ABSTRACT

How do anthropologists work today and how will they work in future? While some anthropologists have recently called for a new "public" or "engaged" anthropology, profound changes have already occurred, leading to new kinds of work for a large number of anthropologists. The image of anthropologists "reaching out" from protected academic positions to a vaguely defined "public" is out of touch with the working conditions of these anthropologists, especially those junior and untenured. The papers in this volume show that anthropology is put to work in diverse ways today. They indicate that the new conditions of anthropological work require significant departures from canonical principles of cultural anthropology, such as replacing ethnographic rapport with multiple forms of collaboration. This volume's goal is to help graduate students and early-career scholars accept these changes without feeling something essential to anthropology has been lost. There really is no other choice for most young anthropologists.

chapter |19 pages

Introduction

How Does Anthropology Work Today?

chapter two|20 pages

Gray Spaces and Endless Negotiations

Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights

chapter three|19 pages

Collaborating to Meet the Goals of a Native Sovereign Nation

The Tule River Tribal History Project

chapter five|25 pages

In Praise of “Reckless Minds”

Making a Case for Activist Anthropology

chapter six|19 pages

What Do Indicators Indicate?

Reflections on the Trials and Tribulations of Using Food Aid to Promote Development in Haiti

chapter seven|12 pages

Working Anthropology

A View from the Women’s Research Arena

chapter eight|20 pages

Potential Collaborations and Disjunctures in Australian Work Sites

An Experiential Rendering

chapter ten|16 pages

Ethnographic Alchemy

Perspectives on Anthropological Work from Northern Madagascar

chapter eleven|7 pages

Reflections on the Symposium