Reflections of an Imperfect Anthropologist

Abstract

This article summarizes my perspective on vital lessons that I have learned over my 45 years as a practicing anthropologist. To avoid repeating previously published biographical details of my life, I have only briefly described the facts and stages of my career here. Instead I have focused on a personal account of what I have learned from the events and experiences of my career and have attempted to distill them into underlying premises that have guided my academic vocation. I call them “nine truths I live by.”