~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
It's always interesting to turn questions around to ask the mirror-image. People are very concerned about the power of a connected world to threaten our given notions of privacy. But what about the mirror image of that question, what do we ask about the internet exhibitionists, like me?
You name the new on-line doohickey and I promise you I have a profile on it. From Friendster to tribe.net…
Anthropologists will face ethical dilemmas throughout their careers, and we don’t always agree on what the right thing is. This entry is a case study of an ethical issue I had when I was doing my graduate fieldwork in a state prison almost 15 years ago.
Students: Try taking this entry into your class and discuss the choices I made and decide what you would do.
There was an inmate that I spoke with frequently over the course of my research, I’ll call him Jim.…
Of course I’m an anthropologist, and I’ve been doing what I do for a decade. I think I’m one of the fortunate people that since leaving graduate school I’ve never taken a job as anything but an anthropologist. The question is am I just an anthropologist and the answer is absolutely not. Frankly in my field we can’t employ people who are just experienced in anthropology, we require more areas of expertise than that.…
Much of the conversation about who is an anthropologist is about the appropriateness of “secret” research. Currently the stance of many anthropologists and the AAA code of ethics is that no professional anthropologist should engage in secret research. This means you should avoid research were the data and analysis cannot be openly scrutinized by your peers. (Please see my previous entry, were I agree that the field of anthropology has not always been a paragon of ethical behavior.)…
Its amazing how otherwise bright people can spend a goofy amount of energy trying to determine just who is in the tribe of anthropology and who is not. It’s not that I object to keeping an eye the quality of the profession, I am all for it. My own little corner of the anthropology world is chock-full of dreadful charlatans that believe Ethnography is as easy as mashing the record button on a video camera and asking inept questions.…
When someone asks what I do, I usually tell them I am an anthropologist that helps companies find new opportunities for growth and strategic direction. This is most often followed by them asking: “That sounds really interesting. How does digging up dinosaur bones help a company find new opportunities?” It comes from a common misunderstanding: There are four different kinds of anthropologists: I am a cultural anthropologist (I talk to live people), rather than an archeologist (dig up people and objects).…