Public anthropology

Public Anthropology, according to Robert Borofsky, a professor at Hawaii Pacific University, "demonstrates the ability of anthropology and anthropologists to effectively address problems beyond the discipline - illuminating larger social issues of our times as well as encouraging broad, public conversations about them with the explicit goal of fostering social change" (Borofsky 2004).

Merrill Singer has criticized the concept of public anthropology on the grounds that it ignores applied anthropology. He writes: "given that many applied anthropologists already do the kinds of things that are now being described as PA, it is hard to understand why a new label is needed, except as a device for distancing public anthropologists from applied anthropologists" (Singer 2000: 6). Similarly, Barbara Rylko-Bauer writes: "one has to ask what is the purpose of these emerging labels that consciously distinguish themselves from applied/practicing anthropology? While they may serve the personal interests of those who develop them, it is hard to see how they serve the broader interests of the discipline" (Rylko-Bauer 2000: 6). Eric Haanstad responds to Singer's claim by arguing that public anthropology does not necessarily entail the exclusion of applied anthropology (Haanstad 2001a). Alan Jeffery Fields defends the concept of public anthropology by claiming it is "a useful trope for one important reason: it calls attention to the fact that there is a division between public and academic perceptions" (Fields 2001a).

See also

• Public sociology

References

• Borofsky, Robert. 2004 Conceptualizing Public Anthropology. Electronic document, http://www.publicanthropology.org/Defining/definingpa.htm, accessed April 11, 2007.
• Fields, Alan Jeffrey. 2001a Responsible Public Anthropology. Public Anthropology: The Graduate Journal. Electronic document, http://www.publicanthropology.org/Journals/Grad-j/Wisconsin/fields.htm, accessed April 12, 2007.
• Haanstad, Eric. 2001a Anthropology Revitalized: Public Anthropology and Student Activism. Public Anthropology: The Graduate Journal. Electronic document, http://www.publicanthropology.org/Journals/Grad-j/Wisconsin/haanstad.htm, accessed April 12, 2007.
• Rylko-Bauer, Barbara. 2000 Toward a More Inclusive Relevant Anthropology. Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter 11(2): 6-7.
• Singer, Merrill. 2000 Why I Am Not a Public Anthropologist. Anthropology News 41(6): 6-7.
• Thibodeaux, Jarrett. 2016. Production as Social Change: Policy Sociology as a Public Good. Sociological Spectrum. 36 (3): 183-190.

External links

• The Prism: Anthropological Reflections on Culture & Society
• Public Anthropology.org

Further reading

• Atalay, Sonya (2012). Community-based Archaeology: Research With, By, and for Indigenous and Local Communities. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0520273362.
• Battle-Baptiste, Whitney (2011). Black Feminist Archaeology. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. ISBN 1598743791.
• Beck, Sam; Carl A. Maida, eds. (2013). Toward Engaged Anthropology. New York: Berghahn Books. ISBN 0857459104.
• Behar, Ruth (1997). Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that Breaks Your Heart. Boston: Beacon Press. ISBN 0807046310.
• Delle, James A.; Stephen A. Mrozowski; Robert Paynter, eds. (2000). Lines that Divide: Historical Archaeologies of Race, Class, and Gender. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. ISBN 1572330864.
• Farmer, Paul (2005). Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor (2 ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24326-2.
• Harrison, Ira E. and Harrison, Faye V. Eds. (1998). African American Pioneers in Anthropology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252067363
• Harrison, Faye. V. (1997) Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further Toward an Anthropology of Liberation. Washington D.C.: American Anthropological Association. ISBN 0913167835
• Luktehaus, Nancy C. 2008. Margaret Mead: The Making of An American Icon. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691148082
• Low, Setha M.; Sally Engle Merry (October 2010). "Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas: An Introduction to Supplement 2". Current Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press) 51 (S2): S203–S226. doi:10.1086/653837.
• Sanford, Victoria; Asale Angel-Ajani, eds. (2006). Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. ISBN 0813538920.
• Spector, Janet D. (1993). What This Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 0873512782.