In a compact series of connected essays, Johns Hopkins anthropology Professor Anand Pandian thinks through what it means to be a professional participant observer, and how to communicate ethnographic research and teach fieldwork to students who will face limited career opportunities in academia. What he argues in A Possible Anthropology: Methods for Uneasy Times (Duke University Press) isn't merely that anthropology is uniquely positioned to study big issues like environmental challenges but that questioning and reexamining the discipline itself is absolutely necessary for its continued relevance. That's sound advice not only for anthropology but any field—see also: journalism, museum leadership and curatorial positions, the tech sector, etc.—that sees itself playing any kind of role in shaping the world we want to make in the future.
Posted in Arts+Culture
