Iqra’i

Confessions of an Anthro major: the concerted efforts my more established co-scholars are currently making to re-establish public anthropolology (book awards for which I am sadly ineligible, etc.) are probably more closely tied than they admit to the wish, expressed by many of the anthropologists I know, that the public would just get the heck over Margaret Mead already. (In certain cases, the wish that the public would just get the heck over Jared Diamond already is also a motivating factor.)

I’ve mentioned before that it’s bad for public image of the discipline that “the Anthropologist You Are Most Likely To Be Asked About By The Person Sitting Next To You On The Plane” (as Rex of Savage Minds puts it) comes from an era in anthropological history that most in the discipline today are uncomfortable with at best. But unfortunately, ignoring Margaret won’t get her to go away, and I’m increasingly convinced that allowing her reputation to stand prevents new public anthropologists from breaking in on their own terms, because in the public eye they can only lay claim to an identity as anthropologists insofar as they’re doing the “Margaret Mead thing” (comprehensive fieldwork in Melanesian societies that deliberately tries to ignore the effects of modernity, etc.)

Obviously, this wouldn’t be as frustrating if Mead had done her fieldwork properly; but really, she didn’t. So I’m thrilled to do my part to dismantle her legacy by urging you to read this article that examines how Mead’s preconceptions and approach shaped her eventual conclusions (again, h/t Savage Minds); to quote authors Ira Bashkow and Lise Dobrin, ” in many ways the situations that anthropologists experience in the field are ones that they themselves have played a role in shaping.” If methodological criticism isn’t what turns you on (even clear, concise, enlightening methodological criticism), read it because it uses a love triangle as an explanatory factor and comes very close to saying “Fieldwork: ur doin it wrong.”

Yes, the concept of “wrong” does exist in anthropology, though it loses much of its resonance and respectability when applied to contemporary work as opposed to that of the Benighted Past; we too are suckers for our own progressive narrative. But the continual eye-rolling and hand-wringing over Mead indicates that in the absence of being able to judge our subjects with impunity, anthropologists tie the reputation of the discipline to holding our methods to very high standards; some would say this is in the name of science, but I (loath to lean on the term “science” for credibility) think it’s really just necessary to good scholarship. And I hold out a little bit of idealistic hope that if the avatar for the anthropological profession weren’t a woman whose methods were so loosey-goosey and unrigorous, pundits et al wouldn’t be so quick to affix the word “anthropological” to any cock-eyed analysis that happened to mention the word “taboo.”

After all, real anthropologists need those jobs. We have precious few enough as it is.

_{When I talk about “standards,” I don’t mean a political-sciencey Scrupulous Standardization of the Gathering of Facts. That’s impossible to do in anthropology, and even if it weren’t it would certainly lead to the impossibility of any pop anthro — up to and including most of my contributions to print media thus far, and arguably some of my contributions to this blog as well. I mean a constant interrogation of the role one’s own outlook plays in filtering information, and a refusal to present one’s conclusions as uncolored by those filters.}