The Art of Anthropology at a College in Crisis: Exploring Some Effects of Neoliberalism on Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter addresses the increasing pervasiveness of neoliberal ideologies in our culture and focuses on the implications of these ideologies for the future of anthropology in higher education. More specifically, the chapter considers how these ideologies pose a particular challenge to anthropology’s more humanistic dimensions, which include both the art of anthropology and an anthropology of art. Throughout the chapter, the author tells the story of how reductions were made recently to the anthropology program at his institution in response to converging economic crises. He analyzes the context of these changes and the process by which they were made in order to raise questions about the broader implications of neoliberalism for the discipline of anthropology. The chapter closes by suggesting measures anthropologists could take to resist and survive the threats brought by an increasingly neoliberal higher education environment.