Engaged Anthropology The complaint is layered and focuses on the invented failure of higher education at a number of levels. Foremost it is a criticism that universities have been unresponsive to the needs of society, government and the private sector. At the level of undergraduate education, pressure has mounted to fulfi l obligations asserted as benefi cial to the public interest. The concern has to do with what is judged as: (1) the inability of graduates to fi t rapidly into corpo- rate regimes; (2) poor skills development in writing, mathematics, science and technology; (3) li(cid:308) le or no experience in and a poor sense of citizenship; and (4) a limited encounter with volunteer- ism, expressed as community service. Universities have been challenged to become more actively en- gaged with society as a whole, rather than reproducing the semi- isolation of the academic enterprise. This has happened as public funding is being withdrawn from higher education, concomitant with universities’ expanded contractual arrangements with gov- ernment and private sectors for product development. These trends are reshaping university operations, but also the rationale for higher education itself. Knowledge production is employed to bring about greater management effi ciency and to accelerate consumption at the local and global level. The emphasis is on leadership develop- ment, innovation and entrepreneurship, with traditional arts and humanities education utilized as methods to achieve these. At the undergraduate level this has been an eff ort to engage students in learning the relationship between theory and practice by participating in the ‘real world’. Ironically, community engage- ment education was a radical alternative to didactic learning. Community-service learning was developed to reignite under- graduates to participate in civil society and help improve the con- ditions found in rural and urban sites of poverty. Simultaneously, internship programmes were implemented to hasten students in the workforce when graduating, reduce the ineffi ciency of gradu- ates searching for the proper job for their skills and passion, and helping students make the connection between classroom learning and the real world. Two diff erent encounters are taking on signifi - cance in higher education. First, internships are ubiquitous and are supposed to anchor theory in practice, applying theory through work experiences in Introduction 3 various professional se(cid:308) ings. Ideally, students learn theory in their normal course work and then use the internship to test theory in practice. This approach of course fails to recognize that theory is also generated in the work place. A few internship programmes enable students to theorize from their experiences, reversing the ‘testing of theory in practice’ paradigm and instead students are asked to produce theory from practice. For example, at Cornell University’s Urban Semester Program in New York City, which is informed by an engaged anthropological praxis, the goal is to assist students in personal and professional development and prepare them for the world of work with the realization that theorizing is an essential part of practice. Moreover, this form of engagement provides students with a sense of relevance and demonstrates the utility of their education in the work place and society. Second, community-service learning has become an increas- ingly valued engagement process. Here students are supposed to learn about underserved communities, more o(cid:286) en than not com- munities of colour. They are encouraged to value voluntarism and practise good citizenship in the hopes that as they mature into adulthood they will continue to be engaged. As a result of service learning experiences, students may become a(cid:308) racted to careers in the public or non-profi t sectors and thereby participate in devel- oping civil society. Another criticism is the monastic-like separation of the univer- sity from the issues that need rapid resolution, and must be under- stood through research and knowledge production. By developing a way to produce change in the process of knowledge production, greater effi ciency and more innovations may occur. Participating in communities as partners, collaborators and members redefi nes higher education’s roles and commitments. To legitimize internships and community-service learning in the academy, these experiential pedagogies are tied to course work and discussed as part of a continuum of learning to which stu- dents are exposed. This tightens the relationship of academic work and community problem-solving, whether this form of learn- ing takes place in a government agency, a place of business or a neighbourhood. Although the professoriate is increasingly teach- ing these kinds of courses, special co-curricular programmes have
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