Engaging with Public Anthropology: Survival Strategies for Anthropology in India

For more than a decade, Robert Borofsky has encouraged anthropologists to pursue a “public anthropology.” In this time, he has played a key role in a larger movement that has seen increasing numbers of anthropologists attempting to engage with and serve the needs of public audiences outside academia. In this review essay, I review Borofsky's work through his Center for a Public Anthropology, including the center's website and its four major projects: The Anthropology Journal Archive; the Community Action Website Project; the California Series in Public Anthropology; and the Public Outreach Assessment of anthropology doctoral programs. I discuss the results and significance of the center's projects, identifying important innovations that Borofsky has achieved in anthropological teaching, scholarship, academic publishing, and the structure of academic anthropology. The review also offers constructive criticism of Borofsky's efforts and suggestions for advancing the center's projects and his vision for a public anthropology. [public anthropology, applied anthropology, public engagement, academia, universities]More than a decade has passed since Robert Borofsky asked whether anthropologists should “laugh or cry” over the discipline's place in the public sphere (Borofsky 2000). At the time, Borofsky was starting to receive widespread attention—both laudatory and critical—for calling on anthropologists to pursue a “public anthropology.”1 Many embraced his call as a much‐needed antidote for a discipline many thought had become insular, often incomprehensible, and generally irrelevant to the lives and struggles of most people. Others were angered that Borofsky's vision for a public anthropology seemed to overlook a long tradition of anthropologists working beyond the academy, while perpetuating a hierarchy between academic and applied anthropology (e.g., Singer 2000).Amid the debates, we have witnessed the creation of classes in public anthropology, master's and doctoral programs in public anthropology (including one in my department), public anthropology conferences, numerous conference panels, a lecture series, an institute, a working group, a fellowship, a department initiative, and, of course, this AA section, all named for “public anthropology.” Although the debates about the name are beyond the scope of this article, given Borofsky's seminal role in what has become a broader movement of anthropologists engaging in new kinds of work outside academia, this section's coeditors believed it important to offer a detailed review of Borofsky and his Center for a Public Anthropology.

In 2004, the authors convened a session entitled ‘Public Anthropology’ at the Australian Anthropology Society's annual conference. The session examined the development of a specific stream of public anthropology in the USA and Britain and its articulation by writers such as Robert Borofsky in the aftermath of the Yanomami controversy and Richard Werbner in the African context. In pursuing this discussion, we identify three key characteristics that distinguish public anthropology: the broader application of ethnography to urgent and political social issues in a way that shows the profoundly relational nature of current crises to historical, political and local events and forces; a focus on this approach as a central aspect of training, particularly at the postgraduate level; and an active and accessible engagement in public discussion and debate. We present a short case study from Skidmore's research on disease, suffering and the health system in Burma to illustrate ways in which a public anthropology approach could represent the current health crisis in Burma in an effective manner. Drawing also on the work of our fellow panellists, we argue for the timeliness of the development of a public anthropology stream in Australia and for the deliberate inclusion of public anthropology in the Australian Anthropology Society's mandate.

In the tradition of anthropological reflexivity, this article examines how the structure of early doctoral training contributes to the construction of particular kinds of anthropologists. Based on research conducted in an anthropology department in the U.S.A. during the late 1990s, the experience of the transition from undergraduate to doctoral studies is explored as simultaneously a process of culture learning and culture making, with power relations expressed, imposed, and contested through language. The implications for questions animating current anthropological debates, including calls for 'public anthropology', are considered.

Linking Up Applications and Issues in Anthropology with Society

ABSTRACTAnthropologists have increasingly used the term public anthropology to refer to a model of research and practice dedicated to bringing anthropological knowledge into public discourse to affect tangible social change (Low 2011). The increased visibility of what is variously referred to as public, engaged, activist, action, or applied anthropology challenges anthropologists to circulate their insights more widely and effectively in the public sphere. The question, however, is not merely whether anthropologists should participate in the public sphere but also how anthropologists should intervene. In this article, I examine the interventions that anthropologists made in debates on the Ebola epidemic, state violence and civil discourse, and the need for cultural change in the face of climate change. Using these cases as a theoretical point of departure, I question what would happen if we imagined our work as a practice of freedom, an act of imagination, a tool for transforming an unequal world? What if we did the work of anthropology as though our lives and the lives of others depended on it? [public anthropology, Ebola, Israel‐Palestine, Ferguson, climate change, year in review]

The themes, trends, and significant events of 2008 demonstrate that anthropology has established a new foothold in the public sphere—one that makes the most of novel forms of communication to reach far beyond the ivory tower to disseminate knowledge widely and freely. This review focuses on six topical areas of robust anthropological research in 2008 that also addressed some of the year's most pressing problems and issues, including the following: (1) war and peace; (2) climate change; (3) natural, industrial, and development‐induced disaster recovery; (4) human rights; (5) health disparities; and (6) racial understanding, politics, and equity in the United States. It concludes by addressing some emerging issues in 2009 that especially require anthropological attention and insight, if we are to move beyond “business as usual.”[Keywords: practicing anthropology, public anthropology, 2009 trends, anthropological impacts]

After a panel on racism at the International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Williamsburg, Va., in July 1998, a South African colleague remarked to me that American anthropologists had not yet assumed the lead in elucidating techniques for combating racism—an initiative awaited by the international community of professional anthropologists. That remark was part of the impetus for this paper. American anthropology, currently one of the country’s least-integrated or “whitest” professions (Cross 1998, Huber 1998), has apparently failed to come to a consensus on what race means in American society and on how to deal with racism. Among the consequences of this failure are that American anthropologists deliver inchoate messages about anthropological understandings of race and racism, especially in introductory textbooks, and that they do not participate actively in public discussions of race and racism. I will present some evidence of this from a study of the renderings of race and racism in contemporary American sociocultural anthropology textbooks and discuss the images of anthropology or anthropologists that appear in the public discourse on these topics in the United States. I will go on to discuss some new approaches to teaching race and racism that I believe we should consider if we are to communicate, first, to our

The term 'Indian Anthropology' may be used to refer to the study of society and culture in India by anthropologists irrespective of their nationality or to the study by Indian of anthropologists of society and culture in and outside India. The post-graduate department of anthropology was established in the University of Calcutta in 1920, but ethnographical and cultural historical works had begun, enthusiastic administrators who took an avid interest in penning down their observations and thoughts the continent they were governing. The first post-graduate department of anthropology was established in the University of Calcutta in 1920, but ethnographical and cultural historical works had begun much earlier, mainly by enthusiastic administrators who took avid interest in penning down the observations and thoughts the continent they were governing. Though identity politics has acquired sharp focus in today’s politics in India, its origin can be traced to the mutiny in 1857 which recognized the army on caste and ethnic lines.

In this issue, we introduce a new strand of contributions that are focused on careers and opportunities for anthropologists in applied fields, and on issues around the impact of anthropology in public discourse and policy matters. We start with a reflective and analytical account from Pat Caplan, based on her experience of undertaking consultancy work with an NGO. Her article presents something of a cautionary tale, illustrating the complexity of undertaking such work, and the unforeseen challenges and ethical dilemmas that can be presented to researchers.

The emergence and evolution of the internet have reshaped the landscape of political communication and discourse, transforming it into a public sphere that transcends geographical boundaries and traditional hierarchies. This paper explores the role of the Internet as a platform for political engagement, communication, and mobilization. Reviewing different theories of the public sphere and empirical studies, it examines how digital technologies have democratized access to information, enabled diverse voices to participate in political discussions, and facilitated collective action. The internet's potential as a public political sphere is accompanied by challenges and controversies. Issues such as echo chambers, filter bubbles, and the spread of disinformation raise concerns about the quality and inclusivity of online political discussions. Moreover, the concentration of power among a few tech giants poses risks to democratic governance and freedom of expression. Despite these challenges, the Internet also presents opportunities for enhancing democratic practices and civic engagement. Platforms for citizen journalism, online petitions, and social media activism empower individuals to hold governments and institutions accountable. Moreover, digital tools enable marginalized groups to amplify their voices and advocate for social justice causes. If people can freely connect to the Internet without corporate, economic, and governmental restrictions, then the Internet can function as an open and democratic public sphere. This paper concludes by discussing future directions for research and policy interventions aimed at strengthening the Internet's role as a vibrant and inclusive public political sphere. This paper concludes by discussing future directions for research and policy interventions aimed at strengthening the Internet's role as a vibrant and inclusive public political sphere.

In this essay, I use the resistance work of residents at the Fresh Start shelter for young women in Detroit and BlackLight, an arts‐based social justice project that emerged from the shelter, as the frame to consider several tensions within public anthropology. I am particularly concerned with what is at stake in the processes of both defining and practicing public anthropology for minority scholars working against the traditional boundaries of the academy and the public. In addition, I question how “the public” when used to signify low‐income urban communities of color guides the racialization of spaces and corresponding possibilities and limitations for African Americans within the public sphere. The work of the young women of BlackLight ultimately presents one model for mobilizing publicly engaged anthropology, and also calls for a reconsideration of power and its multiple, tricky manifestations in the public. This reevaluation is especially critical in relation to the roles public anthropologists play in the various contexts that criss‐cross the borders that circumscribe the community and the academic.

ABSTRACTIntimate ethnography is work of the anthropological imagination that models dialectical thinking in its approach to people, topics, and analysis. Rooted in particular intellectual, cultural, political, and anthropological currents, intimate ethnography comes when the need to engage larger publics in rethinking and recounting lives lived and experienced is increasingly urgent. An example of such work,My Father's Wars, centers an intimate Other as the subject of my research, a transnational life story in the context of historically constituted violence. Intimate ethnography illustrates feminist ethnography and illuminates the dangers of ethnonationalism; requires the crafting of an evocative, compelling account through the writing itself; and offers the possibility of an afterlife for anthropological work in the public sphere and thus of anthropology as an intervention in public discourse. [dialectics,intimate ethnography,violence,feminism,transnational history,political economy,public anthropology]

10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01255.x

While public sociology as well as public anthropology have called for more interactions of the social sciences with their publics, this essay takes a different, non-normative, approach by addressing in a descriptive and analytical way the stakes and implications of such public presence. It opens with the paradoxical figure of Claude Lévi-Strauss, who, during his lifetime, was considered to be the most influential intellectual in France but stayed away from all major public debates. It then distinguishes two dimensions of publicization, popularization consisting of rendering research likeable and accessible, and politicization comprising the involvement in the public sphere and the contribution to policy making. It finally discusses the crucial role of critique in the encounter with publics and counterpublics, and the challenges of publicization, including the risks to which it exposes the author.

In marking the first anniversary of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster, this essay reviews some of the ways in which anthropologists have intervened in public discourse and policy around nuclear energy over the past 30 years. Many scholars suggest that effective change requires a degree of ongoing public participation in the debate around nuclear power. In arguing for the significance of anthropology in helping to sustain public discussion between crises, I take note of an eerie absence of anthropological voices represented in mainstream media. I suggest that it is often only immediately following a tragedy that anthropological insights percolate into public consciousness. Ultimately, I argue that it is the responsibility of those in our discipline to continue to push for a more inclusive and thoughtful dialogue about nuclear energy. [public anthropology, public debate, Fukushima, nuclear energy, media representation]