Mark Dawson disappeared into his undisclosed location about six months ago, presumably to deal with AAAs secret plan to save the discipline from the Mayan Apocalypse. Presumably this is how he is going to demonstrate how “practioners” are so much more valuable than academic theorists—and still rake in the AAAs big buck!
Since he disappeared and is now defenseless and muted, I can now repost one of my favorite blogs, “Whining about Practitioners.” Guys like Mark gave me one too many lectures about how what we academic-types do is good for nothing—this is the response!
Tony Waters is czar and editor of Ethnography.com. He came to us from the Sociology department at California State University at Chico where he has been a professor since 1996. In 2016 though he suddenly found himself with a new gig at Payap University in northern Thailand where he is on the faculty of the Peace Studies Department. He has also been a guest professor in Germany, and Tanzania. In the past, his main interests have been international development and refugees in Thailand, Tanzania, and California. This reflects a former career in the Peace Corps (Thailand), and refugee camps (Thailand and Tanzania). His books include: Crime and Immigrant Youth (1999), Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan (2001), The Persistence of Subsistence Agriculture: Life Beneath of the Marketplace (2007), When Killing is a Crime (2007), and Schooling, Bureaucracy, and Childhood: Bureaucratizing the Child (2012). His hobby is trying to learn strange languages–and the mistakes that that implies. Tony is a prolific academic, you can read more of his work at academia.edu.or purchase one (or more!) of his books from Amazon.com.