Definitions, goals, distinctions: A selection of quotes about engagement and anthropology Assembled by Deb Pacini Hernadez and Cathy Stanton, Fall 2014 “Defining Public Anthropology” Robert Borofsky (2000/2011) http://www.publicanthropology.org/public-anthropology/ “Public anthropology engages issues and audiences beyond today’s self-imposed disciplinary boundaries. The focus is on conversations with broad audiences about broad concerns. Although some anthropologists already engage today’s big Questions regarding rights, health, violence, governance and justice, many refine narrow (and narrower) problems that concern few (and fewer) people outside the discipline. Public anthropology seeks to address broad critical concerns in ways that others beyond the discipline are able to understand what anthropologists can offer to the re-framing and easing—if not necessarily always resolving—of present-day dilemmas. The hope is that by invigorating public conversations with anthropological insights, public anthropology can re-frame and reinvigorate the discipline. Paul R. Mullins “Practicing Anthropology and the Politics of Engagement: 2010 Year in Review” American Anthropologist, Vol. 113, No. 2, pp. 235–245 (June 2011) The concrete issues facing a broadly defined practicing anthropology in 2010 are not especially unique or distinct from those that have been at the heart of public anthropology for the last decade: for instance, anthropological voices continue to confront the complexities of cultural diversity, social justice, and the color line at the dawn of the 21st century; anthropologists stand at the heart of rich interdisciplinary discourses on the environment, culture, and climate change; and anthropological archaeology and museum scholarship continue to rigorously probe how visions of heritage and the past shape contemporary life. What may distinguish contemporary practicing anthropologies in 2010 is less a topical transformation than an increasingly focused interrogation of the ways in which engagement and public scholarship are being invoked. Much of the most thoughtful recent work presses for clarity in the politics of collaborative relationships and the ways public discourse is informed by anthropological insight. The goal of such scholarship is not to craft a unified politics for engaged research but instead to advocate for clarity in public scholarship at a moment when civic engagement is taken to mean a whole host of things, some quite creative and others hazarding a descent into the reactionary. The specific contours of an engaged politics will likely always remain somewhat ambiguous because there are myriad contexts in which engaged scholarship is conducted, but thoughtful and creative scholars are critically assessing the ways in which activism, engagement, advocacy, collaboration, and community politics are being defined. 2 “Collaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology” Luke Eric Lassiter Current Anthropology, Volume 46, Number 1 (February 2005) Collaborative ethnography—the collaboration of researchers and subjects in the production of ethnographic texts—offers us a powerful way to engage the public with anthropology. As one of many academic/applied approaches, contemporary collaborative ethnography stems from a well-established historical tradition of collaboratively produced texts that are often overlooked. Feminist and postmodernist efforts to recenter ethnography along dialogical lines further contextualize this historically situated collaborative practice. The goals of collaborative ethnography (both historical and contemporary) are now powerfully converging with those of a public anthropology that pulls together academic and applied anthropology in an effort to serve humankind more directly and more immediately. On the “activist anthropology” track at the University of Texas: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/anthropology/programs-and-subdisciplines/Activist- Anthropology.php (2014) Activist anthropology is predicated on the idea that we need not choose between first rate scholarship on the one hand, and carefully considered political engagement on the other. To the contrary, we contend that activist research can enhance the empirical breadth and the theoretical sophistication—as well as the practical usefulness of the knowledge that we produce as anthropologists. Finally, we intend to bring the activist anthropology track “home” in a dual sense: opening space for alternative forms of anthropological training within our department and university, and encouraging activist research on U.S. society, challenging the deeply seated dichotomy between “over there” (where political engagement happens) and “here” where more conservative premises often prevail. We also contend that activist anthropology can make a crucial contribution in helping to resolve the various “crises” afflicting the discipline in the last two decades, and in setting our course for the 21st century. Activist anthropologists affirm the importance of empirically grounded and analytically driven ethnography, without recourse to compromised notions of scientific objectivity. We acknowledge the inevitable, multi leveled political implications of anthropological research, while leaving behind the self-referential intellectual paralysis that such awareness often has engendered. 3 “Public Interest Anthropology: A Model for Engaged Social Science” (2003) Peggy Reeves Sanday http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~psanday/SARdiscussion%20paper.65.html Labeled public interest anthropology (PIA), the approach merges problem solving with theory development and analysis in the interest of change motivated by a commitment to social justice, racial harmony, eQuality, human rights and well being. The concern with change means translating the anthropological point of view for public consumption in the public sphere of debate. Although such goals are not new to anthropology, the approach outlined below offers a framework which synthesizes theory and concepts drawn from diverse sources… PIA begins with ethnography and discourse analysis at various sites, ranging from groups of people meeting in the neighborhood, chat rooms on the internet, postings on the world wide web, print and broadcast media to meetings on global stages. In most cases, the concern is either with critical social issues wherever they arise in the world or with the impact of the various global flows that sweep through the world (see Appadurai 1996 for a discussion of the types of flows.) Ethnography provides the basic data. The conceptual categories guiding research and analysis include: civil society, public(s), interest, social imaginary, public sphere, public interest sphere, multiculturalism, metaculture, and power… [P]ublic interest action reQuires attention to the political, economic, and legal context of debate not just in the public sphere but in what might be called the sphere of public interests. Public interest sphere refers to the discursive space in which public interest topics circulate and move through the world in discussion and debate in various academic, political and media settings (what Urban 2001 refers to as metaculture.) The public interest sphere involves the assessment of core cultural values in relation to macrosocial guarantees. Power comes into the picture as one examines the life history and circulation of the interests reproducing certain values in order to ascertain why some interests (like those associated with the market) circulate while others (like those associated with eQuity) often do not; or, why some interests are implemented in social action and others are not… In its concern with change, PIA is linked to action anthropology, including practicing and applied anthropology. However, there is an important division of labor separating PIA from its applied and practicing versions, a division which is useful to both and which can be likened to similar distinctions found in the fields of economics and political science. The division should not be framed in terms of “applied” and “pure,” but in terms of the immediacies posed by solving and attending to specific problems in the here and now as opposed to the necessities posed by studying the dynamics of long term social trends and culture change in the interest of theory building. Both are necessary and should be linked… In line with critical social theory, PIA attempts to clarify the dilemmas and perplexities of our times in order to find a resolution. 4 “Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas” Setha Low and Sally Engle Merry Current Anthropology, Vol. 51, No. S2, October 2010 As a discipline, anthropology has increased its public visibility in recent years with its growing focus on engagement. Although the call for engagement has elicited responses in all subfields and around the world, this special issue focuses on engaged anthropology and the dilemmas it raises in U.S. cultural and practicing anthropology. Within this field, the authors distinguish a number of forms of engagement: (1) sharing and support, (2) teaching and public education, (3) social critiQue, (4) collaboration, (5) advocacy, and (6) activism. They show that engagement takes place during fieldwork; through applied practice; in institutions such as Cultural Survival, the Institute for Community Research, and the Hispanic Health Council; and as individual activists work in the context of war, terrorism, environmental injustice, human rights, and violence. A close examination of the history of engaged anthropology in the United States also reveals