The Status of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

The Status of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology MATT CARTMILL Department of Biological Anthropology and Anatomy Duke University Durham, NC 27710 The Status of the Race Concept in Physical Anthropology There are hereditary differences among human beings. Some of these differences have geographical correlates. Some ge- netic variants that produce physical or behavioral deficits occur significantly more often in some areas, or in some ethnic groups, than in others. However, none of these facts provides any intellectual support for the race concept, for racial clas- sifications, or for social hierarchies based on ethnic-group membership. The geographical element of the race concept is important in theory but is widely ignored in practice since it does not conform well to the facts of current human phenotype distribution. Much of the literature on supposed racial differences involves such geographically meaningless exercises as studying differences among "races" by subdividing a sample of North Americans. If races are defined as geographically delimited conspecific populations characterized by distinctive regional phenotypes, then human races do not exist now and have not existed for centuries, [race, human variation, intel- ligence] he concept of race is a divisive and emotionally seminate the revision in the name of the Association. After charged topic among physical anthropologists. three years of additional discussion, debate, and revision, TThe history of the American Association of Physi- the statement was finally approved by the Executive Com- cal Anthropologists' "Statement on Biological Aspects of mittee and published in the December 1996 issue of the Race" (AAPA 1996) attests to our divisions on this issue. American Journal of Physical Anthropology (AJPA). The AAPA statement had its inception at the 1989 meet- Some AAPA members who spoke against the race ings of the American Association for the Advancement of statement in Toronto were opposed to it on philosophical Science, where the Canadian psychologist J. Philippe grounds. The AAPA, they argued, simply had no business Rushton was invited to deliver a talk on his notorious ra- making pronouncements of this sort. If the issues being cial theories (Rushton and Bogaert 1989). Some physical dealt with were matters of scientific fact, they should be anthropologists who happened to be present were ap- thrashed out in the scientific literature, not settled by pass- palled to hear Rushton's views propounded under the aus- ing resolutions at meetings. It was no more appropriate for pices of the AAAS. They felt that physical anthropolo- the AAPA to have an official position on the facts of hu- gists, as the supposed scientific experts on matters of race, man racial variation, these people insisted, than it would ought to have been consulted before Rushton was given a be for it to have an official position on the phylogeny of platform. Convinced by this incident that it was high time marmosets, or the diagnostic skeletal signs of syphilis, or for physical anthropologists to take an official stand any other factual issue. And if the issues in question were against scientific racism, they asked the Executive Com- matters not of fact but of politics and morality, then physi- mittee of the American Association of Physical Anthro- cal anthropologists could say nothing more authoritative pologists to establish a committee to work toward that about them than anyone else. end. Although these objections to the "Statement on Bio- A working group set up under the direction of Sol Katz. logical Aspects of Race" had nothing to do with the issue the AAPA's representative to the AAAS, submitted a of race as such, the rejection of that statement at the 1993 draft statement on race in 1992 to the AAPA Executive AAPA business meeting also reflected substantive dis- Committee (Sirianni 1992). The Executive Committee re- agreements about race among biological anthropologists.1 vised it further and passed it along for approval to the As- Some of us, myself included, regard human races as over- sociation's business meeting in Toronto in 1993. The simplified or nonsensical constructs (Brace 1964, 1996; statement was rejected by a vote of 43 to 35, with 4 absten- Goodman and Armelagos 1996: Harrison et al. 1977; tions (Sirianni 1993). Nevertheless, the AAPA executive Keita and Kiftles 1997; Livingstone 1962: Marks 1995: was given permission to rewrite the statement and dis- Molnar 1992; Montagu 1942a, 1942b). Others think that American Anthropologist 100(3)651 -660. Copyright © 1999. American Anthropological Association 652 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST • VOL. 100, No. 3 • SEPTEMBER 1998 races are real biological entities. In a 1985 survey, 365 African ancestry, or to lump them together for some pur- physical anthropologists were asked whether they agreed poses with their parent populations in Africa as constitut- with the statement, "There are biological races within the ing a "Negroid" group. species Homo sapiens." Almost half of them {N = 181) Proponents of the race concept acknowledge that racial said they did. Almost as many (N = 148) said they did not classifications can be used to discriminate against people. (Lieberman and Reynolds 1996). But because such classifications reflect certain facts of hu- A similar 1978 survey, which revealed a similar differ- man biology, they can also be used justly and fairly to ence of opinion, showed that the positions that physical serve benign ends. For example, doctors need to be alerted anthropologists take on these issues tend to correlate with to the elevated probability of sickle-cell disease in patients their social status and cultural background (Lieberman of equatorial African ancestry. Forensic anthropologists and Reynolds 1978). Scientists' attitudes toward the race may be asked by the police to provide racial identifica- concept are probably also correlated to some degree with tions to help in solving crimes—say, to determine whether their politics. Experience suggests that (as might be ex- a skeleton found in the woods could be that of an African pected) physical anthropologists who reject the concept of American murder victim. Because there are some skeletal race tend to lean more to the political left than their oppo- traits that occur more frequently among some North nents do. But the division between the two camps is not re- American ethnic groups than among others, it is some- ally a split between tender-minded liberal egalitarians and times possible to answer such questions with a fair degree tough-minded conservative elitists. To a surprising ex- of confidence. And because racially defined ethnic group- tent, physical anthropologists in both camps make similar ings are real and important elements in American culture, assertions, cite similar sources, and express similar fer- we often need to recognize such groupings in investigat- vent opposition to racist practices and beliefs. The differ- ing the interaction between culture and biology. For in- ence between them is mainly one of emphasis. The find- stance, if we wish to determine whether Black children ings that one group admits grudgingly and seeks out have been systematically exposed to higher environ- reasons for disregarding are spotlighted by the other group mental lead levels than Whites, we need to structure our as the central facts that reveal the way things really are. sample in terms of race (Schell 1997). There is a case to be made for each side, and it is not hard to find physical anthropologists who have questioned the The Case against the Race Concept existence of races in one publication but have used racial categories to structure their data in another. Biological anthropologists who deny the value of racial typology would grant all these points, but would insist that The Case for the Race Concept racial categories are nevertheless biologically incoherent and heuristically misleading. As one classic textbook of Those who defend racial taxonomies generally say they human biology expressed it two decades ago, "Classifica- are just one way of expressing the generally recognized tions of man into Mongoloids, Caucasoids, Negroids, etc. fact that human genetic variation is correlated with geog- undoubtedly express certain genuine features of human raphy. For example, most of the world's people who have variation but they do so in a crude and misleading way" very dark skin and woolly-textured, tightly curled hair live (Harrison etal. 1977:184). in Africa south of the Tropic of Cancer. Although many Proponents of the race concept usually define races in people who live elsewhere also meet this description, the terms of the typical or average properties of regional hu- great majority of them are descended from people who man populations, as though racial categories were geo- lived in sub-Saharan Africa. In some parts of the world, graphically delimited biological subspecies. Summariz- immigrants from tropical Africa have simply disappeared ing the definitions of "race" proposed by proponents of into the general population through interbreeding, but in human racial classifications over the past half-century, other areas—for instance, in North America—they have Molnar (1992:23) notes that all such definitions stress the formed persistent ethnic groups with distinctive cultural concept of races as geographical entities: "Primarily, the traditions and a tendency toward preferential mating divisions are based on the sharing of a common territory or within the group. Within such ethnic groups, assortative space and [assume] that geography
Recommended publications
  • RESOUND a Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music
    RESOUND A Quarterly of the Archives of Traditional Music Volume 24; Number 3/4 July/October 2005 Sound Recordings and Ethnomusicology: From the Director Theoretical Barriers to the Use of Archival Collections Daniel B. Reed Ronda L. Sewald Part two, continued from Resound Vol. 24, No 1/2 We Keep Getting Busier Defining Disciplinary Boundaries: The Struggle For many decades, the Archives ofTraditional between Anthropologists and Musicologists Music has prided itself as being an open and accessible Since the founding of the Society archives. We have a Listening Library which is staffed for Ethnomusicology in the 1950's, many and open to the public thirty-five hours a week. The vast ethnomusicologists have declared the use of others' majority of our collections is cataloged and searchable sound recordings as a research methodology on-line via Indiana University's electronic catalog used by comparative musicologists as opposed to IUCAT. We receive a constant flow of orders from ethnomusicologists. This methodology has been researchers, educators, members of the communities transformed into a token representing the mistakes where recordings were made, and others· from around of the past and its rejection has become a means of the world. As archives go, we have always been quite symbolically distancing ourselves from the imperialistic heavily used. and ethnocentric theories generated by earlier In the past several years, however, we have seen a researchers. the scapegoating and stigmatization of dramatic growth in orders for our collections. Simply others' sound recordings, however, has not only served comparing statistics from 2004 and 2005 clearly as a device for demarcating the past from the present demonstrates the rate of increase in use of the ATM.
    [Show full text]
  • Anthropology of Race 1
    Anthropology of Race 1 Knowing Race John Hartigan What do we know about race today? Is it surprising that, after a hun- dred years of debate and inquiry by anthropologists, not only does the answer remain uncertain but also the very question is so fraught? In part, this reflects the deep investments modern societies have made in the notion of race. We can hardly know it objectively when it constitutes a pervasive aspect of our identities and social landscapes, determining advantage and disadvantage in a thoroughgoing manner. Yet, know it we do. Perhaps mis- takenly, haphazardly, or too informally, but knowledge claims about race permeate everyday life in the United States. As well, what we understand or assume about race changes as our practices of knowledge production also change. Until recently, a consensus was held among social scientists—predi- cated, in part, upon findings by geneticists in the 1970s about the struc- ture of human genetic variability—that “race is socially constructed.” In the early 2000s, following the successful sequencing of the human genome, counter-claims challenging the social construction consensus were formu- lated by geneticists who sought to support the role of genes in explaining race.1 This volume arises out of the fracturing of that consensus and the attendant recognition that asserting a constructionist stance is no longer a tenable or sufficient response to the surge of knowledge claims about race. Anthropology of Race confronts the problem of knowing race and the challenge of formulating an effective rejoinder both to new arguments and sarpress.sarweb.org COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL 3 John Hartigan data about race and to the intense desire to know something substantive about why and how it matters.
    [Show full text]
  • Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution
    AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST Integrative Anthropology and the Human Niche: Toward a Contemporary Approach to Human Evolution Agustın´ Fuentes ABSTRACT A niche is the structural, temporal, and social context in which a species exists. Over the last two million years, the human lineage underwent clear morphological changes alongside less easily measurable, but significant, behavioral and cognitive shifts as it forged, and was shaped by, new niches. During this time period, core human patterns emerged, including the following: hypercooperation; lengthy childhood and complex parenting; intricate and diverse foraging and hunting patterns; novel and dynamic material and symbolic cultures; and complex communication and information sharing, eventually resulting in language. Approaches to human evolution grounded in paleoanthropology and archaeology offer fundamental insights into our past, and traditional evolutionary the- ory offers a strong grounding for explaining them. However, given the centrality of distinctive physiological, social, semiotic, and cognitive processes in human evolutionary histories, a broader anthropological approach can facilitate additional understanding of the human story. An integrative anthropology, reaching across subfields and foci, com- bined with contemporary evolutionary theory is an approach that can enhance our abilities to model and understand human evolution. [integrative anthropology, niche construction, evolution, extended evolutionary synthesis, Homo, semiosis, Pleistocene] RESUMEN Un nicho es el contexto estructural,
    [Show full text]
  • Agustín Fuentes Department of Anthropology, 123 Aaron Burr Hall, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544 Email: [email protected]
    Agustín Fuentes Department of Anthropology, 123 Aaron Burr Hall, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544 email: [email protected] EDUCATION: 1994 Ph.D. Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley 1991 M.A. Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley 1989 B.A. Anthropology and Zoology, University of California, Berkeley ACADEMIC POSITIONS: 2020-present Professor, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University 2017-2020 The Edmund P. Joyce, C.S.C., Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame 2013-2020 Chair, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame 2008-2020 Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame 2008-2011 Director, Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, University of Notre Dame 2005-2008 Nancy O’Neill Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame 2004-2008 Flatley Director, Office for Undergraduate and Post-Baccalaureate Fellowships, University of Notre Dame 2002-2008 Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame 2000-2002 Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Central Washington University 1999-2002 Director, Primate Behavior and Ecology Bachelor of Science Program, Interdisciplinary Major-Departments of Anthropology, Biological Sciences and Psychology, Central Washington University 1998-2002 Graduate Faculty, Department of Psychology and Resource Management Master’s Program, Central Washington University 1996-2000 Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Central Washington University 1995-1996 Lecturer,
    [Show full text]
  • Reminiscences of Anthropological Currents in America Half a Century Ago
    UC Berkeley Anthropology Faculty Publications Title Reminiscences of Anthropological Currents in America Half a Century Ago Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2vk1833m Journal American Anthropologist, 58(6) Author Lowie, Robert H. Publication Date 1956-12-01 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Reminiscences of Anthropological Currents in America Half a Century Ago ROBERT H. LOWIE University of California HE Editor of the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST has asked me to offer "some T discussion and analysis of the intellectual ferment, the various ideas and interests, and the important factual discoveries in their relationship to these ideas, that were current during the period of your early years as an anthropolo­ gist." In responding I shall have to go far afield. The task suggested implies nevertheless two noteworthy restrictions. Factual discoveries are irrelevant (except as they influenced ideas), as is administrative promotion of scientific interests. Accordingly, though sharing Sapir's judgment that as a field worker J. O. Dorsey was "ahead of his age," I must ignore him for present purposes. Again, there will be only brief references to Frederic Ward Putnam (1839-1915) and to Frederic Webb Hodge (1864-1956); as to Powell and McGee, only their thinking demands extended notice. It is well to recall that in 1904, when I began graduate work, only Columbia, Harvard, and California had full-fledged academic departments of anthropol­ ogy, but the Field Museum, a descendant of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, had been fostering research, as had the Bureau of American Ethnology and the United States National Museum.
    [Show full text]
  • Redalyc.Contemporary Evolutionary Theory in Biological Anthropology
    Cuicuilco ISSN: 1405-7778 [email protected] Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia México Fuentes, Agustín Contemporary Evolutionary Theory in Biological Anthropology: Insight into Human Evolution, Genomics and Challenges to Racialized Pseudo-Science Cuicuilco, vol. 23, núm. 65, enero-abril, 2016, pp. 293-304 Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia Distrito Federal, México Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=35145329015 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative Contemporary Evolutionary Theory in Biological Anthropology: Insight into Human Evolution, Genomics and Challenges to Racialized Pseudo-Science Agustín Fuentes Departamento de Antropología Universidad de Notre Dame In a 2010 article, I suggested that our discipline has moved beyond the label of “physical” anthropology, and asked the question “are we Biological Anthropologists yet?” as the starting point. I answered in the affirmative, stating that: “I sincerely believe we are Biological Anthropologists, and there is a great diversity of fantastic multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work within our practice. As Sherwood Washburn called on us to do nearly 60 years ago, we must foster and enhance these activities and perspectives inside and outside of our association and discipline. Looking forward, we need more than ever to continue heeding the advice of Washburn and to build on the strengths and advances made in the recent history of our science” [Fuentes 2010]. Today, biological anthropologists find ourselves in the midst of multi- disciplinary and interdisciplinary work that has created a revolution in evolutionary theory.
    [Show full text]
  • ANTH 445: African American Anthropology Section 10637D Fall 2015 T 2-4:50PM KAP 164
    ANTH 445: African American Anthropology Section 10637D Fall 2015 T 2-4:50PM KAP 164 Professor: Lanita Jacobs Office: Kaprielian Hall (KAP) 356 Phone: 213-740-1909 Email: [email protected] Office Hours: T/Th 11AM-12PM; also by appt. You can also contact me Monday-Friday via email. Course Website: Course materials are accessible through Blackboard; to access, click on: https://blackboard.usc.edu/ Required Texts: 1. Gwaltney, John Langston. 1993. Drylongso: A Self Portrait of Black America. New York: The New Press. 2. Hurston, Zora Neale. 1990 [1935]. Mules and Men. New York: HarperCollins. 3. Jacobs-Huey, Lanita. 2006. From the Kitchen to the Parlor: Language and Becoming in African American Women’s Hair Care. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 4. Jackson Jr., John L. 2005. Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 5. Price, Richard and Sally Price. 2003. The Root of Roots, or How Afro-American Anthropology Got Its Start. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. [included in RDR] 6. 499 Reader. [This text is abbreviated RDR in the Reading & Exam Schedule.] Highly Recommended Texts: 7. Harrison, Ira E. and Faye V. Harrison, Eds. 1999. African-American Pioneers in Anthropology. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 8. McClaurin, Irma, Ed. 2001. Black Feminist Anthropology: Theory, Politics, Praxis, and Poetics. London: Rutgers University Press. NOTE: Required and Optional Texts, along with the Course Reader (RDR) are on reserve in Leavey Library. Course Description: Anthropology has undergone dramatic changes in recent decades. Historically, anthropologists resembled what Renato Rosaldo (1989) characterized as the “Lone Ethnographer” riding off into the sunset in search of the “native.” Today, those so-called natives are vigorously gazing and talking back as students, professors, and attentive audiences, with palpable implications for how anthropology is practiced.
    [Show full text]
  • Bio-Cultural Approach: the Essence of Anthropological Study in the 21St Century
    CHAPTER 5 Bio-cultural Approach: The Essence of Anthropological Study in the 21st Century R. Khongsdier INTRODUCTION needs to formulate and deal more with research questions relating to problems or issues that are It appears as though anthropology in the 20th socially relevant. With respect to the second century confused itself by creating a vast array question, an attempt will be made to provide an of sub-disciplines which are difficult to ascribe overview of some models/paradigms which are to the same umbrella. Such a trend has both based on a series of assumptions and relation- positive and negative scopes for the strength and ships. Such models can be modified or formulated development of the discipline. Various practi- with new research questions to understand human tioners and researchers of various sub-fields biological variability. Finally, the operational represent a variety of perspectives, “particularly aspects and challenging tasks for bio-cultural those that are comparative, developmental, studies are briefly mentioned keeping in view the ecological, and/or evolutionary” (Dufour, 2006). scope and prospect of the subject. Indeed, one may argue that there is nothing wrong with such perspectives as far as we do not WHAT IS BIO-CULTURAL APPROACH? deviate from the core of our discipline. However, it is difficult to comprehend whether anthropology Bio-cultural approach is one which views in the 21st century should have a core or not? humans as biological, social and cultural beings This question is highly debatable. The answer in relation to the environment (McElroy, 1990). It may be either affirmative or negative depending also views human biological variability as a upon our understanding and vision of anthro- function of responsiveness and adaptation to the pology.
    [Show full text]
  • Charley Scull December 2, 2009 American Anthropological Association 2009 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA Market Research, Webnography, and Chronic Disease
    Charley Scull December 2, 2009 American Anthropological Association 2009 Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA Market Research, Webnography, and Chronic Disease 2009 started slowly in the freelance anthropological market research world. The economy was in the tank, people were getting laid off all over the place, and many research and development budgets were frozen. Projects that had been green- lighted were put on indefinite hold and things were looking bleak. Since then, as the economy has begun to pick up, albeit sluggishly, and pharma companies, among others, have acknowledged, however reluctantly, that research is in fact a necessary part of business, the freelance work has started to flow again. However, during that downturn at the beginning of the year I was forced to cast my freelance net a little wider; and in so doing, I began working with a branding consultant who was also working in the pharmaceutical industry. Tasked with more general goals than are typical of market research, this consultant’s approach was broad and open-minded, drawing from a wide range of sources in the social, cognitive, and health sciences; he set his field, not as the doctor’s office, the operating room, or the patient’s home, but in the world wide web. He was interested in my background as a cultural anthropologist and he asked me to join him in helping to understand both a disease identity (COPD- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) and the state of a pharmaceutical brand within this population as they manifested themselves online. Dressed in my pajamas and slippers and armed with my laptop I set out to explore the field.
    [Show full text]
  • Table of Contents
    TABLE OF CONTENTS HOW TO FORMAT AN ESSAY OR TERM PAPER ............................................................................................................... 1 1. Title Page ................................................................................................................................................................ 1 2. Spacing and Margins ............................................................................................................................................. 1 3. Printing ................................................................................................................................................................... 1 4. Page numbers ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 5. Indentation.............................................................................................................................................................. 1 6. Paragraphs.............................................................................................................................................................. 1 7. Quotations ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 Short Quotations ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 Long
    [Show full text]
  • Science/Art/Culture Through an Oceanic Lens
    AN47CH07_Helmreich ARI 18 September 2018 8:43 Annual Review of Anthropology Science/Art/Culture Through an Oceanic Lens Stefan Helmreich1 and Caroline A. Jones2 1Anthropology Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA; email: [email protected] 2History, Theory and Criticism, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2018. 47:97–115 Keywords First published as a Review in Advance on art, bio art, eco art, surveillance art, Anthropocene, science and technology July 20, 2018 The Annual Review of Anthropology is online at Abstract anthro.annualreviews.org Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2018.47:97-115. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org Since the year 2000, artists have increasingly employed tools, methods, and https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317- aesthetics associated with scientific practice to produce forms of art that assert 050147 themselves as kinds of experimental and empirical knowledge production Access provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) on 10/23/18. For personal use only. Copyright c 2018 by Annual Reviews. ⃝ parallel to and in critical dialogue with science. Anthropologists, intrigued All rights reserved by the work of art in the age of its technoscientific affiliation, have taken notice. This article discusses bio art, eco art, and surveillance art that have gathered, or might yet reward, anthropological attention, particularly as it might operate as an allied form of cultural critique. We focus on art that takes oceans as its concern, tuning to anthropological interests in translocal connection, climate change, and the politics of the extraterritorial. We end with a call for decolonizing art–science and for an anti-colonial aesthetics of oceanic worlds.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Applied Ethnomusicology?
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Why Applied Ethnomusicology? Klisala Harrison University of Helsinki During a time of increased valuing and rapid growth of ethnomusicology in use, this article considers the naming of current ethnomusicological trends and the discursive location of applied ethnomusicology within those. Applied ethnomusicology has acquired specific and internationally shared meanings and uses within a growing tendency, across the social sciences, arts and humanities, towards the societal usefulness of academic work. It is both distinct from and related to ethnomusicology in the public interest, public ethnomusicology, public sector ethnomusicology and engaged ethnomusicology. First we have to name what it is that we do. Changes in our praxis should be reflected and indeed generated by changes in the language on our websites and in our mission statements—whether those of our academic societies or of our programs and departments. Course syllabi and concert programs can also include language that both transcends the academy and addresses its changing politics. We have to name our goals and aspirations for the field and to emphasize the relevance of our unique training for a world beyond the academy. And we have continuously to imagine and to articulate this activist awareness to our students, our colleagues, our administrators, our audiences, and to the doubters, whose facile tropes of simplistic condemnation need correction. Beyond, before, and in addition to the pure professorate, with its ideal balance of teaching, research, and governance, we need to imagine and contribute to the options available for our younger colleagues who have chosen the academic field of ethnomusicology as their training ground.
    [Show full text]