ABSTRACT
The challenge, in sum, is to portray activist anthropology with a greater measure of self-reflection and acknowledged limits than the Barbados anthropologists were able to muster, while at the same time affirming their political vision, energy, and commitment. The process is demand from students, surely in response, at least in part, to the dire and increasingly polarized political conditions of the United States at early twenty-first century. The relative absence of contradiction in our portrayal of activist anthropology, ironically, becomes evidence that political fervor has gotten the best of analytical sophistication. Framed in this way, the contrast between cultural critique and activist anthropology brings the role of contradiction in the research process to the fore. The fourth quandary, regarding the role of scientific rigor in anthropological research, also receives special attention in activist research methods.
