Sarah Kendzior on life after a PhD in anthropology

Check out this interview with Sarah Kendzior about life after the PhD.  A lot to think about.  And a lot that many people do not want to talk about.  Here’s my favorite quote:

What I realized during my year on the job market is that having a traditional academic career is not as important to me as participating meaningfully in public life—and that the former actually precludes the latter. If I had an academic job, all my work would be behind a paywall. I would lose my audience and my integrity—because I would be working only for myself, only to meet tenure requirements, and I like to engage with the world. I speak to the public.

Read it.

Ryan

Ryan Anderson is a cultural and environmental anthropologist. His current research focuses on coastal conservation, sustainability, and development in the Californias. He also writes about politics, economics, and media. You can reach him at ryan AT savageminds dot org or @anthropologia on twitter.

3 thoughts on “Sarah Kendzior on life after a PhD in anthropology

  1. “If I had an academic job, all my work would be behind a paywall.”- Here I must point out that open access publishing is growing, and there are academics who refuse to publish in journals hidden behind paywalls. My department for instance provides support for online publication of the HAU Journal of Ethnographic Theory, and in my teaching I draw on many excellent open-access journals like Political Ecology and Conservation and Society. From 2014 even the prestigious mainstream journal Cultural Anthropology will be switching to open-access. Just a point of clarification.
    Piers Locke, University of Canterbury

  2. That’s a good point of clarification, Piers. Some doors are opening, and this is a good thing that can’t be ignored. We gotta support the good work that’s being done. Thanks for the comment.

Comments are closed.