The 11 Rules of an Boasian Anthropological ethic form a American anthropological tradition and ethic.
These rules are:
1. a combination of humanistic and scientific values;
2. a focus on the concept of culture;
3. an emphasis on non-literate, small scale sociocultural systems as the subject of study;
4. a holistic perspective in the study of sociocultural phenomena;
5. a reliance on the comparative method of analysis;
6. a tradition of employment in a research setting associated with a museum or university;
7. an orientation toward historical particularism, i.e. understanding
the role and function of sociocultural phenomena in context;
8. a tradition of participant-observation in a personal field work experience;
9. the ideal of the scientific role as a standard for judging professional status;
10. an objective and relativistic moral and ethical position;
11. a four field approach in the basic training of recruits to the
profession and in the organization of the profession. (Bainton 1979: 127 - 128)
Monday, March 17, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
Is Anthropology a method or a science?
In a recent discussion about the central focus of anthropology, what distinguishes anthropology from other disciplines, an argument was made that we do have a central theoretical focus. In fact, the argument goes, that theory is based on the fact that we are holistic and yet culturally relative. We are, in this formulation, the combination and contradiction of C. P. Snow's Two Cultures - Science vs Humanities. This approach, which goes back at least to Boas, is proposed to be the anthropological method.
I agree that we have a central methodology. It is a methodology that in many ways also reflects our underlying philosophy of science and the nature of things -- that is, the objective (etic) observation of the world and the subjective (emic) nature of the observing instrument -- the anthropologist. We incorporate a "quantum" perspective which recognizes the fact that the observer IS part of the system being observed and thereby influences the observation -- i.e. creates a degree of uncertainty.
But a methodology is not a theory or explanation. It is only a process which without direction and purpose is like the mouse running on the wheel in its cage. Good exercise going nowhere. Theory is by its very nature "inductive" speculations based on deductive analysis of the observations made of nature. Induction is the "If, then" statement where the "if" statement is based on a known set of data, and the "then" statement is a generalization of that data into an unknown future event or situation. Deduction is tautological. It too is a set of "If, then" statements. However, these statement are known facts and relationships from which a new or previously unknown fact is "deduced" If A = C, and B = C, then A = B.
As "natural history" anthropology is a deductive science. But as an predictive science and an applied science, anthropology.is an inductive science. That is, in the former case we report what we see and then analysis it to see more detail in the facts we already have. In the latter case, we detect patterns from past observations and hypothesize or predict future outcomes based on the correlations found between variables from past observations, e.g. what the population of X will be in ten years based on the population rate for the past 30 years..
Inductive models or theories point out problems for study and to validate observed patterns or to disprove the pattern. Anthropology today, especially ethnography, does not seem to have an inductive focus -- a set of principles or correlations that drive the research or analysis. Instead we seem to be happy pursuing our own idiosyncratic emic agendas -- "description and deductions" based on a sample of one at one moment in time and space.
My personal bias in this regard is the broad generalized question of the human condition and what we can infer about it based on a 150 or more years of anthropological research. Some might say anthropology is the study of "culture" (e.g. Leslie White, Tylor, Kroeber) which is phenomenon oriented, while others might say anthropology is the study of mankind ( or pc "humankind") which is species (biologically) oriented.
In this regard, the concept "meme" or "trait" or any other term that one chooses that distinguishes the physical "gene" concept from the ideational "superorganic" concept presents us with an interesting and promising why to inductively test propositions that relate directly structure and dynamics of "culture" on one hand, and on the other to the "tipping" point between Hominid to Homo (Human like animal to the self aware Human animal).
Finally, those who question the validity of Memetics argue that it "is not a theory by any reasonable definition thereof. More a model, and a rather questionable one to anyone who has studied semiotic"
First, anthropology is not semiotics, although semiotics has much to contribute to anthropology. Second, "meme" is a theoretical concept, the same way the Higgs Particle is/was a theoretical concept, it is not a fact. As a theoretical concept it calls for an inductive approach.
The "meme" provides a basis for directing research by focusing on creating hypotheses to prove or disprove its existence. And if "meme" is not the right concept, the question still exists, how did man or culture become what it is and what it means to be human? Unless, of course, you accept the orthodoxy of the breath of life and the apple in the Garden of Eden.But then we have ceded a scientific approach to the study of culture and humanity to a religious orthodoxy.
I agree that we have a central methodology. It is a methodology that in many ways also reflects our underlying philosophy of science and the nature of things -- that is, the objective (etic) observation of the world and the subjective (emic) nature of the observing instrument -- the anthropologist. We incorporate a "quantum" perspective which recognizes the fact that the observer IS part of the system being observed and thereby influences the observation -- i.e. creates a degree of uncertainty.
But a methodology is not a theory or explanation. It is only a process which without direction and purpose is like the mouse running on the wheel in its cage. Good exercise going nowhere. Theory is by its very nature "inductive" speculations based on deductive analysis of the observations made of nature. Induction is the "If, then" statement where the "if" statement is based on a known set of data, and the "then" statement is a generalization of that data into an unknown future event or situation. Deduction is tautological. It too is a set of "If, then" statements. However, these statement are known facts and relationships from which a new or previously unknown fact is "deduced" If A = C, and B = C, then A = B.
As "natural history" anthropology is a deductive science. But as an predictive science and an applied science, anthropology.is an inductive science. That is, in the former case we report what we see and then analysis it to see more detail in the facts we already have. In the latter case, we detect patterns from past observations and hypothesize or predict future outcomes based on the correlations found between variables from past observations, e.g. what the population of X will be in ten years based on the population rate for the past 30 years..
Inductive models or theories point out problems for study and to validate observed patterns or to disprove the pattern. Anthropology today, especially ethnography, does not seem to have an inductive focus -- a set of principles or correlations that drive the research or analysis. Instead we seem to be happy pursuing our own idiosyncratic emic agendas -- "description and deductions" based on a sample of one at one moment in time and space.
My personal bias in this regard is the broad generalized question of the human condition and what we can infer about it based on a 150 or more years of anthropological research. Some might say anthropology is the study of "culture" (e.g. Leslie White, Tylor, Kroeber) which is phenomenon oriented, while others might say anthropology is the study of mankind ( or pc "humankind") which is species (biologically) oriented.
In this regard, the concept "meme" or "trait" or any other term that one chooses that distinguishes the physical "gene" concept from the ideational "superorganic" concept presents us with an interesting and promising why to inductively test propositions that relate directly structure and dynamics of "culture" on one hand, and on the other to the "tipping" point between Hominid to Homo (Human like animal to the self aware Human animal).
Finally, those who question the validity of Memetics argue that it "is not a theory by any reasonable definition thereof. More a model, and a rather questionable one to anyone who has studied semiotic"
First, anthropology is not semiotics, although semiotics has much to contribute to anthropology. Second, "meme" is a theoretical concept, the same way the Higgs Particle is/was a theoretical concept, it is not a fact. As a theoretical concept it calls for an inductive approach.
The "meme" provides a basis for directing research by focusing on creating hypotheses to prove or disprove its existence. And if "meme" is not the right concept, the question still exists, how did man or culture become what it is and what it means to be human? Unless, of course, you accept the orthodoxy of the breath of life and the apple in the Garden of Eden.But then we have ceded a scientific approach to the study of culture and humanity to a religious orthodoxy.
Saturday, March 15, 2014
Autoethnography or Going After Culture
It would seem to me that "autoethnography" is creating a corpus of data for historians and future psycho-anthropologist of ethnography to study in order to gain an understanding of the personality and culture of late 20th century and the millennial anthropologist and their discipline.
As the anthropological discipline broadens its academic base beyond the United States and the west, and as the traditional cultural isolate (a heuristic device) we studied has all but disappeared, the rationale for traditional anthropology no longer feels valid. If we can't study "Them," may be we can "study" US studying Them studying US. Maybe we will have to go "after culture" rather than capture it.
Could it be that several generations of anthro graduate students and junior faculty who have had to face such questions as " Where can I go to do my dissertation research? "Who will fund it?" and "How do I justify my research to the Promotion and Tenure Committee?" have turned to autobiographical narrative as an answer. That is, "Is autoethnography really a scientific or historic methodology that grows out of the anthropological tradition (culture); or is it a reaction to a larger set of forces taking place in the academic and funding environments (locally and globally) in which a generation of anthropologists seek to build their careers?
An example of this navel gazing approach is to be found in a very interesting and thought provoking paper by Stefan Helmreich, original published in 2001 in Cultural Anthropology, entitled After Culture: Reflections on the Apparition of Anthropology in Artificial Life, A science of Simulation.
Helmreich reports on a study he conducted in what he refers to as the anthropology of science which is the study of science as a cultural institution. He conducted his research at the Santa Fe Institute for the Sciences of Complexity among a group of scientists drawn from a variety of disciplines ranging from mathematics, systems theory, biology, computer science among others. All of whom are interested in the question of vitality, i.e. life, and whether one can model evolutionary systems. Such models would enable the biologists to not only test theories about life as we know it but also build a larger frame of reference to include life as it could be. That is, artificial life would be a tool for the development of a theoretical biology.
Helmreich describes a real and intellectual connection between these scientists and American anthropology. He points to the fact that many of them were trained as undergraduates during the 1970s and were influenced by the anthropology of the period. In particular, he points to Christopher Langton who studied anthropology at the University of Arizona in the late 1970s where he became interested in the ",,. parallels between biological and cultural inheritance and evolution" (2001: 615). Langton later went on to do graduate work in computer science at the University of Michigan.
Langton plays a significant role is Helmreich's study and understanding of the "culture" of these scientist. He serves, it seems, in Helmreich's discussion as the key informant and as an interpreter between the "natural" scientists and the social scientist who is personified through Helmreich's own personal narrative of his involvement with these scientists. This is evident in the author's definition of what he means by "after culture."
After culture is defined in two ways as the goal being sought by these artificial life researcher.
First, they had come to see themselves as cultural objects -- with vision mediates by an ideational, informatic framework, the specificity of which tacitly depended on a relative sense of culture, even as it was driven by by a universal cybernetic logic.
Second, they had come to theorize "culture" as a human adaptation with a "life of its own," and were thus "after culture" in the sense of pursuing it as an object for their own study and explanation ... (Helmreich: 2001, p.620)
Heimreich goes on to observe that ...
playing anthropologist among these scientists required being "after culture" myself, drawing on the store of my discipline's ethnographic knowledge to query assertions about the universal "nature" of kinship and reproduction, for example, but also forcing myself beyond the limits of the culture concept to locate my subjects' activity in the power-saturated world of practice, discourse, and history - to read 'against culture", ,.. ( Helmreich: 2001, p. 620)
This study, with its auto-ethnographic content, shines a light on two very different and yet interrelated issue facing anthropology. First is the subject -- artificial life. If it is a viable method for the study of "life" processes through an artificial biology, could not also become a tool for the study of social and cultural process through an artificial sociology and anthropology. Just think of SIM City, for example. Anthropology has always faced the conflict between its objective outside observer role and the participant in the local society being studied role. It is the source of much ethical discussion and debate. Would the artificial life model free us of this ethical dilemma? In one of his notes, Helmreich observes there are anthropologists who are trained in cultural ecology who find promise in the use of artificial life techniques for modeling social dynamics.
Second, the question of the anthropologist as the one "after culture" in the research context. Helmreich is fairly candid about his own role in the discussions and in citing his activist participant role with his subjects. Whether this auto-biographical insight represents a break with or an admission about the traditional role of the field investigator as participant, is a question for others to decide, But, when Helmreich describes a visit to the Institute he made after his study was published, he remarks that
I found many previously skeptical researchers suddenly sympathetic to my analysis of the cultural valences of Artificial Life. But where some felt that an anthropological account enriched their understanding of science as practice, others used my story to support their sense that Artificial Life had been contaminated by "culture" in a way their own fields - computational mechanics, for example - had not." (Helmreich: 2001, p. 621)
It seems that the contamination reported here may or may not have come from the presence of the anthropologists as the participant observer. Of course, we can't prove that that is the case, or that this doubt about the purity of their "culture" would have not occurred if left alone to "discover" an artificial culture. What autoethnography can tell us is about our selves. In this case, where the subjects share so many things in common with the researcher we witness a situation of contamination despite the close similarities of share beliefs. This makes even more real the criticism leveled against western anthropologists by the "natives" of non-western cultures. But, by the same token, what does this have to say about potential affects of non-western anthropologists on a universal anthropology on one hand and upon their own native cultures on the other?
There may career opportunities here after all.
Saturday, January 18, 2014
The Chicken and Egg problem: Culture vs Strategy
In Business Anthropology it is important that we speak in simple language to our clients and seek to inform through clarity rather than impress through obfuscation. "Corporate Culture" and its relation to "Corporate Strategy" is a case in point. The question often comes up in the business community, What is Corporate Culture and Why is it resistant to good strategy?
A recent book entitled "Leverage" addresses this question in this interview from the Economist
From the point of view of the Applied Business Anthropologist, we might say that a simple definition of corporate culture, from a lay point of view, is
A strategy MUST arise from the institutional base that leaders have to work with or else the strategy will fail. A good and effective strategy recognizes the basic elements of management as taught in B-School. "What are the institution's Strengths and What are its Weaknesses". A good strategy uses the former to offset the latter. The second step of the strategy is to know your business environment -- that is, "What are the opportunities for us to make a profit or increase our profits?" and, "What are the threats to our position in the market and to our profits?" All of this must be done within the principles established in the Charter and the Laws that govern the institutional Charter.
The Corporate Culture is conservative, it represents the lessons from the past that have worked and its goal is long term, .i.e. to survive. A Corporate Strategy is a plan to use what we have today to insure that we will achieve our long term goal tomorrow. That is, the relation between Culture and Strategy is a Chicken and Egg problem.
A recent book entitled "Leverage" addresses this question in this interview from the Economist
From the point of view of the Applied Business Anthropologist, we might say that a simple definition of corporate culture, from a lay point of view, is
"That's how WE do things around here and have done so ever since I've been here."At the same time, from a technical anthropological point of view, an applicable definition comes from Structural - Functional theory. We can begin by saying a corporation is a social institution made up of the following, as defined by Bronislaw Malinowski,
"Each institution has personnel, a charter, a set of norms or rules, activities, material apparatus (technology), and a function." (A Scientific Theory of Culture and Other Essays)The business enterprise is an institution that has a corporate culture. Its function is the creation of profit for its owners. It does this by investing in personnel, material apparatus to be used to perform activities that generate a product based on a certain set of norms, rules, and processes, to produce a product or service for sale at a price that is greater than the total cost of production. The owner's of the business are organized under a charter (Articles of Incorporation and By-laws) recognized by the State and empowered by the State to conduct such business under the laws of the state. The corporate culture is how all of this is done to maintain the institution.
A strategy MUST arise from the institutional base that leaders have to work with or else the strategy will fail. A good and effective strategy recognizes the basic elements of management as taught in B-School. "What are the institution's Strengths and What are its Weaknesses". A good strategy uses the former to offset the latter. The second step of the strategy is to know your business environment -- that is, "What are the opportunities for us to make a profit or increase our profits?" and, "What are the threats to our position in the market and to our profits?" All of this must be done within the principles established in the Charter and the Laws that govern the institutional Charter.
The Corporate Culture is conservative, it represents the lessons from the past that have worked and its goal is long term, .i.e. to survive. A Corporate Strategy is a plan to use what we have today to insure that we will achieve our long term goal tomorrow. That is, the relation between Culture and Strategy is a Chicken and Egg problem.
Today's Corporate Culture is Yesterday's Strategy Made Manifest, Tomorrow's Corporate Culture is Today's Strategy Made Manifest.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Where does GENDER fit in anthropology?
Anthropologically gender is an important variable because of its
biological origin, that is as a technical term, gender denotes one's
sexual function as a member of the species. From the evolutionary
perspective it is significant in terms of the biological mechanism that produces adaptations over time, and today in terms of the medical
consequences for the individual person as a biological organism.
Socially, these distinctions are and have been critical to the formation of human reproductive unit (the family) and the process of raising of an immature offspring to a sexually mature member of the group. It also is important in the way society, the group, responds to individuals born physically "different" from the local gender norm, or the behaviors that differ from those norm. How a society adapts to these situations are certainly anthropological questions.
Culturally, as many point out, gender is simply assumed by the members of a culture. They simple conform to the norms symbolism of dress, styles, occupations, etc. The anthropological questions that relate to these gender differences arise from the comparison between cultures and sub-cultures. Also the anthropologist is interested in the definitions and responses to deviance from these expected differences.
While cultures and societies may address the gender issues differently, the biological significance of gender to the species has, until the end of the last century, been a critical element in the definition of the human animal. Today, with fertility and transgender medical technology, the biological imperative for gender is coming under question and the human, social, and cultural responses are definitely a subject for anthropological study.
Finally, the role of technology and gender raises another set of questions where technology cancels out the physical advantages that once were associated with the biological advantages one gender held over the other. Again, these are anthropological questions about the biological nature of gender worthy of study.
Socially, these distinctions are and have been critical to the formation of human reproductive unit (the family) and the process of raising of an immature offspring to a sexually mature member of the group. It also is important in the way society, the group, responds to individuals born physically "different" from the local gender norm, or the behaviors that differ from those norm. How a society adapts to these situations are certainly anthropological questions.
Culturally, as many point out, gender is simply assumed by the members of a culture. They simple conform to the norms symbolism of dress, styles, occupations, etc. The anthropological questions that relate to these gender differences arise from the comparison between cultures and sub-cultures. Also the anthropologist is interested in the definitions and responses to deviance from these expected differences.
While cultures and societies may address the gender issues differently, the biological significance of gender to the species has, until the end of the last century, been a critical element in the definition of the human animal. Today, with fertility and transgender medical technology, the biological imperative for gender is coming under question and the human, social, and cultural responses are definitely a subject for anthropological study.
Finally, the role of technology and gender raises another set of questions where technology cancels out the physical advantages that once were associated with the biological advantages one gender held over the other. Again, these are anthropological questions about the biological nature of gender worthy of study.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Professional Ethics or Gamesmanship?
What are some of the beat examples of ethical codes? I think of the Ten
Commandments in the Bible or Jesus' "Love the Lord God Almighty with all
your heart and your neighbor as yourself" These are short, simple,
statements which serve as personal guidelines for one's actions.
For anthropology the initial concern about professional ethics was two fold. First was to insure that the field ethnographer would have access to their subjects by requiring him/her to behave in a manner that would not prejudice the situation for the next field worker. The second concern was to uphold the scientific integrity of the research product produced from the field work, i.e. be honest and objective in your analysis and share it with colleagues. Two very simple principles.
Religions and philosophies take these statements and then build complex fishnets out of them. So full of knots to trap you and so many loop holes to allow you to wiggle through, the ethical code becomes a game instead of guide. It becomes a legalistic pastime for those with nothing better to do but to write more specific interpretation of the principle to trap and more subtle distinctions to escape the intent. Anthropological codes put forward over the past 50 years have tended to follow the same course.
As I have seen it, the profession has fail to come to grips with three major problems anthropology faces to achieve these simple goals by writing a code of ethics.
First is a failure to understand the difference between the sub-disciplines and what this means in terms of the ethical challenges one faces. Academic cultural anthropologist assume that cultural academic anthropology is Anthropology and demand an ethical code that represents that point of view. Its rules become too complex and specific for themselves and irrelevant for others such as the applied, administrative, policy or clinical roles or for those who work primarily with material culture, linguistic, or biological subjects or materials.
Second is the failure to distinguish the individual's position in life as a whole person and his/her "professional" role as an "anthropologist." As anthropologist, the individual is representing the tribe of anthropologists. As an individual, he/she is representing themself. As a result of this lack of distinction, codes have been proposed seeking to control the whole range of personal activity under the umbrella of anthropological ethics. Anthropology is a "profession" not a religion.
Third, a professional code and a personal code are very different. A professional code is a door or gate through which the profession (tribe) admits and judges members. It requires an individual to accept the tenets as a condition of acceptance into and by the profession. AND once admitted, it requires the members to adhere to the principles under penalty of ostracism and loss of professional privilege and status if the ethics are breached. Neither major anthropological association, AAA or SfAA, requires acceptance nor imposes punishment of what is called their principles, thus they have unenforceable codes. Such unenforceable codes actually defeat the original purpose for such codes.
In the past fifty years that I have participated, thought about, and written about ethics in anthropology I have yet to see a draft, much less an approved version, of the AAA Code or the SfAA code that addresses the issues outline above in a way that one could actually point to as an ANTHROPOLOGICAL ETHICS CODE.
In the age of Twitter, an ethical principle < 140 characters + (Specific = to define + general = to be understood by all ) might be the best example of what an code of ethics for anthropologist should be.
For anthropology the initial concern about professional ethics was two fold. First was to insure that the field ethnographer would have access to their subjects by requiring him/her to behave in a manner that would not prejudice the situation for the next field worker. The second concern was to uphold the scientific integrity of the research product produced from the field work, i.e. be honest and objective in your analysis and share it with colleagues. Two very simple principles.
Religions and philosophies take these statements and then build complex fishnets out of them. So full of knots to trap you and so many loop holes to allow you to wiggle through, the ethical code becomes a game instead of guide. It becomes a legalistic pastime for those with nothing better to do but to write more specific interpretation of the principle to trap and more subtle distinctions to escape the intent. Anthropological codes put forward over the past 50 years have tended to follow the same course.
As I have seen it, the profession has fail to come to grips with three major problems anthropology faces to achieve these simple goals by writing a code of ethics.
First is a failure to understand the difference between the sub-disciplines and what this means in terms of the ethical challenges one faces. Academic cultural anthropologist assume that cultural academic anthropology is Anthropology and demand an ethical code that represents that point of view. Its rules become too complex and specific for themselves and irrelevant for others such as the applied, administrative, policy or clinical roles or for those who work primarily with material culture, linguistic, or biological subjects or materials.
Second is the failure to distinguish the individual's position in life as a whole person and his/her "professional" role as an "anthropologist." As anthropologist, the individual is representing the tribe of anthropologists. As an individual, he/she is representing themself. As a result of this lack of distinction, codes have been proposed seeking to control the whole range of personal activity under the umbrella of anthropological ethics. Anthropology is a "profession" not a religion.
Third, a professional code and a personal code are very different. A professional code is a door or gate through which the profession (tribe) admits and judges members. It requires an individual to accept the tenets as a condition of acceptance into and by the profession. AND once admitted, it requires the members to adhere to the principles under penalty of ostracism and loss of professional privilege and status if the ethics are breached. Neither major anthropological association, AAA or SfAA, requires acceptance nor imposes punishment of what is called their principles, thus they have unenforceable codes. Such unenforceable codes actually defeat the original purpose for such codes.
In the past fifty years that I have participated, thought about, and written about ethics in anthropology I have yet to see a draft, much less an approved version, of the AAA Code or the SfAA code that addresses the issues outline above in a way that one could actually point to as an ANTHROPOLOGICAL ETHICS CODE.
In the age of Twitter, an ethical principle < 140 characters + (Specific = to define + general = to be understood by all ) might be the best example of what an code of ethics for anthropologist should be.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
"Anthropological Entrepreneurship," A Career Strategy
Many anthropologists, academic and applied, have become addicted to the federal government to fund their research or jobs. For those considering as career in program evaluation and/or the non-profit sector, federal funding has become a crutch.
It is time to realize that the world is bigger than that. In addition to federally funded programs there are the private, state and local government supported programs. There are also opportunities in the private sector, but that is a different story.
In today's funding climate, the federal government is not the most secure source and the successful non-profits are forced to compete by improving their performance and finding alternative funding sources. Program evaluations are needed to justify continued funding, to sell grant applications to new or other sources, and internally, to develop new and more efficient management systems as well as new funding and business models in order to survive..
A recurring complaint or question that I hear from anthropologists who want to transition into the real world, is: "They won't consider me because I don't have the experience;" or, "How do I get the experience I need?"
I recommend a strategy that I call "Anthropological Entrepreneurship". What you can do is create a job for yourself. And in the process, you are creating your professional personality and a self identity as a product that you can sell. That is, you take control of your career by becoming your own product.
The first step is to think like an entrepreneur, not like a day laborer or corporate drone or academic bureaucrat. To think like an entrepreneur, you have to take control of your life. This begins by defining your product as a solution to someone else's problem and your market as the someone else who has the problem you can solve.
Next, you have to be willing to take a risk and trust in yourself by investing your own resources (time, money and talent) to get started.
Third and most important, you have to be willing to fail and learn from your failures but not surrender to them. If you can do these then you are ready to venture out into the real world and get some practical experience.
A good place to start looking is locally and at the small non-profits that have limited professional staff. These agencies are always in need of a skilled social science or business planner to help them develop their evaluation plan and/or to do their evaluation work. They are also generally unable to buy or pay for such services. The advantage here is that you can test yourself as a product. Failure here is not a bad as failing in a bigger and better know job/assignment. At the same time, the agency gains from your free service and whatever benefits or value your efforts contribute to organization. Remember your failure is not necessarily theirs nor is their failure necessarily yours.
Non-profits depend heavily on volunteers and generally have "working" boards of directors rather than "policy" boards. They are therefore often hard put to find board members to replace or fill vacancies that occur when volunteers are burned out. Boards are made up of local leaders and activists. This is great place for you to start building a profession network outside of academic anthropology and to prove yourself to potential clients. In some cases, this can lead to a paying job or a project contract.
Finally, the difference between an applied anthropologist and a career anthropologist is that the applied anthropologist expects clients to come to him/her, while a career anthropologist goes out and shows potential clients why they need his or her services and why they should pay for them.
It is time to realize that the world is bigger than that. In addition to federally funded programs there are the private, state and local government supported programs. There are also opportunities in the private sector, but that is a different story.
In today's funding climate, the federal government is not the most secure source and the successful non-profits are forced to compete by improving their performance and finding alternative funding sources. Program evaluations are needed to justify continued funding, to sell grant applications to new or other sources, and internally, to develop new and more efficient management systems as well as new funding and business models in order to survive..
A recurring complaint or question that I hear from anthropologists who want to transition into the real world, is: "They won't consider me because I don't have the experience;" or, "How do I get the experience I need?"
I recommend a strategy that I call "Anthropological Entrepreneurship". What you can do is create a job for yourself. And in the process, you are creating your professional personality and a self identity as a product that you can sell. That is, you take control of your career by becoming your own product.
The first step is to think like an entrepreneur, not like a day laborer or corporate drone or academic bureaucrat. To think like an entrepreneur, you have to take control of your life. This begins by defining your product as a solution to someone else's problem and your market as the someone else who has the problem you can solve.
Next, you have to be willing to take a risk and trust in yourself by investing your own resources (time, money and talent) to get started.
Third and most important, you have to be willing to fail and learn from your failures but not surrender to them. If you can do these then you are ready to venture out into the real world and get some practical experience.
A good place to start looking is locally and at the small non-profits that have limited professional staff. These agencies are always in need of a skilled social science or business planner to help them develop their evaluation plan and/or to do their evaluation work. They are also generally unable to buy or pay for such services. The advantage here is that you can test yourself as a product. Failure here is not a bad as failing in a bigger and better know job/assignment. At the same time, the agency gains from your free service and whatever benefits or value your efforts contribute to organization. Remember your failure is not necessarily theirs nor is their failure necessarily yours.
Non-profits depend heavily on volunteers and generally have "working" boards of directors rather than "policy" boards. They are therefore often hard put to find board members to replace or fill vacancies that occur when volunteers are burned out. Boards are made up of local leaders and activists. This is great place for you to start building a profession network outside of academic anthropology and to prove yourself to potential clients. In some cases, this can lead to a paying job or a project contract.
Finally, the difference between an applied anthropologist and a career anthropologist is that the applied anthropologist expects clients to come to him/her, while a career anthropologist goes out and shows potential clients why they need his or her services and why they should pay for them.
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