Public Anthropology Research Articles

Shared Anthropology: When Anthropology Meets Critical Public Pedagogy

ABSTRACT The article explores the common ground between critical public anthropology and critical public pedagogy as critically conscious, engaged, and animating practices. Through intervention in the public domain, they engage with the contested role of culture in the production, distribution, and regulation of power. These affinities are envisioned within the framework of shared anthropology, which asserts the co-authored nature of knowledge through “sharing-the-anthropology”. This approach aims to decolonize and democratize knowledge using multimodal narratives and art as mediums; not merely as “research objects or aims”, but as methods to explore “knowing-in-practice” and as strategies for mediating knowledge. To further elucidate our arguments, we will introduce the conceptual framework of the project, “Weaving Memories,” a work-in-progress in which the authors are currently involved. Aligning with the critical principles of shared anthropology, the project adopts a critical approach to problematize the subordinate condition of handmade carpet weavers within the production and distribution regime. Thus, we explore the connection between the ethico-political and epistemological frameworks established for shared anthropology and the conceptual framework envisioned for the project.

Primate conservation: A public issue?

Nonhuman primates (primates) are one of the most endangered mammalian taxa in the world. In the Global North, primates are considered exotic species and, as such, humans' impact on primate conservation and responsibility to protect primates is often ignored. This view differs from the spectrum of relations and attitudes of humans that live in connection to primates, which can include viewing these animals as culturally/religiously significant, cohabitors of forests, nuisances, or sources of protein. While conservationists argue that primates deserve our protection, the conservation crisis facing primates is rarely framed as a public issue, in contrast to other global crises, such as climate change. However, over half of the world's human population lives within 100 km of primate habitat. Thus, humans and primates share the same environments. We suggest leveraging a holistic approach, such as One Health, that considers the interconnectedness of primates, humans, and their shared environments, through the lens of public anthropology. By approaching primate conservation as an intersectional issue that affects and is affected by humans, researchers and conservationists can identify strategies that simultaneously protect primates and address global inequities that frequently affect people in primate range countries. Reflexive research practices further allow academics to consider the broader impact of their ecological research through means such as publicly accessible dissemination of results, equitable capacity-building of high-quality personnel in primate range countries, and social activism. The use of inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary concepts and methodology can address the intersectional challenges associated with implementing ethical and sustainable primate conservation measures.

Multilingual Encounters beyond (Research) Collaboration: Public Anthropology and “Linguistic Others” in Post-2015 Germany

Abstract This paper reflects on anthropology’s public role in the aftermath of Germany’s so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015. Media and political discussions clearly showed that the dominant (German) culture/Kultur discourse had been primarily based on nineteenth-century evolutionist ideas, structural racism, and growing right-wing populism rather than on established anthropological insights into cultural identity, gender, religion, transnational realities, and political economy. Methodological anthropological tools (i.e., self-reflexivity, ethical considerations, positionality) were nearly non-existent in sociopolitical programs or strategies. We argue for an epistemological shift by referring to current challenges and limitations regarding collaborative research. We propose Encounter/Begegnung as an epistemological standpoint for public anthropology by going beyond research, enabling diverse engagement, knowledge production, and representation. Based on cumulative insights spanning six years of the interdisciplinary, multilingual (Arabic, Farsi, German, English) “Encounter/Begegnung” media project, we argue for shifting the focus from collaboration to encounters as a necessary impetus for public anthropology in post-2015 Germany.

Editors' note: Activist anthropology, public engagement, and invasive species

In the Editors' note, we present the texts of this issue, which consists of individual article and research report submissions sent to us. Once again,by fortunate happenstance, the various articles, research reports and essays discuss related topics, lending the issue a sense of internal coherence. The texts discuss common topics such as migration and border violence, activist anthropology and the anthropology of activism, rootedness and displacement. In addition, the essay and conference report engage in debates over public anthropology and contesting hegemonies within the discipline.

Public and Engaged Anthropology: The Legacy of Nina S. de Friedemann

Nina S. de Friedemann (1930-1998) was a public anthropologist. She practiced engaged research, with a view to promoting social justice for the communities with whom she collaborated and studied, and she anticipated the public anthropology of the North Atlantic academia by five decades. A pioneer in Afro￾Colombian studies and in visual anthropology, she documented and defended the cultural contributions of Black populations to the identity of an ethnically diverse Colombia. Friedemann’s fundamental work inspired leaders of the Black communities in their demands that culminated in Law 70 of 1993, also known as the ley de negritudes. Her research materials are housed at the Luis Angel Arango Library under the name Fondo Nina S. de Friedemann, a repository available for study. Using unpublished materials, correspondence, publications, and photographs, Greta Friedemann-Sánchez reflected on three pillars of her mother’s ethical legacy within the contemporary normative framework for the protection of human subjects and the historical context during which Nina S. de Friedemann worked as an anthropologist.

Public Anthropology in a Pandemic: Advocacy, Ethnography, and Theory

General AnthropologyVolume 30, Issue 1 p. 6-11 Original Article Public Anthropology in a Pandemic: Advocacy, Ethnography, and Theory David Bond, David Bond Bennington CollegeSearch for more papers by this author David Bond, David Bond Bennington CollegeSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/gena.12109Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume30, Issue1Spring 2023Pages 6-11 RelatedInformation

A confusing tangle: public anthropology, indigenous lands, and ruralist myths in modern Brazil

Resumo Este artigo aborda questões decorrentes do envolvimento da antropologia com o Estado no âmbito das políticas de regularização fundiária de terras indígenas no Brasil. A discussão parte da efetiva contribuição da antropologia no âmbito da biopolítica estatal para assegurar justiça social e ambiental para povos indígenas no Brasil, a fim de contextualizar a crítica relativa à antropologia e a seus praticantes por grupos e setores econômicos da sociedade, que se fizeram representar em uma comissão parlamentar de inquérito, a qual expressou o nível de incompreensão sobre o papel desempenhado pela disciplina nas referidas políticas. Ao analisar o discurso do Relatório Final da Segunda Comissão Parlamentar de Inquérito da Fundação Nacional do Índio/Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária (CPI FUNAI/INCRA 2) como um texto formado a partir do senso comum sobre os indígenas, os antropólogos e a disciplina, o artigo aborda em que medida esse mesmo senso comum se ancora em concepções essencialistas de identidade existentes dentro da antropologia e aponta para a necessidade de revisão crítica do próprio discurso teórico da disciplina.

The “Ontological Turn” in Anthropology: Self-Silencing Irrealism

Abstract This article calls attention to problematic effects of the so-called “ontological turn” that now gains ground in academic anthropology, especially the entailments of perspectival multi-naturalism. I argue that a consistent embrace of this approach challenges public anthropology at its core. The irrealist grounding of perspectival multi-naturalism encourages withdrawal from both analysis and engagement, rendering the application of anthropological knowledge dubious. In order to counter this development, I suggest a reorientation in terms of realist principles, notably those of Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism. The diverging theoretical and ethical implications of these approaches are exemplified through a discussion of threats to health and life in Java, Indonesia.

Care During Pandemic Times: Digital Ethnography with Mental Health Professionals in Equatorial Guinea

SUMMARYThis article discusses how the COVID‐19 pandemic impacted my anthropological research inquiry of care among mental health professionals at a community shelter and a psychiatric hospital in Equatorial Guinea. The rapidly evolving changes required the methods of digital anthropology, which allowed an understanding of embodiments of care. Under volatile conditions and intersections between the personal and the public, mental health professionals carried and invested care in communities and (re)discovered new challenges and vulnerabilities. Medical agencies revealed symbolic roles, meanings, and qualities of care. This article proposes opportunities for the discipline of public anthropology to serve as a medium for the engagement of collective solutions. [anthropology, mental health care, Equatorial Guinea, COVID‐19]

Do No Harm

The issue of harm in certain contexts and settings at some very fraught moments appears overly connected to anthropology: an idea of the discipline is made as the problem in a focus that can overshadow the actions of individuals and or institutional practices. This includes claims for anthropological harm that conflate the actions of particular individuals with the discipline. Alongside the potential harm in blaming anthropology, indiscriminately, a form of public anthropology may be gleaned: a mandate emerges to attend to spaces which presage this furore. The discipline is being ‘re-tasked’ robustly with its own huge remit to avoid damage in the studies of all peoples. This is extended to detrimental spaces that are revealed in academia, structural or evident, for which anthropology must be made to take culpability, particularly so in certain contemporary high-profile incidents.

Reflections on Anthrobombing: Experiments in Performing, Publishing and Becoming with (Other) Publics

Abstract This article is based on a two-year collaborative research program on public anthropology in Greece focused on narrative experimentation with stand-up comedy and alternative publishing with handmade books, or cartoneras. Viewing in anthropology a powerful tool to dismantle prevalent commonsense about nationalism, gender norms and capitalist progress, we “bombed” time-spaces in which academic discourse is not usually present. The embodied experience of performing and publishing in an “anthropological way” outside of spaces of academic communication led to insights about the potential of humor, multimodal forms and performance for anthropology, new questions about “who anthropology is for” and “what makes knowledge anthropological”, and an emergent concern for becoming-with, rather than just bombing, publics.

Negotiating the Role of Anthropological Evidence in Medical Research during Health Emergencies

The 2014–2016 West African Ebola outbreak is often cited as a watershed moment for the social science of epidemics. Anthropologists played a key role in clarifying the social, economic and political dimensions of the epidemic, highlighting both how outbreak control measures were disrupting social practices and how they could be adapted to reflect local realities and experiences. Whilst undoubtedly significant, this narrative of anthropology’s successful integration risks obscuring the fraught position of the anthropologist within the Ebola response. Taking debates about public anthropology and the balance of action and critique as a starting point, we offer reflexive considerations from our work in the Ebola vaccine trials in Sierra Leone. We look at the involvement of social scientists in HIV clinical trials, which led to the inclusion of a social science component in the Ebola trials, through to the everyday discussions on how to integrate ethnographic insights into the running of operations. In so doing, we highlight the importance of foregrounding participants’ and communities’ voices, and confront what gets lost in translation. Keeping this tension in focus, we consider the consequences of this complex position for the possibility of a ‘critically embedded’ anthropology of clinical research in health emergencies.

Teaching Public Anthropology

Utilising George Stocking's distinction between empire-building and nation-building anthropologies, Mihăilescu situates the status of anthropology in Romania in the predominant national ideologies in the countries of Southeast Europe. He acknowledges the precarious position of the discipline in the national context and points to the fundamental question anthropology should be preoccupied with: "anthropology, what for?". He then advocates for a kind of public-friendly anthropology that can increase its community outreach by blending the anthropological gaze with the needs of the general public to produce an informed and broader demand of the discipline in the public space.

Reframing Cultural Value and Community Identity Through Public Policy: A Case Study of a Marginalized Community of Tamil Nadu, India

The present case study is about the collective action taken by a group of people whose goal is to enhance their cultural values, establish their community identity and achieve other common objectives within the political framework. Public anthropology contains concepts and theories, which have interrelations with other social sciences thereby enabling a spontaneous consensus based on perceived injustice, perceived efficacy, and resolution by collective action. The research process followed the problem -solving approach to resolve the exploitation of the subjugated by the dominant. Thereby bringing about revitalization in the society and achieving equal distribution of social, economic and political status.

Urban Compactivity Models: Screening City Trends for the Urgency of Social and Environmental Sustainability

Urban compactivity models are increasing around the globe, and sustainability has become the new buzzword. In recent decades, the focus of ecological responsibility has been shifted to the world’s cities, as they are the source of excessive consumption, major waste production, social inequalities, and global imbalances of economic wealth. This literature review is a contribution to the exploration of compactivity models that urgently aim at more sustainable forms of urban land-use, habitation, and transportation and considers: (i) compact cities; (ii) the 15-minute city; (iii) eco-villages/urban villages; (iv) transit oriented development; and (v) transit-corridor-livability. In the second section, we will address the debate on the need for governing authorities and the interdependence between micro-, meso- and macro dynamics for the implementation of transformational plans on a longue-durée. The work will be concluded with the presentation of a set of questions for exploring the need for a priority shift in political decision-making, the role of leadership articulation, and socio-economic inequity under the umbrella of environmental public anthropology.

Antennas Up! Laura Nader’s Undergraduate Lecture Courses as Public Anthropology

Abstract While teaching lecture courses at the University of California, Berkeley, Laura Nader taught generations of students to raise their anthropological antennae. This article uses an autoethnographic approach to describe the author’s exposure to anthropology at Berkeley in the nineteen-nineties, gesturing towards the way undergraduate lecture courses play an important but largely underrecognized role in fostering public anthropology. Nader’s lecture courses were particularly effective at this because their focus on pushing students to question dogma and analyze controlling processes offered students a sense of how anthropology could foster critical public discourse. Nader stressed the importance of asking good questions designed to challenge assumptions, finding the right methods to answer those questions, and paying attention to pathways of power. While always questioning received wisdom, ideological assumptions, and Western categories of knowledge, Nader continued to stress the importance of developing straightforward, highly-accessible concepts that captured the attention of students—like Harmony Ideology, trustanoia, controlling processes, and the vertical slice.

Terms of engagement

Terms of engagement

Food and eating in Mexican American agrarian novels: cultivating a culture of sustenance hospitality in public literature

ABSTRACT Literary novels on agricultural workers within the United States provide a context to explore representations of food, eating, and related socio-cultural practices for these people of mobility. This literature on farm labor appeared at junctures in U.S. history, when farmworkers were increasingly Mexican American immigrants, who entered the southwestern United States. Mentions of food and/or eating in farm labor novels highlight a culture of sustenance hospitality among characters from overlapping time periods. Authors crafted their farm labor novels, based on personal youthful experiences in agrarian settings, which provide being there authenticity that parallels the recent goals of “public anthropology,” which presents careful assessments aimed at social justice.

Blessing unintended pregnancy

Within public health and medical anthropology research, the study of women’s agency in reproductive decision making often neglects the role of religion and women’s spirituality. This article is based on ethnographic research conducted at a shelter for homeless (mostly African American) mothers in the southeastern United States. We explore the inadequacy of rational choice models that emphasize intentionality and planning, which our research shows are in tension with the vernacular religious and moral ethos of pregnancy as a ‘blessing’ or unplanned gift. Our findings confirm that young and disadvantaged women may view pregnancy and motherhood as opportunities to improve their lives in ways that mediate against their acceptance of family planning models. For these women, the notion of ‘blessing’ also reflects an acceptance of contingency and indeterminacy as central to the reproductive experience. We also question the increasingly popular distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in contemporary public health.

Rethinking ethnography: A study in public anthropology

This editorial calls for an alternative approach to writing ethnographies. Instead of treating a group as a cultural whole to make writing about it easier, the author emphasizes the importance of understanding the intracultural diversity that exists within that group. In addition, he asks ethnographers to step away from a framework which places them as the primary interpreters of a group. Instead, he calls for more dialogic, multicentric narratives, that allow the people they study (as well as their readers) to compose their own empowering narratives about the group. Intracultural diversity ensures there is not one true account, but many.