2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference: Reflections on the Future of Anthropology

In his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman capitalized on the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference’s theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections to speculate on the future of the discipline.As he reflects on the field of anthropology, which had lacked theory, ethnography, and strong ties to public health and medicine, Harvard anthropologist Arthur Kleinman celebrates the accomplishments made by his contemporaries by saying, “My generation has made medical anthropology what it is today.” However, he is now looking to the future of the discipline, saying it must re-examine itself as a field.During the 2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference at Yale University, Kleinman capitalized on the theme of Medical Anthropology at the Intersections in his plenary session entitled Five Questions on the Future. Casting the conference itself as a kind of intersection, Kleinman not only lauded its size and diversity, but asserted that it marked a pivotal moment in which medical anthropology must re-evaluate its central questions.     

Interior Landscapes and External Worlds: the Return of Grand Theory in Anthropology1

This paper argues that the retreat from ‘theory’ characteristic of the postmodernist turn in anthropology has not had the impact on the ethics and politics of disciplinary practice that was hoped for. One reason for this is the problematic relationship between cultural relativism and identity politics which has paralysed the critical project in the discipline and prevented a more radical interrogation of two fundamental questions: ‘what is anthropology?' and ‘who is the anthropologist?'. Discussions in anthropological writing on hybridity and postcoloniality have more often highlighted the hybrid nature of `informants' than that of ‘anthropologists’. Feminist, native and minority writing in the discipline are areas where these questions have been seriously addressed through debates on positionality and location. However, the impact of these discussions on the politics of knowledge in the discipline are rarely recognised by ‘mainstrean anthropology’. One particularly noticeable lacuna is the fact that so little attention is paid to disciplinary education and its impact on theorising. Anthropology, rather than turning away from theory, should spend more time ‘anthropologising’ the concepts of ‘value’, ‘relativism’, ‘humanism’ and ‘comparison’ which underlie disciplinary theorising. The paper concludes by arguing for a return to theory in anthropology accompanied by a critical politics.     

How anthropologists think: configurations of the exotic

Anthropology has often been criticized for its exoticism and orientalism. They are the paradoxes of a discipline focused on the comparative study of difference and diversity and are at the centre of the discussion here in the larger context of the importance of anthropology in the humanities and social sciences. The emphasis is on the role of the exotic as vital to anthropology's study of difference and to its overall coherence and significance for the understanding of humanity as a whole.     

The Anthropology of Authenticity: Everyman His Own Anthropologist

Anthropology, the contributors to the recent volume Reinventing Anthropology tell us, is suffering from severe hardening of the intellectual arteries. In order for it to be revitalized, they say, the discipline must be de-professionalized and de-institutionalized, made more personal and existential. This involves a rejection of the pose of "objectivity" and "value-free" inquiry and an open admission of the inherently ideological nature of the discipline. In a word, anthropology will have to become politically and morally partisan. This essay explores some of the implications of the recommendations made by the reinventors of anthropology. The stance taken in Reinventing Anthropology, this paper contends, would not only undermine anthropology as a systematic field of inquiry but would also negate whatever "relevance" the discipline might have to the contemporary world.     

DA Forum: <Emphasis Type="Italic">De eso que llaman Anthropología Mexicana</Emphasis>

De eso que llaman Antropología Mexicana (of that known as Mexican Anthropology) first appeared in 1969 in Mexico at critical national and international conjunctures in an effort to both take the pulse of Mexican anthropology and move the discipline in new directions. As the text approaches its 50th anniversary, Dialectical Anthropology organized a forum, soliciting six critical evaluations of the book’s historical role.     

Australian Anthropologists and Public Anthropology

In 2004, the authors convened a session entitled ‘Public Anthropology’ at the Australian Anthropology Society's annual conference. The session examined the development of a specific stream of public anthropology in the USA and Britain and its articulation by writers such as Robert Borofsky in the aftermath of the Yanomami controversy and Richard Werbner in the African context. In pursuing this discussion, we identify three key characteristics that distinguish public anthropology: the broader application of ethnography to urgent and political social issues in a way that shows the profoundly relational nature of current crises to historical, political and local events and forces; a focus on this approach as a central aspect of training, particularly at the postgraduate level; and an active and accessible engagement in public discussion and debate. We present a short case study from Skidmore's research on disease, suffering and the health system in Burma to illustrate ways in which a public anthropology approach could represent the current health crisis in Burma in an effective manner. Drawing also on the work of our fellow panellists, we argue for the timeliness of the development of a public anthropology stream in Australia and for the deliberate inclusion of public anthropology in the Australian Anthropology Society's mandate.     

Key informants on the history of anthropology: an itinerary

The history of anthropology is a growing field of study within the discipline itself. Our series ‘Key Informants on the History of Anthropology’ contributes to the discussion of how anthropology, as it is understood and practised today, evolved and took shape. In the following invited contribution Marc Augé, Professor of Anthropology at École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, reflects back on his work in Africa, in light of his more recent explorations of contemporary global issues. He observes how history intervenes also with previous research ‘as if the facts which I observed in former times were only taking on their full meaning today’. This relationship between past and present research reinforces his faith in social anthropology as a discipline that is particularly well suited to address contemporary issues of globalisation.     

Anthropology and Education in Canada, the Early Years (1850–1970)

The subfield of anthropology and education has developed differently in Canada from the path it followed in the United States, even though the discipline of anthropology shared individuals and research topics across the border. Anthropology and education in Canada is distinctly Canadian and is a peripheral version of the central subdiscipline found in the United States.     

The Profession of the Color Blind: Sociocultural Anthropology and Racism in the 21st Century

In this essay, I suggest that American sociocultural anthropology has been a "color blind" profession for nearly a half century and that, as a discipline, we need to restore and refine our color perceptions in order to fight the supposedly fixed opposition in American society between "black" and "white" and deal with the racist consequences of this folk opposition. In the first section, 'How Anthropology Became 'Color Blind,'" I delineate the circumstances under which anthropology became the "color blind" profession. In the second section, "Teaching Color Blindness," I discuss the tendency, in teaching sociocultural anthropology, to ignore racism and its effects. In the final section, "Restoring Color Vision," I take up the questions of what the profession needs to do next to cope with racism and its consequences, emphasizing especially the issue of group identities, how they are formulated, inculcated, and overcome, and proposing a Foucauldian model—following Foucault's lead in analyzing relations of biopower and race—for formulating new ways of responding to and resisting the inevitable recastings of racist ideas,     

A history of forensic anthropology

Forensic anthropology represents a dynamic and rapidly evolving complex discipline within anthropology and forensic science. Academic roots extend back to early European anatomists but development coalesced in the Americas through high-profile court testimony, assemblage of documented collections and focused research. Formation of the anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1972, the American Board of Forensic Anthropology in 1977/1978 and other organizational advances provided important stimuli for progress. While early pioneers concentrated on analysis of skeletonized human remains, applications today have expanded to include complex methods of search and recovery, the biomechanics of trauma interpretation, isotopic analysis related to diet and region of origin, age estimation of the living and issues related to humanitarian and human rights investigations.     

Physical anthropology in 1918 and the founding of the U.S. journal

In 1918, the first issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology was prepared and distributed by Aleš Hrdlička, the Curator of Physical Anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. This was a singular act, both in the general and specific sense. It was the first journal of physical anthropology published in the United States, and it was a sole effort by Hrdlička, who was committed to promoting and recognizing physical anthropology as a new science in America. On this 100th anniversary of the founding of the journal, Hrdlička's efforts were successful: physical/biological anthropology is a strong and timely discipline that represents a major area of scientific research today.     

Reflections of an Ethnographic Filmmaker-Maker: An Interview with Paul Henley, Director of the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester

ABSTRACT  Two decades ago the Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology (GCVA) at the University of Manchester, U.K., was created. Since then it has become one of the most acclaimed postgraduate visual anthropology schools in the world, providing a space for theoretical debate and training in ethnographic filmmaking techniques. Conceived originally as a master's program under the sponsorship of Granada Television and the University of Manchester, it has now extended training to the Ph.D. level to students from around the world. In this interview, Professor Paul Henley, GCVA's director since its inception, reflects on the last 20 years of the Granada Centre, ethnographic filmmaking, the state of the art in theory and practice in visual anthropology, and new possibilities and challenges for the future. [Keywords: visual anthropology, ethnographic filmmaking, documentary, Granada Centre for Visual Anthropology]     

Key informants on the history of anthropology

The history of anthropology is a growing field of study within the discipline itself. Our series ‘Key Informants on the History of Anthropology’ is offered as a contribution to the discussion of how anthropology, as it is understood and practised today, evolved and took shape. In this invited contribution, T. O. Beidelman reflects on the formative, enlightening and sometimes dramatic encounters and experiences that have shaped his engagement with anthropology, and have influenced his many and lasting contributions to the discipline.     

2009 Society for Medical Anthropology Conference: Changing Anthropology,Changing Society

Fifty years after the founding of the field of medical anthropology, the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association held its first independent meeting on September 24-27, 2009, at Yale University.Fifty years after the founding of the field of medical anthropology, the Society for Medical Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association held its first independent meeting on September 24-27, 2009, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. The conference, Medical Anthropology at the Intersections, drew an international audience of more than 1,000 scholars.In her opening remarks, program Chair Marcia Inhorn noted that medical anthropology has been interdisciplinary since its inception. This assertion was supported at a roundtable discussion, Founding Medical Anthropology and the Society for Medical Anthropology, which featured four of the field’s founders.Asked to identify the factors that led to the development of medical anthropology, the panelists emphasized the role of changes in the practice and landscape of medicine in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the United States. According to Hazel Weidman, who helped spearhead the Society for Medical Anthropology, medical personnel sought social scientists’ guidance in the new clinical environments created by the increasing involvement of U.S. physicians in global development work and by the community-oriented approach to mental health encouraged by the Community Mental Health Act of 1963. The novel inclusion of lifestyle as a determinant of health at this time also played a role, according to Clifford Barnett. Norman Scotch, author of a 1963 review that had helped define medical anthropology as a field, noted that physicians at the time were very interested in the possible applications of the social sciences to medicine [1,2]. Joan Ablon recalled that this emphasis on application led some academic anthropologists to dismiss the medical anthropologist as a “handmaiden to the doctors.” Despite such resistance, interest in medical anthropology as a sub-field was clearly growing among anthropologists. When Weidman helped organize the first gathering of medical anthropologists at an anthropology conference in 1967, attendance was twice what was expected. Panel organizer Alan Harwood noted that the Society for Medical Anthropology transformed its newsletter into a professional journal, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, in 1983. According to Inhorn, the society has 1,300 members today.For the panelists, medical anthropology’s potential for application makes it a compelling scholarly pursuit. As Barnett stated in explaining his decision to work in anthropology: “If you know how a society works, you can change it.”     

Toward a Marxian anthropology? Bare,abstract, mobile,global

Anthropology has conventionally taken as some of its most cherished foundational categories the precise opposites of the key concepts that animate this inquiry: rather than “bare life,” anthropology has tended always to emphasize the fullness and complexity of social and political life; instead of labor in the abstract, which we recognize in its commodified form as “labor-power,” anthropology has produced exquisite inventories of concrete laboring activities and the “cultural” content of productive work; against the impermanence and mutability of lives characterized by their mobility, the ethnographic enterprise has been deeply attached to the sedentarist presuppositions of lasting settlement, dwelling, and “community”; and contrary to the task of apprehending space on a global scale, ethnographic study has been overwhelmingly localized and place-bound. Rethinking these elementary premises of the ethnographic endeavor and situating these critical concepts at the center of our epistemological frameworks are crucial theoretical and practical tasks for any meaningful social inquiry today. In this regard, the Marxian theoretical arsenal is simply indispensable. But, in the derisive words of so many disciplinary forebears and overseers, is this properly “anthropological”? The prospective convergence of genuinely critical sociopolitical inquiry with the techniques and insights of anthropology must remain for us the locus of an urgent problem—an open question on an open horizon.     

Biological anthropology's critical engagement with genomics,evolution, race/racism,and ourselves: Opportunities and challenges to making a difference in the academy and the world

Biological anthropology can, and should, matter in the Anthropocene. Biological anthropologists are interested in human biology and the human experience in a broader ecological, evolutionary, and phylogenetic context. We are interested in the material of the body, the history of the body, and interactions of diverse bodies, communities, ecologies, and evolutionary processes. However, the cultural realities of bodies, histories, communities, livelihoods, perceptions, and experiences are as central to the endeavor and inquiry of biological anthropology as are their material aspects. Biological anthropology is a constant dialectic between the cultural and the biological. In this essay, I argue that Biological Anthropology has much to offer, a history to contend with, and a future that matters. To illustrate this, I highlight theoretical and methodological issues in genomics, evolutionary theory and connect them to the study of Race and Racism to emphasize specific arenas where Biological Anthropology has a great capacity, and a strong obligation, to play a central role. However, Biological Anthropology also has substantive internal issues that hinder our ability to do the best possible science. If we are to live up to our potential and make a difference in the 21st century we need to ameliorate our structural shortcomings and expand our voice, and impact, in academic and public discourse. The goal of this perspective is to offer suggestions for moving us toward this goal.     

Racial classification in the evolutionary sciences: a comparative analysis

Human racial classification has long been a problem for the discipline of anthropology, but much of the criticism of the race concept has focused on its social and political connotations. The central argument of this paper is that race is not a specifically human problem, but one that exists in evolutionary thought in general. This paper looks at various disciplinary approaches to racial or subspecies classification, extending its focus beyond the anthropological race concept by providing a comparative analysis of the use of racial classification in evolutionary biology, genetics, and anthropology.     

Anthropology at the heart of medicine

Anthropology and medicine share many concerns, but have had trouble collaborating in the past. The anthropologist has had to plead both with his colleagues and physicians to move beyond a < culturalist > vision that would confine him to the study of traditional or alternative medicines and representations of populations and the sick. The anthropologist's approach perceived as intrusive has also raised fears in the medical world. These reciprocal misunderstandings and stereotypes need to be overcome by an anthropology that studies the practices and knowledge of modern medicine as they are elaborated daily. Anthropology will dialogue with medicine without judging it. In its turn, medicine will open its sites of healing and teaching to the anthropologist. Anthropology at the heart of medicine is organized around the idea that the paths and expectations of health professionals reflect the specicifities of the local system of health. The individual dimensions of practices cannot be divorced from the functioning of structures of health and decision. Finally, like any other kind of anthropology, medical anthropology must scrutinize its own methods and ethics in a critical way.     

Current status and perspectives of the development of dental research in biological anthropology of Argentina: Introduction and conclusions of the symposium

This paper describes and discusses the research in the field of dental anthropology in Argentina. It has been presented at the symposium entitled “The development of dental research in Argentine Biological Anthropology: current status and perspectives”, coordinated by the authors at the IX National Meeting of Biological Anthropology of Argentina, Puerto Madryn, 20th–23rd October 2009. The aim of the symposium was to present new results and future prospects of this discipline in the country and to create a forum for discussion of current research within this field.Six contributions that focused on the study of teeth from different perspectives and analysed bioarchaeological samples from different areas of Argentina (Central Highlands, Pampa and Patagonia) were presented. After the presentations, a discussion about the state of the art of dental research in the country was generated, in which the need for the generation of methodological consensus on the criteria for the evaluation of the variables considered was stated, so that research conducted in different areas can be compared. In short, the contributions of this symposium provide insights into the diversity of dental anthropology in contemporary Argentina and the potential of these types of studies to gain important information about biological and cultural aspects of the native populations in the country.