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More on career paths--applied, this time.
mike salovesh (T20MXS1@MVS.CSO.NIU.EDU)
Sun, 11 Dec 1994 00:20:00 CST
Becky Joseph has it right: what I describe for academic anthro today
is not a change, it's an intensification of a pattern that's been
around for quite a while. And she's right, too, in suggesting that
for many the world outside academia is more fulfilling. Leaving the
academy does NOT mean leaving anthropology! Some of the best anthro
around is being done by those in the majority of the profession--
anthropologists who do their work outside the academic world.
Unfortunately, people who teach anthro are almost by definition
those who selected the academic world as their focus. We value
and we understand this world. We know damned little about the
applied world, we mostly chose not to enter it, and we don't value
it. (Once more, I'm talking about what is, not about what ought to
be. I value applied work, I respect those who do it, and I support
it by being a Fellow of the SfAA. But most academic anthros do not
share that view.)
Which raises an interesting question about anthropological training.
If academia is where we train professionals, and academia selects for
those who chose careers outside applied anthropology (to reverse the
usual way we say that), then how does a student find professors
knowledgable and competent in applied anthro to train them for
careers in applied?
Hmmm.
-- mike <salovesh@niu.edu>
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