We don’t have an email list.

This was brought home to me recently when a European colleague emailed me and said they had an announcement they wanted widely circulated. Could I tell them the address of the American anthropology listserv so that they could post it there? I was like: uh…..

We lack a single unified way of communicating with each other. I mean, we have one of course. The AAA could easily create numerous forums for us to communicate with one another about our discipline. But in fact the blog is mostly focused on posting the fact that the staff can win industry awards or throwing up pictures of adorable subaltern children. There is no general AAA list, no system in place to quickly create section lists, etc.

It’s not that there aren’t lots of good scholarly debates on the net. We’ve formed patchwork communities with varying degrees of academic seriousness, and these have done a great job of keeping the conversation going. But there is no centralized or all inclusive place for us all — and especially not one which has all the nice affordances of a listserv: polyvocal, pushed to our inbox, long-format, familiar technologically to anyone who uses email. It’s a bit shocking really.

Or maybe it’s not. It is one thing to have every anthropologist in the UK on AnthropologyMatters or every Oceanist on ASAO — quite another thing to try to cram 20,000 people onto a single mailing list.

Here at SM we’ve often thought about starting a list of this sort, but we’ve never felt comfortable making such a hegemonic gesture. And also, no one has the time to manage it. It’s exactly the sort of thing the AAA should have tried to run with about fifteen years ago, but (to the best of my knowledge) never got around to it. While a listserv feels like an answer to me, there might be other ones — the point would be centralization, however it happens, technically.

You will notice that this statement says nothing about our organizational structure. We are proceeding with the plan of becoming an interest group under the AAA. From the looks of it that hasn’t stopped SOYUZ from including non-AAA members and nurturing ties with other professional organizations, so I’m optimistic that we can follow in their footsteps.

Note that we do not need formal by-laws like what is shown in the SOYUZ link, nor am I suggesting that this statement or any other needs to be set in stone. Basically we’re just looking for a place to start, so evaluate this as provisional and not final.

We have yet to settle on a name. I’ve created a Survey Monkey with all the suggested names so far. It also has a text box where you can leave additional name ideas, you know, just in case you’re sitting on a brilliant name and haven’t told us yet. The field is wide open now, but we’ll narrow it first and then have a run off. I use the name Digital Methods in the mission statement below just as a place holder. Also note that the t-shirts could look like the “Crystal Method” and would be awesome. Just saying.

I am now creating the charter membership list. Joining is free. Please email me at MDTHOMPS @ ODU.EDU with the name and contact information you’d like for me to use in future communications. AAA members will have to use the name and email address that the AAA has on file. In late April we will have a more thorough and proactive membership drive, right now I’m just trying to get enough people to launch the group.

The next order of business will be putting together an OA themed panel for the AAA annual meeting. Giovanni has already said he wants to be involved, Tom Boellstorff in a previous post seemed interested, I was thinking we could ask Jason Jackson too, maybe we could rope CKelty into it. What do others think? Anybody want a piece of this conference action and/or take it over from me?

Okay, so recap:
1. Comment on this mission statement (below)
2. Respond to Survey Monkey about name
3. Email me with contact info to join
4. Chime in about OA panel/roundtable idea
5. Share this widely

Statement of Purpose

The Digital Methods Group is a network of anthropologists interested in how Internet driven platforms of social exchange are challenging the way research is done, how anthropology is taught, and how anthropologists communicate with each other, the public, and our subject communities. Organized as an interest group under the American Anthropological Association it acts as a forum for sharing ideas, promoting online activities, and advancing our professional concerns.

Our aim includes seeking out connections with similar efforts in other disciplines and professional associations who are interested in promoting the professionalization of online activities. We envision creating and maintaining an online presence through multiple formats including a website that will archive all of the interest group’s work and serve as a hub where anyone can freely participate, access material and information, and communicate.

The goals of the Digital Methods Group include:

• To make connections across all major subfields of anthropology by examining how researchers are using digital methods in data collection, analysis, and storage as well as their application in peer-reviewed publications.

• To consider how anthropology courses, classrooms, labs, and field schools at the undergraduate and graduate levels might be transformed by the introduction of net platforms in lecture, seminar, student collaboration, and course assignments.

• To encourage communication among anthropologists through blogging and online social networks, promoting the good work already being done and recruiting others to join the conversation.

• To raise anthropology’s profile among the general public through online communication.

• To document how net platforms might impact the ways in which anthropologists nurture long term ties with subject communities, research participants, and other stakeholders.

• To discuss and refine ethical use and best practices for the above by hosting workshops and roundtables that consolidate our experiences, successes and failures, and spread the technical knowledge necessary for using these platforms with ease.

• To promote the professional interests of its members by framing discourses within the discipline of anthropology concerning digital methods of research, teaching, and communication so that the practice of using such net platforms becomes more widespread.

Currently we are envisioning a group that, like a human brain, is divided into two hemispheres — one inside the AAA and one on the outside. The group will be dues free and without a budget or elected officers. This organizational structure is not set in stone and may change in the near or distant future as the needs of the group dictate.

We are also looking for a name that is authentic and catchy, but not ephemeral. It should convey to other anthropologists in an instant who we are and what we do without being confusing or overwhelming.

Input on a mission statement will be of great benefit to our working group as we collaborate this month to draw up something formal to share with you here and on Neuroanthropology. After we get enough nominations for the name, maybe we could put it up for a vote somehow.

With gratitude,
//Matt

In last week’s post I asked readers to make a wish list of what they wanted such a “Digital Anthropology” group to do. Today I’d like to consider whether, given what we can realistically hope to accomplish, we still want to put our proposed group under the aegis of the AAA. I will start by laying out some of the pros and cons of being AAA affiliated.

Please refer to the Association’s protocols for establishing a new interest group. Notice that the AAA provides the option of self-organization as an interest group so that members may have a “vehicle for coming together.” Since it is the case that the web provides so many other platforms for pursuing our goals and shared interests, we don’t really need the AAA to help us make our group. There are plenty of other vehicles out there.

Most importantly calling ourselves a AAA interest group limits our potential membership and circumscribes our activities (see the AAA by-laws). One reader described this as “parochial” direction for us to take and that’s an apt turn of phrase. By forming within the AAA we will be, by definition, exclusive. Broke grad students and the un/underemployed, people outside the US, non-cultural professionals who belong to other associations may all be left out if they are not already AAA members. However, I would suggest that this limitation is not as consequential as it seems, more below.

There are still some good reasons why we should accept these limitations and proceed to organize within the AAA. Many of us are dissatisfied with the current state of our professional organization. On this very blog there have been calls to boycott and abandon the Association for what we perceive as its bad behavior. We want a different publication regime that includes Open Access principles and more recognition paid towards legitimating online activities for hiring, promotion, and tenure; we want everyone from the rank-and-file to Big Name Professors to join us in using net platforms for teaching, research, and communication.

These changes are not going to happen on their own. The AAA is not going to see the light unless WE flip the switch. Instead of giving up on our admittedly stodgy professional association, I am suggesting that we get inside the damn thing and take it over.

If the primary focus of this interest group lies outside the AAA then we shouldn’t organize under the AAA in the first place. If everyone is envisioning a collective that joins forces with international, cross-disciplinary organizations embracing all the net has to offer in linking everything and everyone in a new and truly global anthropology… fine. But then we’re talking about a whole other ball of wax. In that case the AAA would be a burden and we should just bypass it entirely.

If people want a AAA interest group then we’re going to have to be much more circumspect in what we actually do. As a AAA interest group our energies must be directed towards (1) fomenting change within the AAA, to bring it kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century, and (2) serving the AAA membership, so that those of us who are wired can share our expertise and that others might be educated on why the issues that matter to us are important.

Is this parochial? Indubitably. Is this going to change the world? No, its only going to change our small part of it. But you gotta start somewhere, right?

I was and still am in awe of all the great ideas people floated in last week’s column. And being ambitious is great, in fact its encouraged. Our proposed AAA interest group does not have to curtail our dreams of global domination a truly transnational anthropology. Remember, we can always get together and talk about Anthropology 2.0 or 3.0 or whatever ’till our faces turn blue. An interest group does not preclude continued discussion and debate, nor does it limit who we can converse with. We can talk about anything, but what we do, the actions we take as a collective, are going to be rather narrow.

Ultimate and proximate goals.
Alright people, let’s all be realists now. Everyone has 101 things to do in their professional lives not counting all our personal obligations. Grad students gotta write, adjuncts gotta teach, junior faculty gotta make tenure. How much time are we really going to put into this thing? And given that our time is so precious, what are the most effective actions we can take?

If you’ve accepted my premise that the interest group needs to be “parochial” in its aims, then the ultimate goal is fomenting change within the AAA. Politically speaking, in order to accomplish that there are some steps we’re going to need to take in order to raise our profile and burnish our prestige so that the “powers that be” cannot ignore us. These comprise our proximate goals and, basically, they consist of serving the AAA membership.

Using the AAA annual meeting we can host panels, workshops, and roundtables that focus on how net platforms are challenging the way anthropology is taught, the way research is done, and how anthropologists communicate with each other, the public, and our subject communities. Technophobes can learn to tweet. Why blogging is awesome will be explained. The advantages of shared data can be considered. OA principles will be defended. Why do this in meatspace? Because our intended audience is not the choir, but the unconverted.

What about the anthropology of cyberworlds? I’m glad you asked. The people who study social networks and digital worlds can help shape our pedagogy and communication strategies. These are folks who have considered the consequences of the net for anthropology in depth and can help us develop best practices to disseminate to the membership at large. The number of people interested in, say, gender diversity in WoW is small, the number of people who can benefit from understanding what implications MMORP’s have on research methodology or making class assignments is, potentially, everyone and inclusive of non-cultural anthropologists. We want to harness the latter.

Using a website and blog we can archive everything we do, sharing our activities and insights with non-members. Annual meeting events (with the exception of the inevitable pub crawl) can be shared and white papers circulated to everyone who cares to point their browser at us. We’ll be one of the more public faces of the AAA and we can talk to whomever we want about everything under the sun. Will it matter that some people won’t be able to “join” us? Well, the fact that I am not able to “join” the faculty in your department does not mean we cannot collaborate. The same will be true here. You don’t have to be a member to see a website or leave a comment.

Once a year the Section Assembly meets and the Digital Anthropology Group (let’s call it DANG for fun) must file a memo accounting for everything we’ve done in the past year. The section chairs will see our report and say, “Wow, these DANG anthropologists are really useful to have around. Look at how they’re building connections across subfields.” This makes us look good in front of the Executive Board.

Later, once we’ve shown ourselves to be worth two shakes and we want to submit a resolution before the Board about recognizing online work or preserving OA principles the Board will say, “Oh yeah. I know these guys. They know what they’re talking about.” And board member Dick will say, “I picked up a great class assignment idea at their workshop.” And board member Jane will say, “I found out about this great journal HAU through their website.” That’s how you get people to listen to what you have to say and bring them into your sphere of influence, by gift giving, here the gift of our expertise.

As we serve more AAA members our organization will grow, especially if we remain as an dues free interest group. At the same time we’re helping people, we’re creating a political constituency of voters who are educated on the issues that matter to us. If we get big enough we might be able to recruit a viable candidate to run for the Executive Board and really start to push for change. Normally an associate professor at Name Brand University would probably prefer to have her eyes plucked out than try to win some popularity contest. But what if we’ve already got the emails for, say, 200 people who will check the box on the ballot? Now that ring is within reach.

The AAA office staff was enthusiastic about our idea to start a new interest group. I was told that interest groups are growing in popularity (because they’re free) and that the Association is considering doing more to promote this medium. There are no elected officials or governing documents for the interest groups, only a “convener” who serves as a point of contact with the AAA. I am volunteering to serve as convener for a year or two and Daniel Lende is willing to serve as convener for a year or two after that. There’s already a group of us willing to work together to write a mission statement which we will share with you here and on Neuroanthropology.

It won’t be that hard to make this thing happen inside the AAA. The question is, before we proceed, are we sure that’s the direction we want to go in?

In this post I’d like to consider what else such a digital anthropology interest group could do. I compiled a list of different ideas readers brought up in the last column about an OA interest group. Let’s work together to add to the list! Being that we’re in the most incipient planning stages I suggest we brainstorm freely – make wishes even – and worry about sorting it all out later.

Once we’ve inventoried peoples’ ideas about the interest group we can draft a mission statement and share it here and on other blogs too in order to get the best feedback. So without further ado, here’s what we’ve come up with so far:

The purpose of a Digital Anthropology interest group

• Officially we are for “networking and/or the informal exchange of information.” So far, four important trends have developed:
• (a) Be a common meeting place for anthros to brainstorm about new platforms.
• (b) Compile and communicate important information relevant to our purpose
• (c) Be savvy about our place within the AAA
• (d) Build coalitions with other groups outside the AAA

(a) A common meeting place

• Organize events at the annual meeting of the AAA like roundtables, panels, and receptions
• Make any AAA event we’re in accessible to others via teh interwebs

(b) Compile and communicate important information

• Have an active online presence through multiple formats
• Create a one stop shop for OA issues: inventory OA publications, announce calls for papers or reviewers, publicize OA events, write strong statements on why and how we should support OA
• Make use of server space from AAA &/or utilize Kerim’s old Open Access Anthropology blog

(c)Be savvy about our place within the AAA

• Highlight anthropology blogs so that more members are aware that anthropology is happening online
• Raise awareness of digital anthropology issues within the AAA so that more members know why OA matters
• Make recommendations to the AAA Executive Board regarding OA, such as having an “official” OA venue alongside the AAA’s conventional publications
• Learn the history of the old “Scholarly Communications” interest group, especially why they disbanded
• Be proactive about talking to subject area librarians for anthropology and the folks involved in planning AnthroSource
• Don’t break the AAA’s precious rules and try to change the system from the inside

(d)Build alliances with groups outside the AAA

• Here the idea is to maintain open lines of communication with like minded folks and not form another alternative organization. This group, by definition, is a part of the AAA
• Comrades in arms to include: Open Anthropology Cooperative; World Council of Anthro Assoc; specific anthropology departments (but who?)

Okay everybody, what else you got?

One reader suggested that “section groups” within the AAA might organize in order to jointly fund a new OA venue. Unfortunately the section groups have an uneven track record when it comes to cooperation, especially when money is involved. If you’ve witnessed factionalism play out in your home department then you’re no doubt aware that academics are all too willing to collectively poke themselves in the eye instead of cooperating.

But what really nixes the deal is that section groups do not have direct control of their finances. Of course they may set dues for their membership and their executive boards oversee the allocation of those funds for various objectives such as awards, publications, and section conferences. However, the sections do not keep their own bank accounts separate from the AAA. The parent organization holds the section group’s money for them. If funds are needed they must request that the AAA write checks on their behalf.

This passage, 4(h), from the AAA bylaws on the permissible actions of sections is also illuminating. A section, “May engage in publishing and program activities appropriate to its purposes; it may appoint editors and other agents of the Section and set publication and program policies for the Section, so long as the policies are not inimical to the interests of the Association” (my emphasis). Are we so sure that the Executive Board does not perceive OA as inimical to the interests of the Association?

Interest groups offer another way for AAA members to organize themselves and may prove helpful to our cause, at least in the near term. Interest groups differ from sections in terms of their size (minimum membership for a section is 225, for an interest group 25). Interest groups may not set dues, so any AAA member may join one at no cost – although the interest group can charge fees for services provided if the AAA Executive Board okays it. Whereas sections are required to have elected offices and a President, there are no hierarchical political structures imposed on the interest groups. Sections must compose a charter that defines their governance, but interest groups do not.

The major difference in terms of the two is that sections have more political clout within the Association because each of the sections send a representative, usually the President, to a council of sections. Although it is an uneven playing field (the larger, more prestigious sections have more clout) this committee does send a representative that reports directly to the Executive Board. Interest groups do not participate in this.

Sections also have the ability to sponsor conference panels, another way in which they can steer intellectual debate and communicate new knowledge. Interest groups cannot do this on their own, although I see no reason why an interest group could not collaborate with or otherwise persuade a section group to sponsor a panel or roundtable on their behalf. For example, after 9-11 there was a Justice Action Network of Anthropologists that (I think) overlapped with the leadership of the Society for the Anthropology of North America.

Are there 25 people out there interested in forming an OA interest group within the AAA?

The purpose of such a group, at least according to its description in the bylaws, is “networking and/or informal exchanges of information.” So we could hang out together, basically. It could be a way to meet others who are into OA too. We could submit an abstract for a roundtable at an annual meeting of the AAA. Certainly the fact that its free and without an organized leadership is in sympathy with the principles of OA.

Who knows, maybe if we really rocked this interest group thing it could be a stepping stone to a section group somewhere down the line?

And really, what’s the worst that could happen? A flash in the pan that is unable to sustain itself as a lasting organization? If its the case that we can’t effectively organize ourselves in meatspace, then we just go back online and blog. No worries.

I bring up the idea of forming an interest group because at this point I’m still searching for an answer to the underlying question of what to do next. Are we better off pushing for OA within the AAA, or should we seek to promote OA independent of our professional association? We could, for example, seek to build alliances with someone else, the SFAA or CASCA perhaps, and continue to support existing OA venues or start new ones.

But if we visualize a day when American Anthropologist and Cultural Anthropology are free and open to everyone we’re going to need a way to get our foot in the door at the AAA and try to turn, however slowly, that big ship around.

You can read the AAA bylaws here.

But, in case you don’t feel like scrolling right now, how about a couple of nice selections from the AAA response:

We write today to make the case that while we share the mutual objective of enhancing the public understanding of scientific enterprise and support the wide dissemination of materials that can reach those in the public who would benefit from such knowledge (consistent with our association’s mission), broad public access to information currently exists, and no federal government intervention is currently necessary.

Also:

We know of no research that demonstrates a problem with the existing system for making the content of scholarly journals available to those who might benefit from it.

Emphasis mine in both cases.  Take the time to check out the comments, which you can download as a PDF and share with your friends and colleagues (just an idea).  Comments?  Thoughts?

Update: Here is the direct link to the PDF of the AAA comment.

Update II: A few reactions from around the web:

Daniel Lende: American Anthropological Association Takes Public Stand Against Open Access

Dienekes Pontikos: The American Anthropological Association opposes open science

Michael E. Smith: American Anthropological Association joins the dark side of the force (with appropriate imagery)

Update III: For some background on what’s wrong with the RWA, check out this post by Barbara Fister

Update IV: Kristina Killgrove makes an excellent point about grad students who find themselves outside of the system, here.

The other side of the ‘can’ question is one of publicity: behind closed doors someone somewhere within the AAA may be giving the nod to whatever lobbiest we are allied with to oppose (or support) the AAA. Do they have the integrity to tell their membership what they are doing in our name? I am guessing that the answer is ‘no’, simply because any sort of public statement of this sort of back room dealing would immediately raise questions about proper procedure at AAA, which is exactly the topic these informal dealings are attempting  to avoid.

So: can the AAA successfully, publicly, and in a timely fashion announce a policy decision it has made or will we have to wait 8 months for the next AAA meetings and a DOA panel entitled something like ‘HR 3699:  An Important Topic Having To Do With $This_Year’s_Conference_Theme_Branding”?

I’m hopeful, but I’m not holding my breath.

You had to walk a couple of blocks from the convention center to get anywhere interesting, but once you did Montreal turned out to be delovely. When I told a European friend of mine how much I liked it he nodded his head and gave me a smile that indicated that I was beginning to realize what he’d known all along: “This is the best city in North America” he told me. Frankly, I’m ready to believe it. It seems unfair to characterize Montreal as a mix of other things rather than the carrier of its own unique should, but that is the language I find to describe it: The architecture looks like Paris and Chicago got smushed together, the lively pedestrian neighborhoods look like someone took Manhattan and stretched it out just enough that it could breathe. Catholic monumentalities look like someone tried to build Ancien Regime France in the middle of Iroquois country. Which, I guess, is exactly what happened.

Seriously, though, the term ‘meatgasm’ is not hyperbole. It seemed to be everywhere in Montreal. The local cuisine’s mix of French elegance (read: fry everything) and North American hunting meant pretty much everything seemed on offer. The exception was greens. I suppose that when you live that far north in a colony settled by people who think ‘flavor’ means ‘butter’ you’re not going to get the salad as an elaborated cultural form. Ditto with spices.

And then there was China town, which was like some sort of Stanislaw Lem short story: complete with Chinese gates, but filled with Vietnamese restaurants, which were in fact all run by Chinese people speaking southern dialects with small figures of Guan Yu and Guanyin perched over the cash register.

I may seem overly focused on food — I’ve been accused of this in the past, folks — but it was unfortunately the only reason I had to leave the convention center. As we continue on with the post-game coverage, feel free to let me know what of Montreal you saw when you were there. I’m hoping especially more coverage of Occupy stuff as we move forward.

So consider this an open thread: beyond the AAAs themselves, what did you think of Montreal?

This is boring!

Why do you have to talk for so long?

You’re out of time, so I’m outta here.

Can’t we just download the powerpoint?

Yes folks, you all know what I’m talking about: professors bitching and moaning about having sit listen to read conference papers.

What’s that? You thought I was talking about students complaining about our teaching? Funny you should mention that: when we’re the ones talking, they’re the ones who lack attention spans, are insufficiently focused on their research, and don’t value the importance of old-fashioned, pre-internet forms of Real Communication. But when we’re in the audience they’re the ones who are boring and under-rehearsed.

Now that AAAs are almost upon us, I think it is time to take up again the banner of the well-prepared, well-written, well-presented conference paper and defend it against the hordes of insurgent Pecha Kuchaologists and tenured, cynical silverbacks.

To be sure, lecturing is hardly the ideal form of pedagogy. And we get a lot less well-prepared, well-written, well-presented conference papers than we are entitled to. But this doesn’t take away from the fact that in principle reading out loud is one of the best communication tools we humans have.

Talking to someone face-to-face is an extraordinarily powerful way to communicate — it’s like we’ve spend thousands of years slowly engineering ourselves to be able to do it or something. And reading a prepared, rhetorically powerful document is in many respects the best way of talking face-to-face: a clear message, crafted phrases, no ifs ands or buts.

Listening to read texts — especially academic read texts — can be exhausting. The amount of information that can be crammed into a 20 minute paper is actually pretty enormous. It doesn’t have to be, but it can be. Academic papers are especially exhausting because we imagine our audiences are highly trained professionals who know how to think, listen, and pay attention. We ask more out of our audience because we believe they are capable of giving it to us. Those three seconds in the Matrix before Keanu Reeves opens his eyes and says “I know Kung Fu”? That’s what I’m talking about.

If you are an academic and you can fit everything you need to say about your into 20 slides in 20 seconds, then you need to learn to think longer thoughts. For truelies.

Let’s face it: the reason that read papers suck is that people suck at reading them. We don’t teach oral presentation the way we should, we don’t create opportunities for our students to practice speaking in public, and — amazingly — we don’t value or take seriously the important opportunity that conferences present. All scholarship is a dialogue, and conferences are literally so. They are the center, not the periphery, of our engagement with others.

So this AAA season, do everyone a favor:

write a killer 7 page paper that you have lavished love on.

read it out loud and make sure it takes 20 minutes to deliver.

edit it for clarity.

repeat those last two steps three more times.

If you are a shy speaker, get totally trashed on tequila before your talk so you’ll be more outgoing.

…

no just kidding about that last one.

good luck and… see you at Montreal!

With the annual American Anthropological Association annual meetings just around the corner in November, it’s time to start priming the pump with some topics for us to kvetch about in Montreal. We all talk constantly, for instance, about how for-profit publishing is taking over anthropology. But how bad is it really? What does a bird’s eye view of the journal publishing industry reveal? Jason answered this question by taking 75 of the most commonly read anthropology journals and seeing who was involved in publishing them. The take-away? Roughly 66% of our top journals are being run and published by Big Content, while only a third are under the control of non-for-profit publishers.

Where do these numbers come from? Jason got the list of 75 journals from the Thompson Reuters journals citation database, which measures the ‘impact factor’ of various journals. Although these rankings have not been a big deal to sociocultural anthropologists, they do matter in many other disciplines, and so this is as good a place to start as any. From there Jason pretty much just poured himself a big cup of coffee (or maybe something else?) and then tracked down who was involved in publishing each journal. He counted any for-profit involvement in publishing, so even though the American and British anthropology associations (the AAA and the RAI) are non-profit, their publishers Wiley-Blackwell is, and their journals got chalked up in the ‘for profit’ category.

One of the great, if slightly scary, things that Jason does with this chart is predict Wiley’s next move: if it really wanted to take over the world, it would buy Sage.

After reading Jason’s post, you might feel that anthropology’s publishing situation is like the last minute of Return of the Jedi, with Jason Jackson’s highly realistic synthetic hand being reattached by a medical droid while Wiley Fett spirits Tom Boellstorff back to Tatooine encased in a block of carbonite. You’d be right — there is still lots of hope in the situation, but it is up to us to see it through.

The reason is simple: as much as we like to bitch and moan about the evils of Wiley-Blackwell, Sage, Elsevier, and so on, the simple fact of the matters is that a lot of these publishers have a remarkably enlightened approach to open access. Most of them, for instance, will allow you to post publisher’s proofs (the final draft version of your article) on your website or institutional repository. When we read the table of contents for the latest American Anthropologist but can’t download the article, it is only most Wiley’s fault — if the actual author just posted their PDFs of the article online, we’d be set.

Of course, Big Content is still sucking our lifeblood from us money-wise, but it is important to recognize that they have opened the door to us to make our work available to, well, everyone — but only if we take the time to do so. They are betting that we won’t. Our greatest challenge going forward is to find ways to make sure that we do. What sort of institutions and incentives can do this? That, currently, is the million-dollar question.

Social science research isn’t on the firmest ground in these days of economic malaise, but it’s not like this news is exactly exploding into the headlines across the nation.  Funding cuts, like the recent “trimming” of the Fulbright program,* seem to take place somewhat under the radar.   The same can be said of the recent debates about the value of social, behavioral, and economic (SBE) sciences that took place about a month ago in a congressional hearing on June 2, 2011 (this link has PDFs of the introductory statements and the testimony of all the witnesses).  The social sciences face an uphill battle, in part, because some folks see them as mere “soft sciences” that do not merit public support.  The House panel subcommittee meeting was about assessing the relative merit of the social sciences and how federal funding should or should not be allocated to researchers.  Did you hear about this?  Well, I didn’t–at least not until just a few days ago.  Funny what can happen in the middle of the summer, isn’t it?  Anyway, here’s a recap of what went down according to a summary from the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA):

The goal of this hearing is not to question whether the social, behavioral, and economic sciences produce interesting and sound research, as I believe we all can agree that they do. I come from a social science background. I have a degree in political science and economics. Rather, the goal of our hearing is to look at the need for federal investments in these disciplines, how we determine what those needs are in the context of national priorities, and how we prioritize funding for those needs, not only within the social science disciplines, but also within all science disciplines, particularly when federal research dollars are scarce.

Brooks’ language sounds cool, rational, and impartial.  However, according to journalist Jeffrey Mervis:

Brooks may have been pulling his punches. In comments to ScienceInsider after the hearing, Brooks expressed serious doubts about the value of the social sciences. The freshman legislator said he “understands the value of basic research” because his constituents in and around Huntsville, Alabama, make up “one of, if not the most, highly educated districts in the sciences.” Brooks did say that “my priorities would be to protect basic research in the sciences as much as possible, even to the extent of cutting entitlements, in order to generate enough funding for basic research.” But his definition of the term “basic research” turns out to be synonymous with the so-called hard sciences, and to exclude the social sciences.

Gutman, for his part, argued in defense of NSF funding for social science research.  From the COSSA report: “[Gutman] provided many examples of how SBE research has served the nation including research on human actions and decision making, terrorism, artificial speech, matching markets and kidney transplants, spectrum auctions and the importance of protecting social networks in disaster situations.” Elfeinbein, who is a psychologist by training, also provided testimony about the value and applicability of of social science research.  She discussed the applicability of her own research for business, the military, medicine, and education.  When asked why SBE science is important for science in general, the Federal government, and the American taxpayer, Elfeinbein stated (from the PDF of her actual testimony):

The social and behavioral sciences in general are important because technology, health, industry, and politics are ultimately in the hands of people–who behave rationally and irrationally.  The learning and implementation of all other sciences depends on the human factor.

That is certainly a point that many anthropologists would agree with.  Up next was the anthropologist in the crowd, Peter Wood.  His position was that “the SBE sciences should not be x-ed out completely from the budget of the NSF or other federal agencies.” However, Wood did say that he thinks a small percentage of SBE funding goes to what he called “trivialities and politicized programs.” Wood laid out a “triage” approach to cutting the SBE NSF budget, which he explained in more detail a few days later in a post he wrote for the Chronicle of High Ed called “How to Save the Social Sciences.”  Wood’s first point was that there is plenty of funding sources that are non-governmental, so NSF funding isn’t all that necessary.  His second point: there are already too many SBE PhD’s, and the NSF is making the situation worse by continuing to fund them.  His third point of this triage is where things start getting a little dicey.  Wood advised the panel to:

Pay attention to the rise of anti-scientific ideologies within SBE disciplines. In my field of anthropology, for example, the recent controversy over the attempt by the Executive Board of American Anthropological Association to jettison “science” from the AAA’s mission statement is a pertinent example. Should NSF fund “social science” research in fields that reject the paradigm of scientific investigation?

Since “social, behavioral and economic sciences research does not fit the conditions that define it as a ‘public good,’” [...] it should receive no funding from the Federal government, particularly NSF. She indicated that Foundations were a source that SBE scientists could use and since Smith, Marx, and Keynes all conducted their research without government support, so could today’s economists and other social scientists.

On July 12, the American Association for the Advancement of Science issued a press release that speaks to these very issues:

More than 140 scientific societies and universities today sent a letter urging U.S. policymakers, in their need to cut spending, to avoid singling out specific programs—such as the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences—and to refrain from bypassing independent peer review.

The letter, routed to key lawmakers who are preparing to debate the Commerce, Justice and Science appropriations bill for fiscal year 2012, opposes any attempts to eliminate or substantially reduce funding for particular research programs. Defunding specific grants or entire scientific disciplines “sets a dangerous precedent that, in the end, will inhibit scientific progress and our international competitiveness,” the group warned.

While the Society for Anthropological Sciences is a part of the letter, the American Anthropological Association is curiously absent.  I’m not sure why.  Regardless, it would probably behoove the anthropological community to become a more active–and vocal–part of these discussions.  Silence, in this case, is certainly not golden.

I probably would have had to change my research topic if I hadn’t received a Fulbright dissertation grant to come to Taiwan. The Fulbright program was founded by Senator William Fulbright in 1946, and was initially paid for by selling off war surplus. This makes the current situation all the more depressing. The following chart shows where the current debt comes from.

As you can see, half the debt comes from a combination of Bush-era tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That means that the Fulbright program, originally paid for out of war surplus, is now being cancelled to pay for war debt.

As Maura Elizabeth Cunningham puts it in her post on the China Beat:

Programs like the Fulbright-Hays grants aren’t just about supporting individual scholars; they have a larger mission of promoting work that collectively helps all of us contextualize the world we live in and recognize how it has come to look the way it does. By not providing the funding necessary to support this year’s crop of applicants, the government is implying that such work isn’t important, that we can exist in a global community but don’t need to understand it.

Unlike HTS, the Fulbright program and NEH fund important research which I believe genuinely contributes to our understanding of the world. It is depressing to see our reckless involvement in two unfunded wars now threatening these programs.