During a discussion on the future of Applied Anthro I mentioned that PR needs collaboration in some form, and since anthropology, for now, is a solitary science, bent on isolating itself from the everyman world, our PR will continue to be poor. My suggestion then, and more recently during correspondence with AAA’s president over an article in The Nation, was that AAA must develop effective collaborations between anthros in the public and private sectors. As mediocre as this may sound, MDs do it, and are rewarded with Discovery Health Channel shows and interviews with Oprah [Dr. Oz is an excellent example]. Until anthropology develops the shrewdness of dealing with the media in a more public and down-to-earth manner, it will continue to be overlooked, and this filters over from magazine articles to departmental budgets.

The public’s exposure to anthropology is limited to poorly written, narrow stereotypes, such as on Third Rock From the Sun, and the more recent Forensic Anthro show on FOX, so their perception of anthropology is of a science that is obscure, or concerned only with digging for human remains. This will not change until anthropology takes PR seriously and addresses all the misinformation currently projected into the mainstream. Such collaboration would mean showing the public how anthro studies are relevant to everyday modern life, not just in a south pacific tribal culture.

Consider, for example, Malinowski, who was writing and publishing between the world wars, at a time when the members of his primary audience, other European intellectuals, were desperately seeking alternatives to the pre-WWI status quo. By presenting the Trobrianders as exemplars of contradictions to received notions in economics, psychology, religion, etc., he spoke directly to those concerns. It helped, too, that the number of competing ethnographies was small and that, as an author, he had a flair for dramatic description.

Now the fact that people in different times and places may have radically different beliefs, customs and habits has become common knowledge, not only in intellectual circles but (thanks to TV documentaries) among the “literate” public as well. The current issue of greatest concern is whether anything at all can be said to be of timeless, universal value, fundamentalisms of one kind or another are a common response, and further revelations that things are different in Bongo-Bongo don’t have the impact they once had. Add the fact that there are now hundreds of ethnographies to choose from and more produced every year. It’s a rough world out there for those who explore social microcosms and hope to find something of general interest to say about them.