As I was an undergraduate, I ran into Kathryn Guerts and I was just simply in her class to get some general education requirements for my BA. Who knew she would open my eyes to the treasure that would become known as medical anthropology- and who knew I would be ‘good at it’.

Now that I’m done with my MA in Medical Anthropology at a prestigious UK university, I work in a hospital as a CNA and eventually will go to nursing school- so I can be off to my latest “Jamie” adventure- one day, I want to work with the UN, WHO or CDC and get involved with transcultural nursing, refugee nursing or even health development/promotion overseas…but we all start small; regardless of an expected MA degree.

Most of my nurses fail to see that I have nearly twice the education that they do and once they found out I was an anthropologist, they started referring me to patients of all kinds of backgrounds:

“You know Russian, right? Anthropology, you know languages”. And when I shake my head no, they ask “How about Hmong?”

Or anytime a patient has a strange behavior, I’m expected to know “What IS it that they are doing?” or when there are complaints or patients not dealing well with hospital policy I’m sent in to kind of ’smooth things over’ because apparently, I can read minds, you see.

*giggles*

But as far as Indiana Jones; I suppose anthropologists face the same kind of crap from the wanna-be’s because of Indiana as do the forensic scientists and the CSI type shows-

the things I learn on SM….

“You are in a position … Unsuitable for negotiation!”

The ravings of a madman? Yes, but Mola Ram is also expressing a cathartic release from the last 150 years of British influence. In particular, the many gun-point forced “negotiations” with the British East India company, which led first to economic dependence and then the colonial state. Mola Ram, being not only a cult leader, but a savvy historian, is surely appreciating this delicious role reversal, and revels in its fist-shaking irony.

And really, is Mola Ram such a bad guy? He’s got great taste in hats, for one thing. Equally dashing in a large skull, or the hip painted head look, you can’t deny his charisma. Yes, he enslaves children. But what annoying children!
Wouldn’t YOU enslave those children? They were asking for it: “Let me die…”
Indeed, I say. And dig some rocks, while you’re at it. Let’s be honest, they’d be toiling in the fields at home anyway. A small price to pay for throwing off the colonial oppressor. Three cheers for the hero of cultural self-determinism.

Mola Ram’s witty retort to Indy is really his one defining moment where he’s on top. Like King Kong on top of the Empire State Building, you’ve got to feel some sympathy for the big guy, even if you know he’s going to fall. Could his dream of shaking off his colonial shackles using glowing rocks actually ever succeed? (efficacy of this plan to be discussed later). Too bad, as we instead get the ending of Gunga Din, just to reference yet another 1930’s film, complete with smart British soldiers. Now who wants to negotiate, brown people!

On the psychoanalysis side, faced with a life of stress and compromise, caught up in fast-paced overwhelming modernity, you find yourself sympathizing with the underdog Mola Ram, wishing on some subliminal level that you could have an army of turbaned, if incompetent, warriors to do your bidding.

Matt

Since a lot of you have confessed to deep-seated (if anxious) relationships with Indiana Jones, I thought I would let you know about IndyGear, a site about Indiana&#82 [...]

Are there any other images of anthropologists in popular culture that we could use to explain the profession?

My students will want to check out the discussions about the influence of Indiana Jones on anthropologists and why they got into anthropology on two other blogs, Savage Minds and Nomadic Thoughts. The conversations are a lot of fun!

We saw Indy d…

I’ve just recently started my BA with anth major, and I can say that I’ve generally gotten the same reactions. The only people who have idea what anthropologists do are anthropologists themselves. (Actaully, that’s not quite true. Botanists do. But they also, for some reason, hate anthropologists.)

God only knows why I chose it as my major, I didn’t even know what it was about! I just had a general romanticized idea based on one of my many aesthetic turns and went with it. There was probably a bit of Indiana in there, even if not directly. Well, I’m enjoying it anyway.

There’s an interesting discussion going on at Savage Minds about the “Indiana Jones Syndrome” in anthropology. Rex writes: When I tell most people that I am an anthropologist, the most common response is “ah… dinosaur bones. Fascinating.” But,…