Les Field is Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico. Richard G. Fox is President Emeritus, Wenner-Gren Foundation and an Adjunct Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Acknowledgements, Participants in the Wenner-Gren Symposium, Introduction: How Does Anthropology Work Today?, 1. Anthropological Collaborations in Colombia, 2. Gray Spaces and Endless Negotiations: Forensic Anthropology and Human Rights, 3. Collaborating to Meet the Goals of a Native Sovereign Nation: The Tule River Tribal History Project, 4. Doing Cultural Anthropology and Disability Studies in Rehabilitation Training and Research Contexts, 5. In Praise of "Reckless Minds": Making a Case for Activist Anthropology, 6. What Do Indicators Indicate? Reflections on the Trials and Tribulations of Using Food Aid to Promote Development in Haiti, 7. Working Anthropology: A View from the Women's Research Arena, 8. Potential Collaborations and Disjunctures in Australian Work Sites: An Experienced Rendering, 9. The Dilemmas of "Working" Anthropology in Twenty-first-Century India, 10. Ethnographic Alchemy: Perspectives on Anthropological Work from Northern Madagascar, 11. Reflections on the Symposium, References, Index
How do anthropologists work today and how will they work in future? While some anthropologists have recently called for a new "public" or "engaged" anthropology, profound changes have already occurred, leading to new kinds of work for a large number of anthropologists. The image of anthropologists "reaching out" from protected academic positions to a vaguely defined "public" is out of touch with the working conditions of these anthropologists, especially those junior and untenured. The papers in this volume show that anthropology is put to work in diverse ways today. They indicate that the new conditions of anthropological work require significant departures from canonical principles of cultural anthropology, such as replacing ethnographic rapport with multiple forms of collaboration. This volume's goal is to help graduate students and early-career scholars accept these changes without feeling something essential to anthropology has been lost. There really is no other choice for most young anthropologists.