Should I Pursue Anthropology?: Only if You Can Deal with the Elephant Under the Rug and the Skeletons in the Closet - Stacie Gilmore

The enthusiasm with which the American Anthropological Association touts the value of anthropology is unfortunate. I got my B.A. in anthropology in 2008, have worked non-profit community jobs ever since, and am now pursuing K-12 teaching. What drove me to the field of cultural anthropology was its down-to-earth focus on everyday life and the life of a community, and I don’t think I’m alone (see, for example, “The Scientific Curmudgeon”). More specifically, I wanted to get actively involved and hoped that applied anthropology was the key. Now I realize that anthropology, in its current form, is not the answer, for a variety of reasons.

Anthropology, via the AAA, markets itself as one of the few fields that gives you critical “global information and thinking skills” (link), but lots of fields have the same or better global (and domestic) applicability, from engineering to healthcare, education, journalism, etc. By comparison, cultural anthropology, in its general form, offers few skills aside from "participant observation" and "ethnography,” and those are extremely limited in value.

In all my time working since college, not once has anyone asked me to write a document or report resembling anthropological writing, or undertake an action similar to anthropological fieldwork. Many would consider its theories to be convoluted gobbledygook.

This reality indicates to me that the specific forms of writing and research that anthropology trains you for are not pressing local needs in the communities where I have lived: West Virginia and the Marshall Islands, to be specific. Technological skills, educator skills, project management and networking skills, general writing skills, creative imagination, art and music ability -- these are the kinds of talents that HAVE been requested of me and frequently put to use. Maybe some of them originate from anthropology in a roundabout way, but it's hard to say for certain since few of these fit closely with any academic discipline.

The only time in which cultural/historical writing was ever mentioned to me was as a return-favor. A friend said: "Now Stacie, if you ever want to write a book on this area, you let us know and we'd be happy to help you out." The point is, she didn't NEED or request that I write anything. She understands that this assistance from her might benefit ME, and could be a favor, in return for assistance I'd been giving to the community center. That aspect of anthropological writing is not stressed NEARLY enough in the discipline: that community members are providing services to OUR benefit by letting us write and publish about their communities, and not always vice-versa, and how to repay them is a serious question.

In addition, unlike as I'd hoped going into the field, if you don’t do your research in the very same place where you live, academic anthropology also tends to alienate you from the community that you are working to research, assist, and become a part of. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, as of 2009, there were only 30 professional anthropologists and archaeologists employed in the entire state of West Virginia, where I live, likely not all of them academic (view all statistics). These charts don’t even speak to global inequalities in distribution.

So, “Real” cultural anthropologists are few and far between, that is, the ones being paid to study people and places through participant observation and write about them in ethnographies. They hold privileged teaching and/or research positions that are beyond ordinary attainment and nonexistent in most communities. Furthermore, academic anthropologists are responsible to an academic community for awards and prestige, and to the university system for promotions, paycheck, and livelihood. They secure information from communities for reports but usually do not live in that community year-round. They visit for a short period of fieldwork and return to a distant college or university as their "real" home, leaving them remarkably "outside" the community, as much as they try to be a part of it.

Finally, Max Forte and others have made a good case for ongoing colonialism in anthropology at a variety of levels. I won’t take the time to go into that here, but please browse the site.

In my opinion, a better answer to the dilemma of wanting a down-to-earth focus and being able to make a tangible impact is to get closely and intimately involved in the life of the community where you live. Grow food. Teach children. Develop genuine skills that you can offer up. Invent something useful. Help improve your town. Most of all, talk to people, and listen --- not to take the “data” back to a dark library basement to “study” for a scientific report, but to genuinely learn about what’s going on in your community and around the world and make informed personal decisions based on that knowledge.

You can still learn from people, write, study, and read, if that’s what you enjoy. Just don’t be fooled into thinking that you have to go into anthropology (specifically academic anthropology) to continue to pursue those interests, or that people outside academia will automatically appreciate your anthropological skills once you have them, or that writing and reading anthropological reports will magically bring you closer to people. Many times it’s quite the opposite.

My point is simply that the desires and hopes that people have going into anthropology aren’t always met by the state of the discipline itself, and the disconnect can cause a great deal of frustration. I personally have found more of what I hoped for in anthropology through direct community service and work in K-12 schools. Whether anthropology can change to meet such demands, or refashion itself to meet those of us working outside of "traditional anthropology” halfway, I don’t know, but it would be promising to see more existing anthropologists working towards such a goal.

Stacie Gilmore

Foodie, Volunteer Addict, Do-It-Yourselfer, and Wannabe Farmer/Teacher

Southern West Virginia