SOPA -- a brief history of local applied anthropology circa 1980

 

Society of Professional Anthropologists (SOPA)

               Founded in 1974; Disbanded in 1983

               Mailing list of about 300 persons

               Addresses [? What would be the best one to use?]

               Correspondents: Barry Bainton and Margaret Knight

A.     History and leadership

After incubating during the fall and winter of 1974-75, SOPA came into being during an open invitation party that winter at the Statler Hilton on Miracle Mile in Tucson, Arizona. Fifty people attended. Margaret Knight and Barry Bainton had discussed their ideas for a local anthropology organization and concluded that there was a strong need for such a group to help pave the way for the future of the discipline outside of academia. Originally, they considered the possibility of forming a program evaluation group (the Southern Arizona Program Evaluation Group), but later moved in the direction of organizing local anthropologists who were working outside of academia.

According to Bainton: “The keystone to the SOPA concept is the definition of the professional anthropologist as someone who has training in anthropology, identifies with anthropology, and shares the anthropological perspective...”

 

“SOPA tries to fill a structural void in the profession by:

(1)    building links the local academic anthropologist and the practicing anthropological communities;

(2)    creating a forum where individuals can interact with each other as professionals, regardless whether each has a PhD;

(3)    providing responsiveness to local, rather than national or even regional needs of anthropologists, and

(4)    removing the barriers that often confront working anthropologists  …” (1979: 319)

 

During the first SOPA meetings attendees expressed a good deal of hostility against the anthropology establishment for the lack of preparation of graduate student for working outside of the university. Furthermore, many felt that they had entered into a field, become converted tp an anthropology identity, and then when they ended up working outside the traditional university setting, they were considered “less than holy” in the eyes of the discipline.

 

A Steering Committee was established, consisting of Barbara Curran, Ann Cowan, Gordon Krutz, Ernie Walter, Bainton, Knight, and A. D. Rund (?). [any others?]. They held board meetings every other week in addition to regular monthly or bimonthly evening programs. Many of the people participating in SOPA were working in community development organizations. SOPA leaders really networked to find members. Resulting in a really substantial mailing list of about 300. During the hay days, 50 - 60 people attended meetings.

 

SOPA was especially active in the 1970s, and then as some of the original core group left the area. It gradually went out of existence. A second generation of potential leaders did not take the reins; furthermore, the times, the people, and the environment all changed. During the late Spring of 1983, they held a party and spent the rest of the money in the treasury [and went out of business].

 

B.     ARIZONA AS A CULTURAL CONTEXT FOR AN LPO IN THE 1970s

Tucson and the State of Arizona were alive with anthropologists applying their wares in the 1970s. It was a very unique period.

Considerable federal and state monies were available for projects in many programs those associated with OEO [Office of Economic Opportunity], the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Services, the Bureau of Ethnic Research [? U of A], and the National Park Service, etc. While anthropologists were working in research and evaluation, surveys, planning, transportation, museums, education, health much of what they were doing could come under the rubric of community development. With the change in the federal administration in the 1980s, funding for such programs drastically declined, and many of the anthropologists who an applied focus at the time. Ned Spicer is remembered as having been “more than an were leaders in SOPA left the area to take positions elsewhere.

C.     THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL COMMUNITY

Some of the initial SOPA leaders had graduated from the University of Arizona, Department of Anthropology. Under the efforts of Dr. Edward H. Spicer and others, the anthropology program had anthropologist.” An extremely charismatic person who was an embodiment of what he taught. In addition to “turning out applied anthropologists during the 1960s and early 1970s, he backed SOPA all the way.

While SOPA’s may mission focused on providing a network for anthropologist working outside of the university, it also made a point to maintain cooperative links to the department for mutual benefit.  SOPA was determined to bridge the academic-practitioner gap and was persistent in explaining its goals and needs of its members to the academic anthropologists.

D.     PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS

The dissolution of SOPA was spurred, in part due by internal organizational development and in part by changes in the society. The original steering committee was no longer able to lead the organization. Barbara Curran, a very important founder and leader died. While others left the area, including  Barry Bainton and Margret Knight.

 

While some of the people were really excited by what SOPA was doing at the time, there was not enough support to sustain the organization as the leadership turn over.  Another very important factor was the economic constriction of programs and projects anthropologists were involved in, in Arizona reflecting national political-economic changes.

 

E.      ONGOING ORGANIZATION

SOPA met very regularly during its hay day. Members really enjoyed getting together, and they did not have problems of getting people to come to meetings. Dues were levied. In an attempt to keep things simple and manageable, they did not publish a journal. They did have a newsletter and a directory of members. Newsletters and other SOPA documents are held in the archives of the Arizona State Museum, Tucson, Arizona, 85721.

 

F.      OTHER ORGANIZATIONS

SOPA was the first LPG (Local Practitioner Groups). It served as a model for the generation of WAPA, SCAAN, COPA, and MAPA.  Realizing that they would need to put their energy into themselves, SOPA did not spend a lot of time developing links to other organizations. Early in SOPA’s history, Edward Lehman, Executive Director of the AAA at the time, visited Tucson and met with SOPA and was encouraged to see this development at the grass roots level in applied anthropology.

 

No formal links were established, however [at the time] with either AAA or SfAA.

 

 

[This essay is a copy, with minor editing, of a paper I wrote initially in the 1990’s]