Everyone that has worked in any job in any field has done some time banging their head on a desk, counter or lift. As a public service here are a few topics you don’t need to do research on anymore, ever. Done. Finished.

1) That plastic packaging for cheap products that require an arc-wielder to get through. I cant even remember why it was invented. I think it was supposed to help reduce shoplifting and such. On one of my projects some time ago I was videotaping a shadow interview which included a woman trying to get into one of these packages. I remember showing it to a packaging engineer at the time. In the video she is using a butcher knife to try to hack the package open. She even explicitly states that she once cut herself doing this this. No, not cut herself with the knife, but on the plastic of the blasted package. The engineer suggested a larger project to determine the extent of the problem. Indeed. Let me make this simple: if someone needs a 16 inch hunk of carbon steel to get to your product thats BAD. If you see a video showing someone hacking into it and also complaining about being cut by the packaging itself, thats BAD. You really don’t need anymore research. Kind of like you only need one exploding Ford Pinto to know that somethings up. Let me save you a couple of hundred grand in research, find a new solution, this dog don’t hunt.

2) Its a simple consumer cooking product. One that you can find in Home Depot, Target, Sears all the usual places. There is an accessory sold for it, often including the phrase “universal mount.” In the instructions, it tells the purchaser that if the “universal mount” doesn’t fit, the purchaser should purchase and use (in this case assumed to be the average homeowner) a cobalt drill-bit and industrial grade drill to get through the cast-iron casing. Ok, in case you don’t realize it, if the instructions included with your product have the words “cobalt” or “industrial” you have strayed far, far away from the consumer product category.

3) Please, please quit ignoring the original problem. My god, do you know how much R&D money can be saved with this little rule? Back when I started in this business, I was often asked to do more evaluative kind of work. Your classic bug hunt, whats wrong and what are people saying about whats wrong. I can’t tell you how common it is for someone to say “but we know about those problems, you are supposed to uncover NEW ones.” My response was that if you knew about those problems and chose not to fix them, its hardly a moment of pride. I realize it may seem a strange phenomena but people are funny: if they have an issue with something, and you don’t fix it, they don’t forget about it over time. Instead, they are just reminded of this basic flaw each time they use your product.

Jonathan Marks, Professor of Anthropology at UNC-Charlotte recently found our blog and has left a thoughtful comment on a post by Donna related to the controversy about Nicholas Wade being invited to speak at the Leakey Foundation. He has also let us post his letter to the Leakey Foundation that he wrote in response to including Wade in the series. Thank you for joining the conversation Dr. Marks and providing us with your point of view. We look forward to more or your comments in the future. He tells us he has yet to receive a response from the foundation.

25 January 2007
Dear Leakey Foundation:

It has recently come to my attention that you are sponsoring a lecture series that includes, among legitimate anthropological scholars such as Eugenie Scott and Harold Dibble, two lectures by Nicholas Wade of the New York Times. Wade is the author of a recent book called Before the Dawn, which attempts to explain the relevance of genetics for understanding major aspects of human evolution and diversity.

As I am sure you know, the history of physical anthropology is replete with uncritical invocations of genetics. It is consequently incumbent upon the current generation of practitioners to be more circumspect. Wade’s work, however, is not characterized by such circumspection, and to many anthropologists his writings have consistently evoked an earlier generation’s casual reification and conflation of ancestry, race, and genetic determinism.

The book was reviewed in Nature (15 June 2006) by Ken Weiss and Anne Buchanan from Penn State, who called particular attention to “Wade’s determination to find simplistic natural selection behind every trait, and by a lack of attention to issues that are known to inhibit a credible understanding of complex traits, never mind their evolution.” They go on to say, “Wade’s explanations commit various well-known errors, such as equating correlation with causation and extrapolating from individual traits to group characteristics. Often his arguments and trait choices are laden with Western-oriented value judgments.”

And perhaps more interestingly, “Wade argues that Europeans resist ‘mad cow disease’ because their ancestors were selected for cannibalism. He also says that Jews were selected for higher intelligence than other peoples because of the calculational demands of money-lending. He suggests that high intellectual skills are a genetic adaptation that occurred only after the origin of settled societies in places such as Europe. And he says that the Chinese as a “race or ethnic group” excel at ping-pong, which should encourage researchers to look for a genetic explanation.”

They conclude by finding his work “in step with a long march of social darwinists”.

I don’t know who made the decision to include Wade in your speaker series, but I don’t think it brings credit either to the Leakey Foundation or to the field of anthropology. You might do well to reconsider future advice from whatever source recommended Nicholas Wade. Wade most certainly does not speak for the field of anthropology, and I hope his views are not endorsed by the Leakey Foundation, which is now legitimizing them.

Very truly yours,

Jonathan Marks
Professor of Anthropology
UNC-Charlotte

I keep turning over in my head some of the issues that are troubling the AAA these days, in particular the Human Terrain Systems project, and the question of AAA’s (and the anthropologists within the organization’s) stance on it. (and there is more in the current Anthropology News)

I get, I really do, the suspicion with which Roberto Gonzales and others view the government, the military, and their projects (especially the war) in Iraq. I hate the war, think it never should have been started, and find the whole paradigm of War as imposed on the complex global problem of terrorism to be repugnant.

That said, I don’t think that anthropologists do anyone any favors by taking their ball and going home. The standing from which we criticize is much shakier if we (collectively) are not engaged with the military or the government. That is not to say that we have to agree with them. It is to say that, if history is any indication anthropological knowledge is used by organizations and individuals whether we agree with them or not. So I think the question becomes: how much worse will things get if we don’t become more active bearers of this information, if we don’t inject ourselves into situations we have been avoiding because we have been so badly burned before? If some of our colleagues are choosing to work within the government and military as anthropologists, wouldn’t it be better for us as a discipline to think more carefully about what that kind of work should look like, rather than declaring that such work should not happen at all.

And what about motive? I certainly disagree with anthropologists who think that they should be helping the government or military to “win the war,” whatever that means in Iraq. But if anthropologists are there to stop the war, or to help create conditions for less conflict across the board, through increasing genuine understanding and engagement among disparate parties—well, I can get behind that, and see where smart, ethical people might think that’s a worthwhile project.

I don’t think I need to agree with the reasons behind everyone’s research to find it valid. I don’t think we need to accuse people of being evil or naive or anything else if they are undertaking work that we ourselves would not. I do think there are lines to be drawn, as a discipline, around ethical and unethical behavior in wartime research. The more people who participate in this discussion, the more anthropology as a whole can truly contribute to the broader political debate about the war. And maybe even help change the course of things to something more constructive than the status quo.

Someone asked Mark whether getting “bad grades” means for becoming an anthropologist. Every graduate anthropology program is different, of course, and there are no blanket statements possible. But, good grades are always a fantastic idea if you are trying to get into graduate school, in anthropology or any other subject. After all, the professors evaluating your applications mostly had good grades. And since the graduate school admissions process is in large part considered to be about identifying who will be a professor in the future (even if your goal is to be a practitioner), the admissions committee is typically looking for someone who will end up being something like them. Nevertheless, I urge people with not-so-good grades to apply, if that is their dream. Persistence, some life experience, cross-cultural experience, publications etc., can all substitute for the lower grades you may have gotten, and can no longer change. My own experience in the late 1980s is perhaps instructive.

I had a 2.7 gpa in my B.S. undergraduate program at UC Davis in International Agricultural Development in the 1970s. This got me into a M.S. program in Biology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where I graduated with a 3.4 g.p.a. Better but I was still not a future Malinowski. But the Peace Corps didn’t care, and neither did my next two employers in Thailand and Tanzania. So I had a great time working in both countries, learning the Thai and Swahili languages, and even doing some academic and professional writing about refugees. But I found I found among the people I respected the most were not only natural scientists (like me), but the two or three anthropologists I met up-country. The anthropologists had the best take on the culture and societies we lived in, and somehow were the best able to assess the frustrations and delights I took in living abroad. Anyway, after six years working in Thailand and Tanzania, I decided to apply for the anthropology program at UC Davis in the general belief that my publications, language skills (Thai and Swahili), and interest in refugees would make up for the less-than-stellar g.p.a. Wrong. I was rejected twice.

Instead, in 1988, I enrolled at California State University, Sacramento, where I took a number of Anthropology and International Affairs courses in a still not completed MA program. Some good grades from Sacramento State, and lots of personal lobbying at UC Davis finally got me admitted to the MA program in Sociology, which in turn led to the Ph.D. in Sociology. And today my professional affiliation is with sociology, not my first choice, anthropology. I am happy as a sociologist, but still admire the anthropologists I continue to come in contact with.

So grades always matter. Now that I have been a professor for ten years, and have given thousands of grades, I know what bad grades measure, more or less. Bad grades are often a measure of a lack of discipline. Failure to take tests seriously, go to class, and a whole range of other things that do not lead to good grades. So are going to too many parties, late night bull sessions with with friends, staying up late etc., etc., are the most common explanation for a less than stellar g.p.a. Do not do these things. However, if it is all a done deal like it was for me, and you still have a passion for academics, do be polite and persistent in your applications to graduate school. Do not take the first no for as the definitive answer, and get a thick skin. Take extra classes to help redefine yourself. And when someone grumbles that you have a “rather peculiar g.p.a.” realize first that they have the power in this situation, and you may need to bite your tongue. And second, find someone who will be more sympathetic. More importantly perhaps, recognize that the comment is as much a reflection of their short-sightedness and lack of “real life” experience during their undergraduate career, and after, than it is about where you are in the application process.

For what it is worth, here is a link to an article I wrote five years ago about students who, like me, get too many C grades, and even a D or two, as an undergraduate. It is called “The Trouble with Valedictorians,” and still reflects my view about people who have never received the insult of a D+ grade.

Jennifer Jones of California State University, Fresno is the first student to be awarded a travel grant to attend next years EPIC conference in Denmark. This year the grant was non-competitive and awarded by recommendation of a Fresno faculty member. It is hoped that this grant will be an annual event and be awarded on a competitive basis next year. She will also be contributing to the blog Ethnography.com, so look for a fresh new voice!

Jennifer is finishing up BA degrees in both history and Anthropology (cultural focus). After reading the Epic 2006 conference proceedings, she became interested in applied business anthropology. Currently she is involved in multiple projects including a study on downtown Fresno revitalization efforts, an entrepreneur mentorship program, and Engineering for Peoples and Markets, an inter-disciplinary team that includes students from anthropology, business, and engineering. In addition to this, she works as an office manager for a non-profit program focused on American Indian health access, education, and advocacy. Her educational goals include completing an M.B.A. and then a Ph.D. in anthropology. While her social life has become limited with all of these various projects, she enjoys discovering new music and reading about places she’d like to travel to in the future.

Graduations Jennifer!

Mark Dawson