“For me the fundamental question that I want to raise is if academic anthropologists can survive outside of the academy, outside of universities!”

I have found that among some of the people or depts. that look to hire practicing anthropologists often still assume that a person has a PhD and has spent time in academia. Some business consulting firms ask to see a few academic articles as writing samples, for example. I’ve had to get permission from a former client to allow me to use a report I wrote for them as a writing sample.

Then there’s the world of international/urban development that I’ve been trying to get into, because I don’t want to spend my life doing marketing research. There’s an online clearinghouse for anthropologists that do this work, however to put in your name you have to have a PhD.

I think the important thing to know is that everyone starts at the bottom. That’s true of MD’s and lawyers, so it damn sure is gonna apply to either academia or practicing anthropology. Each move you make though should be with the next goal in mind. For example, I’ve been talking with a recruiter to spend the next 12 months of my life in a development project in some place without much electricity and with a lot of danger. I’m hoping I’ll be able to leverage that experience to get a gig in a place with more electricity and less danger.
We should also not forget that the economy is shit right now. I was working on a project for a major US city and it got cut after the initial round of research, because the city went broke! So the research position I was given a year earlier disappeared as my director was fired and my office merged with another.

Conditions in academic anthropology are not as good as they used to be; departments cut off their research projects, field-journeys, workshops because of lack of resources; academic personnel is reduced and PhD candidates are begging for grants in universities and other funding bodies. In practicing anthropology you’re lucky if your interests meet the needs of your agent; in academic anthropology you’re lucky if your interests meet the needs of the goals of the department you belong to, and the main concern is if there are available funds to your department. In academic anthropology you study what sounds interesting to your professor, and it is more than evident that your professor will try to bring you in his/her research interests. Of course, if your research interests are close to your professor, that is the ideal situation.

I do believe that (practitioner) anthropologists can make a living outside of the academy. This depends primarily on the quality of the studies, the coherence of the courses that they have chosen, the multiple techniques of collecting data and conducting field-research in cross-cultural environments, language skills, etc. There are many opportunities ‘out there’, (depending on your research interests) for practitioners. Scholars who practice anthropology outside of the academy are flexible and can shift their research interests and audience because of their needs. In academic anthropology scholars are usually involved in a long-term research project, and they (mainly) focus all their research publications on their PhD’s thesis; thus, academia increases the percentage of those who conduct ‘armchair anthropology’. For me the fundamental question that I want to raise is if academic anthropologists can survive outside of the academy, outside of universities!