This most recent failed walk repeats a path he took in the late 1980s, which he describes in his book The Proving Grounds. In it, he is flown into the upper reaches of the Sepik, crosses the central ranges, and then ends up on the shores of the Lagaip, and then returns to Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. It’s hard to judge, but I reckon the total distance is about 50 kilometers as the crow flies. But that doesn’t really give you a sense of how onerous this walk is. On his website Allen claims that this walk was “the first recorded crossing of the Central Mountain Ranges of PNG”. This is incredibly tough terrain, and he should be congratulated for managing to do it. But he was not the first. Not by a longshot.

Ironically enough, Allen’s ill-fated trip to PNG happened in 2017, which is the 90th anniversary of the actual first white people who crossed Papua New Guinea: Ivan Champion and Charles Karius. Champion and Karius were patrol officers sent by the Australian administration of Papua to explore and map the island. Their epic patrol — which took over a year — involved dozens of people, including Papua New Guinean porters and police men who should be recognized (as Champion and Karius did) as key to the patrol’s success. Rather than getting dropped in the middle of the island as Allen was, Karius and Champion went up the Fly river, crossed the central ranges, located the headwaters of the Sepik river, and then went down it. It’s difficult to describe how difficult this patrol was, especially in 1927, before the advent of GPS or modern synthetic fabrics. Benedict Allen didn’t take a map because of some personal code of honor or something. Karius and Champion didn’t take one because there wasn’t one. And they went to make one. The patrol is described both in Champion’s book Across New Guinea from The Fly to The Sepik and in Champion’s biography of Champion, Last Frontiers”. 

There is also an example of people crossing in the direction that Allen came: From the northern side of the island. During World War II Catholic missionaries, priests, and nuns lived at mission stations up and down the Sepik. When the Japanese invaded, many of them moved upland, into the Sepik headwaters, in order to escape. Several of them, accompanied by the Australian patrol officer James Searson, ascended up into the central ranges, where they were met by the Australian gold miner and plantation owner Dan Leahy. After meeting in Maramuni, Leahy, Searson, and the Catholics ascended the central ranges and then walked down the high valleys in this area, rather than taking sailing down to the south coast. The journey was an incredible feat of endurance. The elderly nuns on that patrol did what Benedict Allen could not: cross the central range and then walk to a town. The walk had its price: Dan Leahy suffered hearing and vision loss for the rest of his life as a result of this trip. This walk is documented both in Fowke’s biography of Leahy, Kundi Dan, and in Theo Aerts’s The Martyrs of Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, there’s no map of the patrol for me to show here. But trust me: It was a big walk.

Others, like Allen, started in the center and then worked their way out, but headed north. Jim Taylor, another government officer, undertook a massive patrol in 1938 and 1939 in which he walked from Mt. Hagen, in the center of the country, over the central ranges, and down the Sepik in canoes. This patrol was amazing for the stamina and endurance of both Taylor and his number two, John Black. Bill Gammage’s book The Sky Travellers  describes this patrol in meticulous detail, and includes the perspectives of the indigenous police and carriers who were on the patrol, as well as the viewpoints of the people who they met along the way. It’s probably my favorite book ever written on Papua New Guinea. Having read it, I can say with conviction the Benedict Allen is no Jim Taylor.

Benedict has also been bested by at least one other travel writer. Kira Salak’s Four Corners is an account of her recreation of Champion and Karius’s 1927-19 28 patrol. In this book she recounts her (successful) journey up the Fly and down the Sepik. She completed her trip in the period between Allen’s two attempts. To be fair, she did get a lift from Kiunga to Telefomin from OTML, the mining company active there. I prefer her book and her subsequent novel about PNG, White Mary, to Allen’s work.

Colonialism in Papua New Guinea can and should be criticized. But it was different in form and intensity than that in other areas of the world, especially before World War II. There was, as Edward Lipuma once put it, no Australian Pizarro in Papua New Guinea. These early patrols were exercises in natural history and cartography, and the explorers had strict orders not to shoot, which they did their best to obey. The patrols were chances for the Papua New Guineans they encountered to hold of things like salt and metal, which they needed. Police and carriers were central to the patrol’s success, and their lives and contribution to the nation were documented in works such as August Kituai’s My Gun My Brother . They helped strengthen the connections between Papua New Guineans and wider world, connections that have continued to grow in strength today.

Australian colonialism in Papua New Guinea was far from perfect, but by global standards it was not bad — although I recognize in saying that I’m setting the bar pretty low. My point here is simply this: Compared to the actual explorers who came before him, Benedict Allen’s walk is small beer. Even by his own, Boy’s Own Adventures standard, he pales in comparison to great patrol officers such as Hides, Taylor, Searson, Champion, and others.

It’s also striking to note just how little Allen learned about PNG when compared to anthropologists who have done fieldwork in this extremely remote location. Take a look at Proving Grounds and then look at Mark Dornstreich’s remarkable 1973 thesis on this same area. Here is a map that Dornstreich published in the thesis showing ethnic groups in the area:

I promise you: This was not easy fieldwork. Unlike Allen, he took his family to the field. His son remembers “Once, my father walked for three days to get to the nearest vehicle, so he could drive to get medicine for my mom’s malaria.”  Best of all Dornstreich went on to have a remarkable 30 year career as a farmer pioneering the local and organic food movement. Now that’s a story.

I could go on: About indigenous trade routes in Papua New Guinea, about the guides and hosts who so graciously offered their hospitality to Allen when he was lost and ill, and so forth. But I hope the point is made: Allen’s writings not only diminish the accomplishments of Papua New Guineans, they diminish the accomplishment of other white explorers! And this despite the fact that so many of those explorers accomplished so much more than he did. You don’t need to be some sort of rabid professor obsessed with political correctness to realize the limits of Benedict Allen’s brand of “exploration”.

1. Anthropologie. This is obvious for many of our readers: Anthropologie is a clothing and home décor retailer in the United States, UK, Germany, and France – not a store where you can find the course readings or cool skull things for your office. In fact, there is no clear connection between what Anthropologie sells and what anthropology is. I’ve heard stories of anthropologists shopping at Anthropologie who have tried to strike up conversation with employees about anthropology, only to be met with blank stares. Furthermore, Anthropologie’s ridiculously high prices for frivolous products are totally counter to anthropology’s long relationship with social justice and political economy. Instead: If you need anthropology-related goods, try patronizing your local bookstore or buy from the local artists wherever you do your research.

2. AnthroCon. This one is a little less obvious. In college, I had a colleague excitedly announce in our student anthropology club meeting that AnthroCon would be in Pittsburgh that year. Having never heard of it, I googled right away to discover something I was not expecting: AnthroCon is furry convention and it takes place in Pittsburgh every year. You may wonder, “What does that even mean?” From Wikipedia: The furry fandom is a subculture interested in fictional anthropomorphic animal characters with human personalities and characteristics. Examples of anthropomorphic attributes include exhibiting human intelligence and facial expressions, the ability to speak, walk on two legs, and wear clothes. Furry fandom is also used to refer to the community of people who gather on the Internet and at furry conventions. Furries read and write fan-fiction or even develop their own “fursonas” (fur + persona) and dress up in costume. While I’m not sure if it really is a true characteristic of the community, there is a strong stereotype of furries that participants have a sexual interest in their activities, and there are plenty of sexualized animal illustrations in a quick Google Images search (which is NSFW) that confirm that bias. Anyway, we get to “AnthroCon” because furry fandom revolves around anthropomorphic animals and furries are also called “anthros.” While I’ve never been to an AnthroCon, I can almost certainly guarantee that they you won’t find a book room with killer discounts on Duke University Press publications and DER films. (Email me if I’m wrong.) Instead: If you want to hang out with anthropologists and familiarize yourself with the latest news, hit up a regional or national anthropology conference or area studies conference!

3. r/Anthropology. r/Anthropology is a subreddit (or community on Reddit) that is ostensibly about anthropology. A cursory glance at the topics shows that the community seems more occupied with current events in popular science that are related to archaeology, paleoanthropology, and human biology and evolution than they are about the discussions going on within. There are some cultural and medical anthropology conversations going on, but not a lot since the community relies heavily upon popular media. I thought it’d be a good idea to promote Savannah Martin’s latest guest blog, “Bidding ‘bon voyage’ to La pensée sauvage” there. Not surprisingly, most of the comments were not far removed from some of those gems in the comments here on Anthrodendum or on Facebook or Twitter: I was treated to the completely uninteresting and unoriginal reminder that Lévi-Strauss meant this thing, not that thing, and it’s all just a pun that I don’t understand (despite my conversational fluency in French), as if no one here at the blog knew these exciting insights into the true meaning of “Savage Minds.” What did shock me about r/Anthropology was that as soon as I reminded Savannah’s critics that Whiteness and being White plays a huge role in how we view the world – and more specifically, that many White anthropologists who are confronted with the possibility of accidentally hurting People of Color seem to default to a defensive stance bound up in their Whiteness rather than a culturally relative and sensitive position that we learn in anthropology – I was called a racist. One person even claimed that, as a test, I should substitute all of the times I used “Whiteness” with “Blackness,” and sure enough I would realize I was being a racist. Huh?

Racism – you may not know – is a combination of racial prejudice and institutional power, and therefore it is largely understood in the social sciences that one cannot be racist against White people. That someone on r/Anthropology claimed the opposite, and that no one challenged their position (though many supported them) tells me that these particular community members are not familiar with what I had believed to be a very Anthro 101 understanding of race and racism. At that moment, I realized that if I wanted to carry on, I would be investing a great deal of time and energy into attempting to educate people that seemed to have a very fixed definition of racism for themselves – I opted out. I’ve gone on plenty of these noble quests before and I won’t dissuade anyone else from doing it, but I just don’t have it in me right now.

I don’t like to make sweeping generalizations right off the bat, and so I thought perhaps that this was just one bad experience. I returned the next day to the subreddit to find two new topics up for discussion. “Are White people a different species than everyone else (because of their Neanderthal DNA)?” was is thankfully deleted and “Can anyone tell me why [A]frican genetics are so dominant?” In the latter topic, the author wants to know why Black-White biracial kids look more Black than White, a question based on deeply undereducated misunderstanding of molecular and population genetics and with all the makes of a springboard for an argument against miscegenation and for eugenics. They might as well be asking, “Why are Black genes so aggressive and threatening?

Basically, my short experience on r/Anthropology leads me to believe that it is what would happen if you took all the horrible things you’ve heard about Reddit and turned it loose with only an introductory anthropology course under its belt. Again, this was a fleeting experience, and I could be wrong, but then again, I don’t know a single person in my admittedly huge professional network that spends any time (or significant time, at least) on r/Anthropology, and no one has spoken up to say I should give it another chance. I could be wrong, but I will say there are definitely better places to find community. Instead: If you’re looking for an internet community of anthropologists, you should probably stick to Facebook and Twitter.

So unless you’re looking for overpriced home goods, Tony the Tiger costumes, or an internet forum that would make Madison Grant proud, it’s best to avoid these places.

fossilized fish and plants at the Peabody Museum, New Haven

One: find your beloveds. Find your beautiful soul-kin. Check in with them every day. Tell them they matter. Weather storms together, like schools of fish in rough seas.

Two: Manifest care however you can, to whatever extent is possible in your given circumstances. Choose care. Choose tenderness. Admit to yourself when you are enacting care in name only. Regroup. Restore. Breathe. Ask for help if you can, in your circumstances.

Three: Find the green things, if you can. As @plantstudies teaches us — remember the plants are with us. They co-conspire our most audacious dreams (co-conspire an audacious otherwise, as Natasha Myers and Timothy Choy both offer us in their work on co-conspiracies)

Four: Remember that many orders of existence & being in this space-time are built on a deep relationality between us & the universe(s). Remember, deep in your cells, what it is to exist in tender co-constitution. What it is to exist in a political order beyond this hate-full present.

Five: Reach through space-time and feel for the other possibilities. If we are indeed in the glitchiest of timelines, remember we have collective will. Collective authorship. We are not beholden to the nightmares of those men of old who envisioned the world in extraction and pain.

Six: Again, as @plantstudies teaches us: soften. This is not a call to dissolve your boundaries and membranes, but a collective urgency to soften like lime rock in eons of rain dripping through caves, molding anew. Even the hardest of circumstances dissolve through gravity and time.

Seven: Story your resistance. Story your refusal, as Audra Simpson teaches us. Become comfortable as the ‘not-known’ breathes, as Marisol de la Cadena teaches us: humble yourself to not-knowing (de la Cadena) in this still magical and agential many-worlds. They cannot extract it all.

Eight: Imagine your kin beyond the narrow and rigid precepts the state imposed on us, as @KimTallBear teaches us. Become enamoured with the kinscapes (the brilliant term employed by Dr Brenda MacDougall in her writing on Métis kinship) that shape your life and longing.

Nine: Love audaciously. Seek fishy and mountainous forms of revenge where warranted. Refuse the scrips and scripts imposed by those intergalactic surveyors rending flesh from land. Leave offerings for the berry plants and the alder and spruce. Listen to the sparrows and squirrels.

Ten: Add your own survival & survivance to this script of refusal & tenderness and audacity & ‘presencing’ (after Vizenor). Write and shout your own existences into pastpresentfuture. Dismantle those ontologies of capital and whiteness that seek to render us mere monuments of excess

Eleven: Tend to sturgeon time & geologics. Remember the eons through which rock becomes sand. Expand your existence in lamellae of calcium & minerals deposited with insistence while stars explode + implode. Kiss the sea like supernova racing as particle + wave hurtling through millennia.

Twelve: Build something beyond this poem, grasping and searching as it is through electrons and energy-hungry servers imaged and imagined through the lens of Silicon Valley politics of (white patriarchal capitalist) possibility. Render a better structure for our audacious connection.

Thirteen: Also, read the scholars and thinkers who are breathing these possibilities into being. Read @hystericalblkns. Read @blacklikewho. Read @policingblack. Read @KimTallBear. Read @EricaVioletLee. Read @plantstudies. Read @prof_carrington. Listen to @Metis_In_Space.

First Encounters of the “Savage Mind”

My initial confrontation with the discomfiting title occurred mere weeks into my transition to graduate school, when I met a fellow PhD student who regularly writes for this blog. I remember my gut reaction to his suggestion that some of my thoughts about being an Indigenous woman in academia would make for insightful, provocative contributions to something called “Savage –”

I wasn’t cool enough to listen vinyl at the time, or there might have been a record scratch just then. Ouch. Did this new peer really just hurl a slur at me? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time, or the only time, that I had experienced racism or discrimination as a Native woman in higher education, but it still stung. The term “savage” has a long, ugly, oppressive, and genocidal history in Native American and Indigenous communities.

From dictionary definitions to historical texts, to modern day slang, “savage” denotes a lack of restraint, inherent violence, primitive nature, or particular cruelty. These negative definitions are precisely why the descriptor was used to dehumanize Indigenous peoples in facilitation of a hallucinated “manifest destiny” in the first place. This “destiny” required a solution to the “Indian Problem,” which mostly meant getting us out of the way, an end goal that produced the mantra “The only good Indian is a dead Indian,” (such a fun quote to learn as the only Indigenous person in your AP U.S. History class…). Because it is easier to exterminate animals than people, we were referred to as “savages,” building the perception that Indigenous people were uncivilized, wild, and cruel, and transforming our humanity into animality. There’s much less cognitive dissonance involved in committing genocide when you’ve got the refrain “savages, savages, barely even human!” musically reassuring you of your moral authority and justifying your crimes against humanity animality.

The Trouble with the Name

To be fair, no, my colleague had not intended to be racist, nor was that the intention of this blog when it initially donned such a moniker. As I have been repeatedly informed, the old name was drawn from European anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss’s 1962 work “La Pensée Sauvage,” translated into the English “The Savage Mind” in 1966. Understood as both wild flowers (pansies) and wild thoughts, the double-meaning was much less offensive in the original French (though I don’t doubt that some of my ancestors were derided as “sauvage” by early French fur trappers in the Pacific Northwest).

However, intention and impact do not hold equal weight when it comes to conversations about race and racism. Although Anthrodendum may not have intended to be racist when it first named itself “Savage Minds,” the impact was indeed the perpetuation of unchallenged racism. Sadly, I too often encounter anthropologists and other scholars who refuse to recognize the existence of racism and discrimination in academia. The unwillingness to even acknowledge this problem in the first place is what keeps our discipline from solving it.

What’s especially disappointing about the choice for the original name of Anthrodendum is the un-examined reason it is an engaging or interesting title. The “About” page states that “We liked the phrase ‘savage minds’ because it captured the intellectual and unruly nature of academic blogging.” While the name may have done just that, the reason that the titles of “Savages Minds” the blog and Lévi-Strauss’s “The Savage Mind” are engaging is because they play off contradicting popular expectations of academia. There is an unspoken understanding between the author and the audience that “savage” is not a word usually associated with “us” (prototypical white anthropologists), and thus the observation that a normally “civilized” group of people can also be “wild” or “unruly” is clever and humorous.

Worse still is that the original title very publicly normalized and implicitly condoned the casual, uninformed (ab)use of the word “savage” by its readers. Malicious intent may be absent, but it is unarguably reckless for a blog whose purpose is to engage in public anthropology to utilize a racial slur while communicating with an audience who is very unlikely to be familiar with the source of the blog’s namesake.

Because the old name depended on stereotypical preconceptions to be clever and provocative, and because the aim of the blog is to engage the public with anthropology, “Savage Minds” did a huge amount of damage when it comes to reinforcing negative beliefs about of Indigenous peoples, regardless of the content of the blog itself. Such reinforcement adds further injury to injury. A historically marginalized group is once again oppressed and marginalized, not just by those in power, but by a discipline whose very roots are bound up in the (sometimes literal) desecrated remains of the people most exploited by its historical entitlement to the pursuit of knowledge. 

For these reasons and more, the name change is a welcome, though very long overdue, step in the right direction towards addressing the problems of implicit racism and colonialism in our discipline.  Indigenous scholars have enough to worry about in anthropology, and I’m happy that writing as a “savage mind” will no longer be one of them.

“The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic or intellectual

forms a bridge between the sharers, which can be the basis for

understanding much of what is not shared between them,

and lessens the threat of their differences,”

Audre Lorde

We often equate good scholarship with a critical attitude. A cynical view of the world is almost automatically welcomed as more scientifically sound than an enchanted one. While this methodology has led to destabilizing habits of thought that perpetuate large structures of power, it has also elevated the critical perspective onto a pedestal. We are more inclined to unveil the mechanisms, cultural logics, and uneven global flows that underpin magic than to suspend disbelief and to partake in it. We have grown afraid of feeling enchanted.

I was attracted to my research topic, a classical music program in Venezuela popularly called ‘El Sistema,’ because I found it enchanting. The program provided free classical music education and instruments to more than half a million young people in schools all over Venezuela. Even in video recordings, I was smitten by the energy with which the young musicians played, by the sight of people who were passionate about a pursuit.

In Venezuela, I met musicians who took musical enchantment seriously: it was a state of mind and spirit that they consciously aspired towards. One of them was Carlos, an eighteen-year-old musician. I asked to interview him because his playing stood out for me at a concert: when Carlos played, he lifted the instrument unusually high in his left hand, his cheek resting against the instrument as if on a pillow. He closed his eyes. And smiled.

He played me a recording of the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata and said: “For me, this is the maximum expression of love. It’s the peak. That’s how I understand it. When I first heard the first phrase of the second movement it felt like satisfying thirst or hunger. Like a personal necessity. Like a dialogue with oneself. You are with yourself listening to something that moves you. It’s one of the experiences I am most grateful to God for – that something moves me to the point I can feel this. Music has incredible power.”

Being moved, sometimes to tears, by music, was a mode of being that musicians like Carlos valued collectively, pursued in their music, and discussed in everyday conversations. A good performance was defined as one in which the performer poured her heart and soul into the instrument. A good concert had energy, and moved both performers and audiences to tears. I could respond to this enchantment with cynicism and dismissal, or I could partake in it. I chose the latter. These musicians inspired me to think of enchantment as a way of living and being, as a valid intellectual and emotional stance in the world.

Political theorist Jane Bennett describes enchantment as a state of wonder “produced by a surprising encounter with something that you did not expect.” This encounter with an object of sensuous experience leaves us transfixed and spellbound and alters our perception of the passage of time. I particularly like this term because the root of the word, chante, in French, means song. In a sense, then, enchantment means “to surround with song and sound.”

And so, I surrounded myself with song. I taught flute in a Caracas barrio. I accompanied musicians on the piano. I listened to countless orchestra rehearsals. As a phenomenological method, the shared space of musical experience allowed me to linger with the musicians in an ethnographic encounter prior to analysis, reflection, and explanation. This was appropriate for a study of music. As Rogelio, a flutist, told me: “Music has to be felt, it cannot be explained,” a sentiment echoed by many others. I began to think of enchantment as a form of ethnographic methodology.

Yet, enchantment is situational and depends on one’s perspective. Our personal histories and inquisitiveness move us to act and fuel our interest in a given topic. What we are enchanted by is determined by our life history, cultural, and historical factors that have shaped our lives. It is not always shared. But it can be taught and conveyed.

I let my interlocutors teach me about music, about wonder and beauty. They told me about what they found was beautiful in a musical phrase, in a mango tree, in the tropical rain of a Sunday afternoon. We marveled at beauty together and this shared state of mind produced bonds of understanding and complicity. This synergy between people, between ethnographer and interlocutors, defined how I navigated space and time, what people I gravitated towards. It swayed the course of my fieldwork.

Of course, enchantment was not a constant state of mind. It waxed and waned. It led to frustration, sadness, disappointment, disillusionment – with the institution, but also in response to my own shifting intellectual and emotional positions. Rather than discard the initial enchantment as irrelevant, I came to think of it as woven within my project. Disillusionment did not invalidate enchantment but surfaced as a beat in its tempo, in its gait. The world is not only wholly enchanted or wholly disenchanted, as Bennett notes. Rather, there exist “pockets of enchantment” in the midst of landscapes of widespread disillusionment.

How can we better nurture enchantment, in our methodology, in our writing, in our theoretical framework? How do we keep both enchantment and disillusionment in our sight at the same time? How do we assume a position in our writing that is both critical and creative?

Yana Stainova is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Dartmouth Society of Fellows. Her work focuses on artistic expression and social transformation in Latin America. She received a Ph.D. from Brown University and a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College.

During the first few months of ethnographic research, many cultural anthropologists recognize that the training you received in the classroom seldom prepares you for the spontaneous, erratic, and frequently daunting task of actually completing field research. You are (oftentimes, but not always) away from friends, family, and home—people and spaces that make you feel safe and empowered. You may be learning a new language, new geography, and trying to gain access to communities and institutions that are cautious about letting you in. Fieldwork is a process that one submits to—sometimes throwing caution to the wind and pushing oneself to talk to people, go to locations, and navigate situations you would never openly embrace at home or in your everyday life.

Unfortunately, because this fascinating and complex process does not happen in a vacuum, ethnographers must create relationships in the context of all the oppressions that operate in the world. In their call for a “fugitive anthropology,” Berry et al (forthcoming 2017)[1] demand that we acknowledge and theorize the gendered, racialized, and sexualized violence that often constitutes the field and fieldwork for women of color and queer ethnographers. They write that speaking of “fieldwork as an individualistic rite of passage often obscures its constitutive and interlocking racial and gender hierarchies and inequities” and favors “the emblematic racially privileged male anthropologist” (1-2). The writers offer fugitive anthropology as a tool for resistance to anthropology’s “implicit masculinist ‘shut up and take it’ mentality in reference to gendered violence in the field” (2). Recognizing that women are three times more at risk than men for experiencing sexual harassment or assault in the field,[2] I share three fieldwork stories here hoping to contribute to the discussion about the politics of gendered and sexualized violence in the field and fieldwork, particularly for women of color ethnographers.

Story 1

Whenever potential visitors ask me where they should go in Jamaica, I always say “Negril.” It’s a beautiful city, filled with the beaches, food, and music, tourists are usually looking for when they think of vacationing in the Caribbean. My first trip to the area to do preliminary research in 2003 went well (even though it ended early). I spent days eating my heart out, learning the geography of the nine-mile beach zone, while observing folx at tourist attractions and beachside bars. My presence garnered men’s praise and attention, some similar to what the African American tourist women I studied would later describe. Generally, I was able to shut down most advances, laugh at the lyrics[3] presented, and move on without much incident.

However as I started long-term fieldwork in Negril, the space began to feel differently. I planned to be stationed in Negril for about six months, but instead I left for Ocho Rios after a few weeks. As most ethnographers learn, living somewhere every day is different than simply visiting, and the attention that didn’t bother me much during that first, shorter trip became stressful as I stayed longer. In small communities people are almost always aware of who is new to the space, especially in tourist areas where one’s livelihood depends on it. Even when I was read as a Jamaican and not a foreigner, residents were still clear that my clothing, my walk, the questions I asked, marked me as someone not native to the area. This means I was a potential customer for vendors, merchants, and romance tourism workers alike, in a location where tourism dollars are central to the city’s economy. I couldn’t take the constant attention, the aggressiveness of some interactions, and the feeling that eyes were always tracking my movement. Most significantly, the sexual advances and harassment I experienced on the street and at clubs was relentless. Even some male friends that looked out for me, showed me around, and got to know me as a person (more than a body), would still sometimes look at me with a gaze that said, “One day she’s going to say ‘yes’.” The pressure to constantly assert myself and reject advances is what led me to return to this fieldsite minimally, restricting most visits to the times when I could accompany the tourist group I studied. It took too much energy to navigate the space by myself.

I’m uncomfortable writing this now because I know that it could be read as contributing to the narratives of Black men, particularly Jamaican men, as hypersexual and not in control of their sexuality. And it also might imply that I didn’t like some of the attention I received in the field. The lyrics by Jamaican men are oftentimes clever, masterful forms of gendered performance and beauty appreciation, and I fully understood why the women I studied reveled in some of this praise, because I did also. However, there were many times when I didn’t want to leave my hotel room or apartment because I didn’t want to have to police my body, look out for my safety, or be forced to clearly state to a man passing by that I was not interested in the sexual activities he was describing to me. While some of the same things happened in my other fieldsite of Ocho Rios, the fact that there were less all-inclusives and hotels geared towards international tourists led to a calmer environment and allowed for some relief from the constant sexual attention and harassment. For a while I carried some shame about ending my solo research in Negril, feeling as though I had failed at a key aspect of being an ethnographer because I didn’t “toughen it out.” I hadn’t heard of anyone leaving (at least temporarily) a fieldsite for the reasons I was choosing to leave. But at some point I decided my wellness and my safety mattered more.

Story 2

I couldn’t get away from the dancehall music pulsing into my room from the club down the street. The African American tourist women I studied were back home in the U.S. and per my methodology, I stayed in Jamaica for a few more weeks to interview and connect with some Jamaicans they had engaged during their vacation. On nights like this, I frequently stayed home to relax my tired brain or write out the fieldnotes I’d taken during the day. However tonight I decided to venture out on my own in Ocho Rios, figuring that the music was already distracting me and I couldn’t do “fieldwork” in my room.

I walked into the club, ordered a drink, and planted myself in the corner of the dance floor, where I could see everyone walking through the entrance. About an hour in, I saw some of the Jamaican fishermen that I befriended over the past few months walk in, and I gave a wave. After a couple of songs one of the fishermen, Everett, came over to say “hi” and check on me. As we caught up on the events of his day, he looked behind and around me to see if I was there with anyone else as he was used to seeing me with a group of tourist women. “Nope, I’m rolling solo tonight,” I said. He raised his eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Two of his friends joined us, and we spent the next little while vibing and singing to old school dancehall tunes the dj played.

At some point, Everett’s friends saw some women they wanted to give lyrics to, and Everett went to go get another drink. In my peripheral vision, I saw a man that had been trying to lock eyes with me all night walk up beside me. I had noticed him from other parties and clubs that I’d attended with the Girlfriends (the tourist group I studied), but hadn’t given him much thought. (It wasn’t rare for me to see some of the same people at the tourist parties I went to, as many Jamaican men who participated in romance tourism went out almost regularly to gain the attention and affection of tourist women.) He stood very close and whispered in my ear that he had seen me around and had been watching me. Immediately, my body tensed. “Uh-huh,” I replied as to acknowledge that I heard him, but I kept my eyes straight, facing away from him hopefully indicating that I was not interested in carrying this conversation forward. He continued, offering me a drink at least twice (which I refused), before plunging into a very detailed description of the type of sex he wanted to have with me. As mentioned above, Jamaican men offering to do sexual things, or talking about parts of my body on the street was generally commonplace during fieldwork. But what made me feel like I was in the scope of danger this time was how his voice grew increasingly angry the more I refused him my full attention, and the awareness that he had been watching me the past few times I’d been out. He eventually grabbed my arm, trying to get me to turn to him. Within seconds I heard Everett’s voice chatting angry patois to the man harassing me, and the guy walked off. Apparently, Everett had seen the arm grab from his spot at the bar.

“Ya good?,” he asked. I nodded yes.

“B, why didn’t you cut him?! You should’ve given him one lick[4]! You can’t let men go on like that with you,” he said.

“You don’t understand, Everett. Where I come from you have to be careful about how you turn men down. In Orlando, if you gave a man a phone number, he would dial it in front of you. And if it was fake, they punched a woman in her face. You had to turn them down nicely, or it’s dangerous,” I replied, as I scanned the room to see where the guy went.

“B, don’t worry. He’s not coming back. And you! You’re being too nice. You know Jamaican women aren’t putting up with that. They would’ve cursed him! Man licking women in public? Here??!! Nah man. Curse him out!”

I sighed. “I hear you, Everett. Don’t worry. I got it. Next time.”

I finished my drink and moved further onto the dance floor where Everett taught me one of the latest dancehall moves. For the rest of the night, he or one of his friends were by my side ensuring that no one bothered me. They eventually walked me up the hill to my apartment to make sure I got home safely.

The next week as I waited in line for food at a restaurant, I saw the guy again. He walked in, saw me, and smiled. Remembering Everett’s words, I girded myself up, ready to confront the guy if he decided to come closer. The recognition that the gendered scripts and practices that guided my interactions with men at home weren’t exactly the same as those in public[5] tourist spaces in Jamaica helped. He must’ve sensed that I was ready for the confrontation because he ordered his food, waved at me, and left without coming close. I didn’t see him again during the rest of my fieldwork.

Story 3

Early in my long-term fieldwork, there was a day where I found myself without shelter. I’d made reservations at a locally-owned short term rental property, but when I arrived the person at the desk insisted that the price I had budgeted for was way below the actual price of the rental. I couldn’t afford the price they were charging. I calmly explained my predicament. Then I argued with tears welling up in my eyes, but to no avail. I called several friends and family at home in the U.S., but no one had anything extra to spare that they could send me. And every other housing location I contacted was way over my budget. I was stressed, worried that I’d be stuck with nowhere to rest that night.

I called some friends I had made in Montego Bay to see if I could crash at their place. Although their home was an hour and a half away from where I was doing research, and it was going to cost me a good amount of money to travel there, at the time it was the one place I felt I could stay for a week without imposing too much. The MoBay Crew (as I called them) were the first group of friends I’d made during my research and I had stayed at their “bachelor pad” once in the past. I trusted them—well, as much as I trusted folx I didn’t know very well doing fieldwork in a country I was still learning. Two of the men in the Crew were in intimate relationships, and the other two had taken my refusal well when they let me know they were available. When I called with my urgent ask for shelter, Sean told me that Orin was actually near me, renting a room in town for a work training. He rang Orin and explained the situation; and then he rang me back to give me Orin’s information, letting me know I could split the cost of housing each night until I found another place to reside. Grateful for the offer, I met up with Orin.

Nothing bad happened during my stay. In fact, Orin and I had some of the best conversations about our families, his vision for his life in the U.S. when he married his Jamaican American fiancé, the politics at his job, and how it felt for me to do ethnography in the country of my mother’s birth. It was a highlight of that particular leg of my multi-sited fieldwork. But that first night, when I laid my head down to sleep in a room with a man I barely knew—alone, without the comfort of the rest of the MoBay Crew—I was anxious. My gut told me Orin was good peoples, but the constant sexualized attention and harassment I’d experienced was making me question my gut. In addition to the pain and trauma women experience, this is one of the many sad things about the prevalence of sexual assault, sexual harassment, and unhealthy masculinities. It makes us question which men are going to choose NOT to do harm to us in a world where sexual violence is accepted and sometimes encouraged.

Contrary to stereotypical depictions of Jamaica as a place filled with irrational and constant violence, I generally felt safe as I navigated the country. I was never a victim of any physical violence, and I made friends (mostly men) who looked out for me when I needed them. But I woke up most mornings knowing that sexual innuendo and sexual harassment would likely show up in my day, and I just had to roll with the punches. The danger of sexual violence was one that I had to be aware of as I entered into friendships, partnerships, and researcher-participant relationships with those around me.

For the first little while, my eyes remained open in the darkness of the room Orin and I shared. But as I heard his breathing deepen, signaling that he was asleep, I closed my eyes and said a prayer.

Sexual harassment made me change my fieldsite and made me wary about building relationships in the field. For many of my friends and family, this is the first time they’ll hear these stories. And for most of my time doing fieldwork, these incidents didn’t necessarily stick out as things I should report or reasons to stop doing the research. That probably demonstrates how insidious and normalized sexual harassment and sexual violence becomes for some women. At the time, I felt like these were things I would have to deal with being a young woman of color doing ethnography (I was 23 when I started fieldwork). I wasn’t prepared with an effective plan for addressing these forms of violence before they began to happen in the field. And I understood from my experiences at home in the U.S. that this type of sexual harassment and violence was part of what it meant to live as a woman. But just because this violence is normalized does not mean it should be acceptable.

The field and fieldwork are essential to anthropologists, especially those who are ethnographers. Getting intimate with the cultural practices, beliefs, and performances of communities requires us to step out of the places that we have made safe for ourselves (or as safe as possible), and open ourselves up to situations we might never encounter or engage at home. Getting into cars with people before we truly trust them; entering people’s homes for meals and interviews as a path to relationship-building; going to sites some participants refuse to visit to gain access to data; blurring the lines between research, friendship, mediation, and confession are sometimes the nature of ethnography. In the interest of getting that interview, observing that practice, gaining entry into a hard to access place or person’s community, we are oftentimes met with ethnographic curveballs that we are unprepared for. The demands of the job sometimes require us to throw caution to the wind. But for some of us this has more costly consequences than others. While men may be able survive and thrive in the midst of ethnography without much consequence for their vulnerability, women—particularly young, women of color—often find themselves navigating the danger, awkwardness, shame, discomfort, and violence of unsafe or not-yet-safe spaces, or previously safe and now suddenly, threatening individuals.[6]

We must have discussions about all the ways that racialized, gendered, and sexualized violence impact the field and fieldwork, and provide training on how ALL ethnographers (including those with more racialized, sexualized, and gendered privilege) should do ethnography in the context of this. We must also seriously consider how our vision of anthropology and ethnography shift as we take into account these experiences, instead of editing them out of the discipline’s theory, methodological training, and production of ethnography/ethnographic research. Women and queer folx should not be the only ones initiating these conversations and disciplinary changes. Cis gender (white) men who are central to the imaginings of the normative and traditional ethnographer we are trained to become need to also participate in these transformations.

Links to Resources:

*A definition of sexual harassment: https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

*Introduction to #MeToo by creator Tarana Burke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T5eTD5llNs

*”The Thrill and Fear of ‘Hey Beautiful'”: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/opinion/trans-sexual-assault-black-women.html

*”The Opposite of Rape Culture is Nurturance Culture”: https://norasamaran.com/2016/02/11/the-opposite-of-rape-culture-is-nurturance-culture-2/

*A Simple List of Things Men Can Do To Change Our Work and Life Culture”: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/oct/16/a-simple-list-of-things-men-can-do-to-change-our-work-and-life-culture

[1] Berry, Maya J., Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Shanya Cordis, Sarah Ihmoud, and Ruth Elizabeth Velasquez Estrada, “Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field,” Cultural Anthropology, 32(4): pp. 537-565, forthcoming 2017.

[2] Clancy, Kate, “I had no power to say ‘that’s not okay’’: Reports of harassment and abuse in the field,” Scientific American, April 13, 2013, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/context-and-variation/safe13-field-site-chilly-climate-and-abuse/.

[3] As I write about in my book The Pursuit of Happiness: Black Women, Diasporic Dreams, and the Politics of Emotional Transnationalism, throwing “lyrics” was how many men I came across passed time during the day, particularly those long hours of boredom as they waited for tourists to utilize their taxi, tour guide, or other services. “Lyrics” is a word that Jamaicans and veteran tourists employ to describe the pick-up lines Jamaican men use to compliment, come on to, or begin intimate or romantic relationships with women of all nationalities, including Jamaican women. Most Jamaican men attempt to create beautifully poetic lines, filled with metaphors and similes that make the woman at the receiving end smile and blush. These lines are known to be so lyrical that they are compared to lyrics of a song, hence the slang term.

[4] “Lick” means to hit or punch.

[5] I emphasize “public tourist” spaces here because I am aware that similar to many other countries, sexualized and gendered violence happens in private spaces in Jamaica all the time. My own family, originally from Jamaica, has a history of this trauma. But I also recognized the validity of Everett’s words—in the public tourist spaces I frequented, engaging in physical violence against women seemed to be unacceptable, even if sexual harassment was embraced as part of the everyday. It seemed that to be violent with women in public did not earn you the same masculine “privilege” points it did in the U.S. There were several times I observed Jamaican women speaking back to and/or cursing men out that they felt had violated their space, and while the men might curse back, eventually they left or moved to the other side of the club. But I recognize that this was how things went in predominately tourist locations, where violence is disruptive to profitable business ventures. I wonder if in cities and towns that are not tourism-centered if the same gendered rules of agency and resistance apply.

[6] I recognize that many people do not experience sexual harassment and sexual violence at the hands of strangers, but by those who are most intimate, friendly, and trusted within their communities. This includes those individuals who are supposed to provide shelter, sponsorship, access, and safety during fieldwork. Additionally, I want to state clearly that I am in no way attempting to place the burden of responsibility and blame on women, queer, and trans ethnographers who survived sexual violence. While I believe we could better prepare ethnographers to think about these issues before they go into the field, one who is on the receiving end of sexual violence is never at fault. The fact that we oftentimes silence, dismiss, and neglect to address these issues as an integral part of the fieldwork experience for many is a central issue.

Sunday night, October 15, I watched women across my social media timeline bravely and vulnerably share their stories of sexual assault and sexual harassment as part of the collective conversation tagged #MeToo. I contributed my own #MeToo post after reading the initial three shares by friends, writing that I did not think I knew a woman who had not experienced some form of sexualized violence. Within two hours, hundreds of my friends, colleagues, and former students had added their voices to the orchestra of rage, sadness, disappointment, indignation, frustration, and stoic resolve accompanying #MeToo. I experienced it like it was an atmosphere-piercing, discursive crescendo. As a Black feminist anthropologist who studies, teaches, and experiences the intricate ways patriarchy, misogyny, and misogynoir shape our educational institutions and lives, you would think I wouldn’t have been surprised by the sheer vastness of the stories this hashtag brought to the digital surface. But I was. And I simultaneously wasn’t. I knew the boundless reach of sexualized violence, and yet seeing its pervasiveness in the most-heartbreaking narratives of those in my communities made it more real. And then to see a few men in my timeline express shock, disbelief, and dismissive sentiments—as if they haven’t been listening to us for decades, generations—made me angry. However, it was the silence from the majority that made me livid. But isn’t silence part of how oppression works?

I went to sleep. And then I woke in the middle of the night in a fright, uncomfortable with my post so clearly being visible online. Initially, I posted my #MeToo in solidarity with my sistas and sibs who wanted to share their stories, and to support those in community who were hesitant because they thought they were the only ones. But as I thought about the stories of rape and sexual assault of those closest to me, I wondered if my “tame” encounters with sexualized violence even counted in comparison to theirs. I took my post down, giving myself permission to be unsure and unresolved. I’m usually pretty transparent, even in a profession that values obscurity and inaccessibility as intellect. I attempt to practice radical honesty in discussions, writing, and teaching, believing that narrative as truth-telling is a form of resistance. But for the first time in a while, leaning into the truth didn’t feel right. Not yet.[1] All I could do was lay there in my bed, wondering if the experiences of unwelcome attention; touching; uncomfortable conversations filled with sexual innuendo were enough to validate my public #MeToo. That might seem foolish, but again, isn’t this how oppression works? Isn’t it a force that would ask one to quantify and qualify one’s pain, wondering if it is “bad” enough to count as sexual assault?[2]

My mind ran across: The times in high school, when discussions about my body parts were regular fodder at the lunch table. That most of the girls I knew learned how to walk through our very crowded hallways strategically covering our butts and breasts during class changes, just in case someone picked that time to grab something they felt they should have access to. And the moments that we fought back or were silent when they did. As we got older, this training prepared us for parties and clubs where the same thing happened, but the frequency was higher as liquid-courage emboldened boys (and grown men) who wanted to prove their masculinity tried to do so by conquering our bodies. The violations that happened in those social spaces weren’t much different than those that take place at department parties or wine and cheese receptions at conferences like the AAA, where men with increasingly red, blotchy skin use their eyes to undress you and their anthropological expertise to exoticize you. Others slip their hands down your back, and you feel your whole body grow tense with fear as you try to move away without drawing too much attention. I thought about the times when as a graduate student and as a professor, the interactions with academic men push past that moment of verbal appreciation of one’s beauty (which some of us like) to that awkward, uncomfortable place where you’re having to weigh the potential damage to your career against the damage to his super fragile, yet powerful ego when you say “no.” Even now, as I write this, there are stories that I type, and then I erase. Trying to decide whether it is revealing too much; whether there will be long-term professional consequences; whether or not it is appropriate to tell; whether or not it counts as violence; even though the memories have not left me, and I’m sure the men who have done the damage don’t think twice about it.

But somehow I have made some peace with these stories at home; or at least over the years I have created a tool kit, a range of coping mechanisms, and a supportive crew that hold each other down as we experience the sexualized violence and patriarchy that color women’s (and gender non-conforming and trans folx’) everyday lives. In some ways the stories in the previous paragraph have become normalized for me. What kept me up that Sunday night was remembering the helplessness and isolation I felt as I experienced sexual harassment in the field, while doing my job as an ethnographer.

(SEXUAL) HARASSMENT IN THE FIELD

While the controversy surrounding film producer Harvey Weinstein’s bullish, disgusting, sexual violence has spurred a national discussion in the past week, anthropologists like Robin G. Nelson, Julienne N. Rutherford, Katie Hinde, and Kathryn B. H. Clancy have been pushing our discipline to address these concerns for the past few years. The AAA highlighted the group’s work in an October 16 press release titled “A Call for Better Conduct in Field Research.” This report, published online by American Anthropologist, presents findings from in-depth interviews with 26 women scientists, detailing the impact sexual violence, sexual harassment, and a general toxic work environment can have on their careers. “Signaling Safety: Characterizing Fieldwork Experiences and Their Implications for Career Trajectories” is a follow-up from the co-authors 2013 survey of 666 individuals where participants discussed academic field experiences. Those taking up Nelson et al’s work have often focused the conversation on the conditions and climates in field schools and spaces relevant to biological anthropologists and archeologists.

It was reading “I had no power to say ‘that’s not okay’’: Reports of harassment and abuse in the field,” by Clancy a few years ago that encouraged me to freewrite about my experiences with sexual harassment in the field as a cultural anthropologist. None of those pages made the final version of my book, but writing about it helped me process it and pushed me to have discussions about potential gendered and sexualized violence in the field with students that I train to do ethnography. In the field, I had a job to do. My job was to conduct ethnographic research that required connecting with community members, gaining people’s trust, participating and observing cultural practices, and asking the right questions to learn about cultural norms, while documenting people’s stories, belief systems, and meaning-making processes. Unlike the everyday adage that one should not talk to strangers, talking to strangers in a space that was “foreign” to me and far from the comforts of home was my actual job.

In “’Don’t Ride the Bus!’: And Other Warnings Women Anthropologists Are Given During Fieldwork,” I use humor and sarcasm to talk about some of the tough times I had during those initial months of long-term field research. When I sat down to write that article (published in 2009), I was drafting the dissertation and trying to make sense of my own personal experiences in the field while analyzing the data from my participants. I wasn’t ready to really dig into the ways certain gendered and sexualized forms of harassment had influenced which individuals and communities I ended up engaging (or not), and the spaces I made my research home (or not). To be honest, I probably haven’t completed that processing, and probably will choose not to. Thinking about all of it and sharing it is exhausting. But the increase in the discourse related to sexual violence in the past week encourages me to at least share three stories about what I experienced in the field, with the hope that it contributes to the crescendo in our discipline. Stay tuned for Part 2 on Thursday…

[1] “So, why are you writing about it here, in this very public forum?,” you might ask. This medium provides me a bit more space to frame and share my story the way I want, instead of being confined to what can feel like a limited digital space on social media. And because I believe in radical honesty as Black feminist praxis, I find that I’m always braver in sharing my story if I think it can put something into action that might help someone else. Here, I’m hoping that my story can contribute to the increasing discourse on sexual violence within anthropology and the academy.

[2] Even still, I cannot fathom the physical, mental, and emotional trauma that surviving rape or an explicit sexual assault causes in one’s life. While there may not be a hierarchy of pain related to sexual violence, there certainly are layers. And I wish nothing but the most sincere hope for healing to my sibs who have experienced these forms of violence.

Basically, the AAA is saying that that more than 1,000 AAA copyrighted articles are in violation of copyright because they have been posted on ResearchGate and Academia.edu. This news is not super shocking, since many of us who publish aren’t particularly informed about the author agreements we sign, let alone how the publishing process works. We just sign those agreements in the rush to publish before we perish…and then sometimes post stuff on commercial sites to make our content “accessible” to the world. Awesome, right? Not so much. This is ultimately to our own detriment.

To quote the Library Loon (as I have before on this site), “The great mass of those who publish in the scholarly literature are pig-ignorant about how scholarly publishing works.” Ouch. But it’s pretty true. How many of you pay close attention to the author agreements you sign? If you did, we might not be having this conversation. Why, you ask? Because you likely signed away your rights, willingly. So when Wiley (or Elsevier, etc) demands that you take your paper down from Academia.edu, they’re just exercising the power you handed to them. As Rex once wrote here on Savage Minds, “if most people realized the way they had signed away their rights to publishers, the open access movement would double or triple in size overnight.”*

Well, this latest message from the AAA is a case in point. So we have all of these AAA members publishing. They’re at various stages of their careers, from stressed our graduate students and junior faculty all the way to stressed out tenured faculty. Everyone is stressed out, and trying to publish and keep their heads above water. Meanwhile, corporate publishers are making a tidy profit, we all write and do peer review for free, and our scholarly work gets closed behind paywalls. Awesome.

Understandably, many people are not happy about the current state of publishing (and access)…so they post copies of their articles on sites like ResearchGate and Academia.edu. But, as it turns out, those sites are there to make money off of the very users who think they’re somehow sticking it to “The Man” by posting it on sites like Academia.edu. Nope. You’re effectively just handing your work–and breaking an agreement you signed–right to another commercial entity that’s looking to make a profit off of you. But these commercial repositories don’t care about your work per se. They likely care much more about monetizing your data (for more, read Chris Kelty’s 2016 post “It’s the Data, Stupid“).

The moral of the story is that we’re not doing anything to change or challenge “the system” when we: 1) sign away our rights to corporate publishers; and then 2) willingly allow our ideas and data to be monetized by other corporations in the name of pseudo-open access. What a mess. Barbara Fister outlined the primary problem a few years back:

All these years librarians have been saying to scholars, “uh, you realize what happens when you sign away your rights, don’t you? You just gave your copyright to a corporation. We have pay them to get access to that content, and anyone who can’t pay can’t read it. Is this really what you had in mind when you wrote up that research?”

Who benefits from our collective ignorance (and inaction), you ask? As the Library Loon explains, “In general, toll-access publishers benefit most from the pig-ignorantly entitled, since such folk are easily manipulated into signing contracts they shouldn’t and vehemently defending organizations and processes out to exploit them.” There you have it. And willingly handing your work over to Academia.edu isn’t changing a thing. As Jason B. Jackson has argued, “Self-piracy is wrong and it is not helping build a better scholarly communication system.” There are other options (Hint: For some shorter-term solutions, look into the ways you can modify your author agreements). Regardless, the real long-term answer lies with developing and maintaining an effective, accessible, and reliable Open Access infrastructure.

So resorting to “self-piracy” by posting your work on Academia.edu or ResearchGate isn’t going to lead to that Open Access Revolution we’re all waiting for. Now what? Well, there are some issues we can deal with now, even while we (hopefully) starting thinking about the future of our scholarly publishing. This brings us back to that email from the AAA, which states:

The AAA author agreement specifically states that the final version (pre-copyedit and typesetting) can be posted on an author’s personal website or in an institutional or discipline-specific repository. ResearchGate and Academia.edu are neither personal websites nor institutional/discipline-specific repositories.

This statement tells us what we can do with our work according to the AAA author agreement. First of all, it’s important to know the terms being used here. The “final version” of a manuscript is the one that a journal accepts (before copy-editing and typesetting). This is different from the “pre-print,” which is the version that you first submit, before review and revision (h/t to Dan Hirschman for the concise terms). So the AAA agreement allows us to post the “final version” on a personal website or an institutional or discipline-specific repository. The first part is pretty straightforward. You can create a website and post your work there, no problem (except it may be hard to find). But the second part gets a little tricky. What’s an “institutional” or “discipline-specific” repository, and where you can find one that the AAA accepts? Do you know where to look?

One possibility, you’d think, would be something like SocArXiv (for more about SoxArXiv, check this post). In brief, SocArXiv is a green open access digital repository for social science that runs on the Open Science Framework. I sent a message to the folks at the AAA, asking if they consider SocArXiv to be “discipline-specific.” Here was their reply:

I followed up and asked what discipline-specific repositories they do recommend, but the AAA did not reply. I also sent an email. No reply yet, but I’ll keep you posted. So here’s the thing. The AAA is well-within its rights to issue this notice to members and ask them to take AAA copyrighted material down from ResearchGate and Academia dot edu. But that doesn’t really solve anything. Now might be a good time to investigate why so many people are posting their material on these sites. What is it about these sites–as compared to AnthroSource, for example–that draws so many people to them? But beyond all of that, if the AAA publishing agreement states that authors have a right to post their work in certain repositories, why not clarify which ones are acceptable? Why all the mystery?

I’d also like to know why, specifically, SocArXiv is not an acceptable repository. That appears to be the message from the AAA, but this doesn’t make much sense to me. SocArXiv is non-profit, so I’m not sure why it’s not an option. The current AAA publishing agreement does make room for Green Open Access options, but it’s pretty clear that this is not taking place (considering all that self-piracy out there). Why not? Part of me wonders if this is because some of the terms in our agreements (vague references to personal websites and various repositories) haven’t actually been clearly-defined in practice. If we can’t point specifically to acceptable resources, then how can we expect anyone to use them? A little clarity could go a long way here.

There’s one last point I’d like to make here, and it’s about this line in the message: “AAA has put the author agreement in place to protect authors, and to prevent unauthorized or inappropriate usage.” I’m not quite sure how the AAA is arguing that the agreement works to “protect authors” in any way, and I’d rather not see the message conflated in this fashion. Let’s keep things straight here: This email is about asserting and upholding the publishing agreement that the AAA has with Wiley. That’s fine. We signed away those rights, so we have to pay the proverbial piper. If the primary concern was about protecting authors, not to mention our academic commons, then we’d have a dramatically different publishing agreement…and disciplinary culture of publishing altogether. Just sayin.

*For more check this post from 2015: Forget the outrage: Stop signing away your author rights to corporations. See also Rex’s 2013 post: Don’t blame Elsevier for exercising the rights you gave them.

****************

Carole: What constitutes the field always differs by scholar. Who we are in dialogue with, where, and why depends on one’s research project. However, no matter where we are or who we are, explaining our research topic and method is critical. In your research, with whom are you discussing ethnography as method, and how do you explain it?

Pasang: In my research, I discuss ethnography as method with village residents, diaspora communities, government officials, NGO officials, scientists, youth leaders, students, policy makers, technocrats, and conservation practitioners. These categories often overlap.

My research focuses on human dimensions of climate change, Indigeneity, and development in the Himalayas. I see these topics as intersecting themes that reveal contemporary contexts in the Himalayas. My ethnographic fieldwork thus involves multiple sets of questions, different sets of tools, and ways of explaining. My methodology also evolves, as it should, while conducting fieldwork.

For me, the field constitutes physical location, and virtual space. So far, I have conducted fieldwork among the Sherpas of Nepal, and people living in parts of Uttarkhand in India, and northwest Nepal. In order to study about peoples from these places, I often find myself interviewing in Queens, Boulder, or Kathmandu, outside their mountain villages. I also interact with my ‘informants’ using Facebook, and Apps like Viber and WeChat. The people I study direct my ethnographic approach.

Carole: This is so true. The people with whom we interact in the field are from a range of backgrounds and subject positions. Their thoughts on and responses to the research are situated in these different categories (and experiences), usually multiple and plural rather than some sort of singular “local’ or “villager” or “official” or “refugee” or “activist” perspective. Individuals have varied ways of interpreting our research, and of sharing and participating in it.

Pasang: I once interviewed a middle-aged monk in my village in the Everest region, who had lived in Queens for several years working as a sales person, and who had also actively participated in NGO-organized activities to conserve community forests. As an interviewee, he was formal, and forthcoming. I was able to explain my research project, and inform him about the voluntary participation step-by-step as outlined in the Institutional Review Board (IRB) guidelines. Another time, I tried to interview a young monk in his early 20s at the village monastery. He just smiled and smiled as I sat there describing the project to him. Once I was done, he ran away. My aunt explained to me (something I was suspecting) that the young monk was too shy to participate in an interview.

Carole: Not everyone is able to engage in this way, whether due to interest, personality, education, or societal prohibitions. I write about this in the context of who gets to narrate their own life history (“Narrative Dispossession”). Scholars tend to take things such as telling one’s story, or sharing one’s thoughts about events and ideas, for granted. IRBs do as well. But it doesn’t always work this way, no matter where one’s fieldwork is located.

Pasang: I agree. I recently turned my ethnographic gaze inward on myself to understand what it means to be a ‘Sherpa,’ ‘Nepali,’ ‘Himalayan,’ ‘South Asian,’ and ‘Asian.’ This process revealed to me how I as an individual, and a member of the society influence, and am influenced by what happens around me. I am fascinated by the uncovered cultural moments from my memory of growing up in Kathmandu in the 1990s that brought light to the many identities I have today. I remember reading about the Sherpas, depicted as people with flat nose and small eyes in our social studies textbook. I also remember how the term ‘backward people’ was used commonly to refer to groups that lived in rural parts of Nepal. For a young girl attending an English medium school in the capital city, it was confusing to hear that by definition I am a member of a backward group with flat nose and small eyes because I did not think I was backward nor did I have flat nose and small eyes.

In your research, how do you go about discussing ethnography as method, and with whom? Where is the field for you?

Carole: It depends on where I’m doing research—with whom and on what topic. Early in my career, in 1992, I did research in the village of Tirkhu in the Chaudabise Khola region east of Jumla. This was in conjunction with Dor Bahadur Bista’s Karnali Institute. Dor was the first Nepali anthropologist, the founder of the Department of Anthropology at Tribhuvan University, and was my first mentor in 1989 when I did anthropological research in Jhapa. His goal with the Karnali Institute was in part to use the methods of anthropology to encourage development, mostly in the form of education and small-scale economic projects. My role was an ethnographic study with women and girls. What were women’s ideas about what was needed in their community? I explained ethnography as method as having two components: (1) living in the community to learn what life was like there, and (2) talking with the women about what they thought about things. Open-ended. Learning. Listening.

If you asked the women why I was there, I think what they would’ve said is that I wanted to learn the work needed to live in the village (e.g., how to plant rice, how to mill buckwheat or pound corn, etc.), and I asked a lot of questions, and wrote lots of things down. Apart from being an outsider, one from a different country, literacy was a big difference between us. No woman in the village was literate, and in 1992, only one girl from the village attended the local school. She was the first girl to ever do so. My research “findings” were that the women primarily wanted things for their children, especially chances at education and other things that might improve their lives in the future. But, for themselves? They wanted to learn how to write their names. My main contribution was to teach a small group of mothers and grandmothers how to hold a pencil and write their names in Nepali.

I mention literacy because my next research project, which started in 1994 and that continues on today, was very different. It was with Tibetan resistance army veterans, almost all of whom were literate, and if not familiar with anthropology, were often very familiar with historical scholarship and cultures of documentation.

My research was both anthropological and historical, and I usually explained it when first meeting someone, as some version of the following: “The Chushi Gangdrug Army fought against the Chinese People’s Liberation Army to defend Tibet and the Dalai Lama. But, histories of the Chushi Gangdrug resistance army aren’t included in Tibetan history. People don’t know these histories. What are they, and why don’t people know them?” I would explain my methodology as reading any and all written sources about the resistance, and also talking to people. Especially talking with people—with important leaders, but also with ordinary people to learn their experiences and thoughts. I would share that I lived with a Tibetan veteran and his family in Kathmandu, and that my research involved traveling to different Tibetan settlements in Nepal and India, and returning again and again to each place. This research-in-motion was very distinctly grounded in the Tibetan community in ways that were obvious and appreciated by the men from whom I learned.

But this was just the ‘first meeting’ sort of explanation of my topic and method I would give. Some of the people with whom I met, I didn’t encounter again, but that was rare. Most of the men (and some of their families) were individuals I came to know, sometimes well, over the course of multiple visits and conversations over the five-year course of my PhD research, as well as the two decades since. So in that sense, peoples’ idea of how I did my research, or of how I learned what I knew, was something that unfolded over time. And, I add: was something I was constantly tested on by some individuals. What did I know and how did I know it?

One thing that comes to mind is that in both of these settings, my research was valued and the methods weren’t questioned. People didn’t debate ethnography with me, and certainly didn’t devalue it. But you’ve had some different experiences, right?

Pasang: I’ve had interesting experiences mainly because of who I am, and where I study.

When working with my fellow villagers, people are happy to welcome me, and even take pride in the work I do. They share what they know with me. They are very supportive in that sense. It helps that I am careful about how I present my research and myself. I am also careful about the cultural etiquettes, and sensibilities. I think this comes naturally for me, and helps in making our conversations comfortable.

However, there have been times, when I’ve had difficulty reaching people and conducting interviews. I think it was largely because of my limited social connections in Kathmandu. Being a young-looking Sherpa woman also did not help. It seemed like every time I met someone new I had to explain not just what I was doing but my qualifications too. I had to prove that I am a professional to avoid getting dismissed, and I wasn’t always successful at that.

Exactly a year ago, I was presenting my climate change perception research findings in Kathmandu to a mixed audience (academic and nonacademic). I was a postdoctoral fellow at the New School at the time. Following my presentation, an environmental science professional from the audience shared that all social science presentations on climate change have the same conclusion: Development organizations are exploiting climate change for their own agenda. He was not interested in listening to another talk with the same conclusion. He said the reason he came to my talk was because of my institutional affiliation. He had expected ‘more’ from a New School person’s presentation, something that would challenge the idea of anthropogenic climate change. Instead, I was sharing my ethnographic findings of how people and institutions perceived climate change. [I gently introduced myself as a proud alumna of Washington State University.]

I recently watched your interview for WORLD101x, where you talk about the need to think of ethnographic stories as useful data for problem solving. Can you expand on that?

Carole: Sure. This is a question of what kind of data is ethnography. It is a truly unique form of knowledge. Ethnographic research generates fine-grained, detailed data that gives needed context to big questions or problems. In contrast with “big data,” ethnography is a type of ‘thick data” as Tricia Wang convincingly argues: ethnographic or thick data focuses on what is valuable rather than solely what is measurable.

For me, ethnography (and anthropology more broadly) is a form of theoretical storytelling. We use stories to make conceptual points and theoretical arguments. Professionally, the domain where I most do this outside of academia is in court. I use ethnographic data to make arguments to immigration officials and judges for them to use in decision-making. There is an element of translation involved as well, in terms of presenting ethnographic data as clear and coherent even with all of the contradictions and complications of actual human experiences. The key is in understanding how ethnography might be useful in new domains, whether it is in court, the corporate world (Nokia, in Wang’s case above), or in discussions with forestry or climate change scientists in Nepal. How can ethnography appear as recognizable, useful data in domains outside of anthropology? The conceptual work of translating and presenting ethnography to folks expecting numbers or other sorts of data is our responsibility, especially in this moment that feels so driven by “big data” in many ways. Stories are always needed.

Pasang: I agree. Stories are always needed. Stories are valuable because they help us understand everyday lives of people. Ethnography may involve extraordinary people, and their spectacular stories. They may also involve the ordinary people, and their routine lives. Each is powerful in its own way. Thank you for sharing your stories, and inviting me to share mine.

****************

Carole McGranahan is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder.  Pasang Yangjee Sherpa is an anthropologist and co-director of the Nepal Studies Initiative at the University of Washington, Seattle.

One of the disturbing issues with the press coverage of FaceID during the week of Apple’s announcement, was the limited criticism of what it means for Apple to deploy FaceID, and those who will follow Apple and deploy their own versions. What does it mean to digitize our faces and use the facsimile of our main human identifier (aside from our voices) as a proxy for our human selves, and to pay Apple nearly $1000 U.S. to do so?

FaceID could be considered a gimmick. Apple has the developed technology in hand, and as such, they can then offer this type of “Science Fiction” experience to their phones to give their customers a new way to authenticate their identity. But it isn’t this simple. All new technologies, as with any other new human production, become embedded in society in various ways, used in various unforeseen contexts, and have various unforeseen consequences. Even if Apple is only deploying this technology within the context of its iPhone, they are setting a usage model, and are doing so privately, around the regulation that governs society. This movement from Apple deployed so casually on such a broad scale, may change how we live, and how our faces become used forevermore.

Facial-recognition falls into the category of technology called “Biometrics.” Biometrics is the class of quantification metrics that rely upon some type of bodily feedback to work. Biometrics include digital fingerprint recognition, retinal scans, voice recognition, heat maps, and facial-recognition, among others. Apple has been using digital fingerprint recognition for some time. However, the issues with facial recognition are more complex.

There are several issues with facial-recognition software that have been raised over time, with the idea of algorithmic bias being one of the main ones [1]. Simply put, algorithmic bias exists when algorithms are not able to create complete understandings of a situation or issue. In the case of facial-recognition, algorithmic bias exists because people have different facial features and skin tones, and for humans, particularly those with darker skin tones, facial-recognition software either cannot recognize them, or worse, can recognize a face, but is unable to attribute the recognized face to the person, instead recognizing them as someone different than who they are. This might merely be annoying when the facial-recognition algorithm won’t unlock someone’s iPhone, but can cause severe problems when facial-recognition technology is deployed on a massive scale in various facets of our society. In the future, facial-recognition technology may determine access to the commons, and as such, could easily falsely attribute circumstances and surveillance video “evidence” to the wrong person’s identity, resulting in false accusations at best, and action on false accusations (if we get more automated in law enforcement responses) at worst.

FaceID is automated Artificial Intelligence. This means that there will not be any humans in the process of identification or authentication. Once FaceID is deployed, it will run automatically, identify (or not) automatically, and authenticate automatically. Furthermore, Apple will be using FaceID to unlock the iPhone, for Apple Pay,  iTunes, and other Apple products and services. FaceID will work with other vendors, and share its users’ facial-recognition and authentication with them [2]. This will not be limited to Apple. If we think that having our credit card number being breached is a problem now, what will it mean when our faces are stored insecurely?

Another issue to consider with facial-recognition technology is the idea of what our faces mean to us, and mean to those of us in different parts of the world. For example, in some cultures, tattooing the face is considered to be a stronger taboo, where in others it is a place of honor and prominence. How we use our faces, and choose to use our faces should be considered when technology companies develop facial recognition technologies. Of course, those who are uncomfortable with facial-recognition technology, won’t use FaceID, and for now, while it is still optional, this will not be a problem. However, as FaceID debuts around the world, these issues may be raised, and unforeseen outcomes may emerge.

The technology industry is often criticized for not respecting regulations, or ethics, and as I mentioned in my previous piece [3], much of this comes from not having anyone different on development teams who can raise these issues and questions. Within Apple, there are few Social Scientists, nearly no anthropologists, and with the focus moving towards quantification as a metric for determining feature use and design, few qualitative researchers inputting to products. It might not be that Apple doesn’t care, it might be that Apple truly doesn’t know that it needs to care, or some other reason. As a design focused company, it may be that qualitative research is thought to be something that anyone in design at Apple could do [4] and as such, some of the more pressing social issues surrounding the deployment of FaceID could get lost in the “sci fi” factor or rush to market.

Because we are now on the cusp of biometric facial-recognition being mainstreamed by a private technology company with the decisions for how this will impact all of us in private control, it may be time to consider what governance or ethics review boards would look like for the tech industry going forward—or at the very least, it seems time for private technology companies to hire anthropologists and other social scientists to product teams to create technology products that will adapt to our cultural preferences as humans, while respecting our sense of privacy, our desire for security, and our right to our identities.

References:

[1] Finley, K. 2017. Can Apple’s iPhone X Beat Facial Recognition’s Bias Problem.” WIRED Business. Sept. 13. 2017. [Online]. Available from: https://www.wired.com/story/can-apples-iphone-x-beat-facial-recognitions-bias-problem/ Date assessed: Sept. 17, 2017.

[2] Perez, S. and Luden, I. 2017.  Face ID will work with Apple Pay Third Party Apps. Tech Crunch. Sept. 12, 2017[Online.] Available from: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/12/faceid-will-work-with-apple-pay-third-party-apps/

[3] Applin, S. 2017. Artificial Intelligence: Making AI in our Images. Savage Minds. Sept. 7, 2017. [Online]. Available from: /2017/09/07/artificial-intelligence-making-ai-in-our-images/ Date assessed: Sept. 17, 2017.

[4] Applin, S. 2016. The Automation of Qualitative Methods. EPIC. Jan. 18, 2017. [Online]. Available from: https://www.epicpeople.org/automation-qualitative-methods/ Date assessed: Sept. 17, 2017

In this time of amplified racist hate and violence, whether it is anti-Black, anti-Muslim, or directed at any group, what can we as scholars contribute to challenge this?

In this time of newly public white supremacy in the USA, what can we as scholars contribute to challenge this?

Today, Monday, September 18, 2017 is devoted to Understanding Race After Charlottesville. Four professional organizations—the American Anthropological Association, the American Historical Association, the American Sociological Association, and the Society for Applied Anthropology—are each encouraging and holding events leading up to and following after this day. Here at Anthrodendum, we are collecting resources from this event to share, as well as offering others relevant in this political moment. Since the 2016 presidential campaign, anthropologists have been busy trying to interpret where we are and how we got here—and collectively thinking about how to research, write, and teach in this moment.

Below are resources associated with Understanding Race After Charlottesville, as well as beyond. Please feel free to share additional resources in the comments section:

American Anthropological Association webpage for Understanding Race After Charlottesville

American Historical Association webpage for Understanding Race After Charlottesville

American Sociological Association webpage for Understanding Race After Charlottesville

Brexit, Trump, and Anthropology forum (American Ethnologist). Edited by Shanti Parikh, Angelique Haugerud, and Jeannette Edwards, with articles from Hugh Gusterson, Jonathan Rosa and Yarimar Bonilla, Carole McGranahan, and Christine J. Walley.

#BlackLivesMatter: Anti-Black Racism, Police Violence, and Resistance forum (Cultural Anthropology). Edited by Bianca C. Williams with essays by Joy James, Aimee Meredith Cox, Matt Richardson, Christen Smith, Dylan Kerrigan, Joao Vargas, Orisanmi Burton, Michelle Stewart, and Alisse Waterston.

The Rise of Trumpism forum (Cultural Anthropology). Edited by Lucas Bessire and David Bond with essays from Judith Butler, Michael M.J. Fischer, Faye Ginsburg, Susan Harding, Brandi Janssen, Doug Kiel, Micaela di Leonardo, Amy Moran-Thomas, Harald E.L. Prins, Laurence Ralph, Ritchie Savage, Jessica Smith, Ann Laura Stoler, Michael Taussig, Christine J. Walley.

From Candidacy to Governance: Rethinking “The Hands of Donald Trump” forum (HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory). Edited by Donna Goldstein and Kira Hall, with contributions from Michael Silverstein, Stefka Hristova, Norma Mendoza-Denton, Jeff Maskovsky, L. Kaifa Roland, and Nancy Scheper-Hughes.

Teaching materials from Anthrodendum’s #teachthedisaster series:

#teachingthedisaster (by Zoe Wool)

Teach America Great Again (by Rucha Ambikar)

Teaching the Anthropology of Elections in Times of Trump (by Maria L. Vidart-Delgado)

Race, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock, Trump, Prison Abolition, Welfare Reform, Pulse Orlando: #Teachingthedisaster Through Crowdsourced Syllabi (by Carole McGranahan)

Rethinking Pedagogy of Race in Anthropology, Part I (by Takami Delisle)

Rethinking Pedagogy of Race in Anthropology, Part II (by Takami Delisle)

While a student, and at the encouragement of my mother, I recruited my grandmother to help me collect ghost stories from her oldest sister, Julia, the most renowned storyteller and tamale maker in my family. In addition to learning a little bit about linguistics and a lot about transcribing interviews I also heard for the first time the tale of how her family came to Texas from Torreón, Coahuila. In honor of Diez y Seis and with all due respect to the still precarious status of immigrants and refugees in the United States I am retelling it to you today.

Special thanks are due to my mom Janis, Grandma Pauline, and Aunt Julia who guided me to that kitchen in south central Austin, January 1997, where I first heard this tale.  I had to exercise a little poetic license to weave that conversation into a single narrative but its really Julia’s story. Believe me, when its family holding you to account you’re going to do your best to tell the tale right!

SPOILER ALERT I hesitated to put this next paragraph ahead of the narrative, but disliked placing it at the end of the post. Go read the story first and then come back, I’ll wait… Okay… At the climax of the story the captain of the Villistas spontaneously decides to spare Julia’s father’s life announcing that Frank is his guardian angel. There’s some interesting symbolism here that might have been clearer had Julia’s ordering of the events been more linear, but then she was already quite elderly when I recorded the story. First, the soldiers had already rounded up all the men and locked then in a warehouse, although Frank was just a boy he should have been with them but somehow they missed him and he slept through it. Second, he is wrapped in a sheet because he rolled off the bed when the raiders stole the mattress. Thus, not only does he appear out of nowhere but he is literally clothed all in white, hence why he is like an angel.

NB. At the end of the story, after the family has risen from destitution to some degree of stability, Julia describes herself as being in a house where “we felt like we were okay.” Being that she and her friend have easy access to the river that is only a short horse ride away this is probably the Deep Eddy house, which is where the ghost stories begin.

The Castruita Family Flees to Texas to Escape War in Mexico

by Aunt Julia, with a little help from my Grandma and me

When I was little, you see my daddy would live in a big hacienda. I don’t know how they call it (laughs). Hacienda. And do you know it’s all big and round and all the people sleep all the way round, it’s adobe. Las casas. The houses were made of adobe. Adobe, yes. And it was a big, high wall all the way round the hacienda. Like a village. There was just one gate.

And we live there, my daddy was the el gerente. Manager. There was a water tank beside the house. There was a big windmill that pulled out the water. And a vegetable garden. On one side was the produce for the people, the vegetables and stuff. But over here on this other side, the other side of this huge water tower. It’s as high as the house on the other side, is where they had the fodder for the animals. And they plant oats and alfalfa.

See the man that brought my grandfather over here to Texas is the one that owned that big hacienda. He had a restaurant and one of the biggest hotels in Torreón. They had a warehouse where they had all the stuff that they produced from farming.

In the middle of the night. They were all asleep. And remember now they’re little houses, the hacienda is all these little adobe houses. The rooms all connect. That’s where all the help lived. The people who worked the fields. You see it go around like that and all just rooms together. My father is one that managed it all, he oversaw all the help that worked there.

They were asleep. About two in the morning. There was one guy who was the watchman. And he made the rounds. The Villistas came. They forced their way in.

It was the summer. They were sleeping outdoors.

They pointed their rifles. They put a noose around my father’s head. Everybody got up. They wanted my father to go and open all the warehouses, they were going to loot them. They looted the horses and the mules. They had the wine, the beans. Everything. Cheese.

They took all the men and put ‘em all in one room and locked it. It was an empty warehouse. They locked ‘em in there, just the men. They only left my mother and me, and then everybody else, all the families and everything, they were locked. I cry and cry. But daddy gave ‘em a lock that really didn’t lock. He knew that, but he gave it to ‘em. So they locked it.

My mother, they insisted that my mother give ‘em money and they went into the house where my mother lived. And here I am, a little girl grabbing onto my mother’s skirt. And they tear me away from her, from mama. And I’d come back and then they had a gun, a rifle pointed at my mother all the time. They came in. They took all their clothes. All the bed linens, everything. She had an old sewing machine. And her purse with the money. My mother’s purse with money was inside the sewing machine.

“Give us money!”

They never did find the money cause she had it locked, her purse was locked inside. They don’t find the money. And I was crying and screaming! And my mother would hold me. The soldier were trying to take me. He tried to kill me. With the, you know, turn of the gun. Tried to hit me. And my mother’s arm is all bruised where they hit ‘em.

So then he went and take out my daddy. And you know, Frank. He wrapped in one the sheets. They took the mattress, everything. They went out, take out my daddy. They tied him up.

Down the road from the hacienda was where the Chinese lived and they had orchards, okay. They wanted to know where the China-men lived.

So my daddy walk behind there. Tied up with the rope. He was walking behind the horses. They were going to hang my father. Frank, they went behind him. He was nine years old. He follow him. They were going to put the noose around his neck. They were going to hang my daddy.

Frank he ran and grabbed my daddy by his leg, and then the captain said, “That’s this man’s guardian angel.” And so cut down the rope. And they let him come back.

Frank slipped out. He roll in one of the sheets. And they took him (laughs). Yes, because they take the mattress and everything. But he roll to one corner they don’t see him. Cause it was dark.

And do you know, my mother make coffee right away. And they put some alcohol in their cafe. They were drunk when they left there. The soldiers. They insisted that my mother make coffee, and then they just poured this liquor in. It was 100 proof! (laughs)

They had big cans full of well, it looks like curds and whey. Ready to make cheese. The soldiers just reached in there, would eat the cheese. The cheese, what they need to do was to strain it you know. But they would just eat it. It was a big mess, where they had, you know, all stuck their hand and it was dirty.

All right, when they released my daddy and Frank they came back and because he put just a false lock on the door he opened it and released them. All the people from the hacienda, including me and mama (laughs), just night clothes. We don’t have nothing. Next day my daddy had to come to town and buy some clothes for us to use and everything. The soldiers stole them all. Yes, they took everything. They tore down the place.

They did leave after they decided not to kill my daddy. Yes, yes. They went to the Chinese and kill all the Chinese. And took whatever they want. This was very common. And they, cause that men just live on the mountains. They were guerrillas, more or less. But they’d come, it was very common for them to raid whatever little hacienda was close.

Oh yes. And then, and they told my daddy when they come back they find him there they gonna kill ‘em! So we stay about two weeks there and then my grandfather Anacleto, my daddy’s father say, “No you don’t stay here nomore. Go to Estadio Unido.” Go to U.S. Cause they gonna kill him and his whole family gonna be awful. So my daddy left, he had to go to Austin. He know somebody in Austin.

Yeah, the brother of the man, Mr. Lewis’s brother. This one named Carlos? Charley? Carlos. We stay there for six months, then my daddy went back and bring us to here. To Texas. He came here first, alone. And then he established himself, and then he went back in six months. And brought us back. My daddy went on a train. We went on a train, yeah.

Whenever these guerrillas, they took everything. Nobody go out. And no food, nothing. There wasn’t anything left so what we did was to grind corn, dry corn, and from that she made like a porridge. And that’s what we ate. Just little-bitty cups. One each.

On top of the roof of the house they put the machine guns. So nobody go out. They don’t sell nothing. The stores was close and everything. After the guerrillas would go through the government would send train loads of food. But then all the people, you know, didn’t have anything so they all mobbed the train. And they pass out wheat, flour. Each family would get just a little box which was equal to about a quart of flour, beans, rice.

Okay, see, my daddy after this raid, you know, when they cleaned out the hacienda the owner of the hacienda said, “You better go because they’re going to come back.” And in fact they told my daddy that the next time they came, if he was still there they will kill him. So he, that’s when he came to Texas.

My father’s cousin wrote him and said, “You’d better come back for the family cause, see the rations, your family is starving. You better come back.” So that’s when my daddy went back, six months later. And he brought us.

So we come. We stay in Piedras Negras. One week, because my daddy you know he didn’t have no passport. Well they detained ‘em. While the whole family had a passport, my daddy didn’t. He had only a tourist pass and it had run out. We were a week there, in Piedras Negras at the border. Doing the paperwork.

When we came over, it was Augustine. Mother. Maggie. Frank. Me (Julia). Four children and my mother. And we traveled alone, because see my daddy came the other way around. They traveled alone. I remember that picture of my mother, she was so skinny. But we had had hardship for six months. Down there.

When we first got here we lived in this big ol’, this empty store. And it was just one big, you know, hall. And behind there was this big water tower with a metal tank because it was a windmill pump. And it was so cold that year that in the morning there’d be a huge icicle on the side of the tank. We had no bedding.

In the evening, when we went to bed my mother would wash our clothes and hang the clothes to dry inside the building. There was one stove where she did the cooking. Wood stove. And we all slept around it. But because she had to wash the clothes, cause that was all the clothes we brought what was on our back.

And there was a little black woman that lived near there and she gave my mother some old rattly-tattly blankets and we wrapped ourselves in it to sleep. And the kids wake up in the middle of the night, they’d be so cold, they’d be crying. My father would wake up in the middle of the night, add wood to the stove so it would stay warm. He’d kill birds and coons and possums and squirrels. And that’s what we used to eat when we first come to Austin. And next to the house it was a big field of cabbage (laughs), steal the cabbage from the guy next door. It was so sweet to steal cabbage like that (laughs)!

For 25 cents a day the boys were hired to spinach. Turnips, big turnips. Now my father was working in the dairy already, but this man that hired him would give him breakfast which my mother cooked. She would fix for each one of the hired hands, bacon and biscuits. And my daddy would eat one egg and one slice of bacon, and give my mother the other egg and the other bacon and the biscuit and she then took that divided it among the four kids.

See for a whole year we were there with that man. Then after the end of the year this other man hired him and he gave us a house to live. And then we were no longer hungry because we have everything there. There was a lady she would give us eggs and bacon. And my mother had a vegetable garden. Peach orchard. Grapes. You know every weekend they go fishing, perch. The lady had two sons and one daughter, and they’d climb up and cut the grapes. So see we felt like we were okay because they had all this to eat. They put netting around the trees in the orchard. Plums and grapes.

The little girl was my same age and we would get on the horse and go play on the beach near the river. We go on the river and play there.

Okay. We’ll cut it there.

Would you peer review manuscripts for a journal or press that politically censors its content? If your answer is no, then please join us in making your statement public by signing this petition.

Why the need for what seems like such an obvious defense of academic freedom? Several weeks ago, the People’s Republic of China pressured Cambridge University Press to restrict access in China to articles and book reviews in two major journals: China Quarterly and Journal of Asian Studies (the flagship journal of the US-based Association of Asian Studies). The Press agreed to censor content in China Quarterly, but then changed this decision after international scholarly protest.

The content to be censored was scholarship the Chinese government considered sensitive or dangerous, including works by anthropologists of China, Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Content requested to be censored is extensive and dates back to 1952 as you can see on the censorship list for each journal (list of the 300 articles China Quarterly initially blocked, then reversed decision on, and list of content Journal of Asian Studies refused to block).

Not a scholar of this part of the world? Your support of this peer review boycott still matters. It matters for broad support of intellectual freedom and access to scholarship. Your expertise matters as a peer reviewer on manuscripts with topical and theoretical overlaps with your specialties.

Your free labor already supports the work of journals. It should not also support government censorship in exchange for market access.

Ironically, this week is “Peer Review Week” for publishers around the world. Cambridge University Press claims they are celebrating peer review and “the vital role it plays in helping us to publish the most rigorous and ground-breaking research across books and journals.” But what is the point of publishing “rigorous” or “ground-breaking research” if you are going to censor it for some readers?

This petition was spearheaded by anthropologist Charlene Makley (Reed College), with the help of Robbie Barnett (Tibetan studies, Columbia University), Kevin Carrico (international studies, Macquarie University), Ralph Litzinger (anthropology, Duke University), Carole McGranahan (anthropology, University of Colorado), and Emily Yeh (geography, University of Colorado). Please join us in signing. Strength in numbers is particularly important for this effort; it puts bottom-up pressure on academic publications and publishing companies to stand against Chinese government pressure to censor content. The petition currently has almost 600 signatories. It would be great to get to 1000 scholars signed on — thanks for standing with us, regardless of where you conduct research or work in the world!

Such work can be challenging, personally and politically. Current development paradigms which fetishize market forces and the unfettered private sector as an engine for positive social transformation are laying the foundations that consolidate the entrenchment of  new kinds of inequalities on an  unprecedented scale.  At the same time, financial transfers from richer countries to poorer ones provide much needed subsidies for improved public provision of essential basic services. Understanding where policies have traction,  and for whom,  is a critical part of the contested politics of development practice, within and between development organizations.

The politics of development knowledge and what  is prioritised as  relevant at a particular time mean that  knowledge work in development not only has financial implications in potentially influencing the direction of agency support. It is explicitly and self consciously relational. The credibility and status of development knowledge generally depends more on the social and institutional relations which position the researcher and the knowledge product than the content of the knowledge itself.

The development sector has undergone substantial changes in the ten years since I first wrote   about   how  knowledge is done differently in anthropology and in development.   The increasing privatization of aid and the growth of subcontracting between development organizations affects the ways in which development knowledge is produced, as well as how it is used and valued.  A greater proportion of development knowledge than previously is now the commercial property of the organizations contracted to produce it and those for whom it is commissioned.

Undertaking commissioned research for a public agency is now likely to be mediated through an intermediary organization which has won a competitive tender, whether a think-tank, a university, a not for profit or a commercial company. Development has long been recognized as an industry. It is also a marketplace in which  diverse actors situate themselves in order to capture business at different scales.

Although many anthropologists continue to have a problematic relationship with development both as an industry and as a post colonial project, the precarity of the current academic  jobs market  or a personal commitment to  some, at least, of the aspirations of  progressive social change promoted by development actors  from social movements to   state wide  programs mean that perhaps a greater number of us will find ourselves working with, not merely on,  development interventions and organizations.  While this kind of rapid and responsive work can be very different from the practice of academic anthropology, it is my experience that core principles and skills foundational to my anthropological practice inform my approach to development knowledge work.

Anthropological holism, the recognition that everything is connected, is an essential counterfoil to the silo-ization orientation of policy work and the politics of relevance based on sectoral framing.  Second, anthropology takes as its starting point the insight popularised through STS scholars that all knowledge is situated. Third, emotions and relationships structure all social worlds, including policy worlds.  As David Mosse shows in his ethnography of a development project which transitioned rapidly from success to failure in the eyes of funders, generating attachment through affective relations plays an essential,  albeit under acknowledged role, in  sustaining policy  traction. Last,  but not least , are the practical skills we pick up through our  research on sources and our  dialogical engagement with people in the field.   The ability to use search tools to rapidly scour multiple databases, being able to read and take in large amounts of information quickly,  and knowing how to create rapport in an interview while asking the right questions are extremely important in this kind of work.

Not all of the practices we strive to become proficient in  while doing extended projects in anthropology are as transferable.  Working outside the academic sector means learning different ways of communicating knowledge through different styles of writing within shorter time-frames. It has made me more aware of how anthropological knowledge is produced, the specialized work which goes into its production and the economies of university enterprise which enable these long drawn out and labor intensive endeavors. It’s also made me far more conscious of the disciplinary practices we routinely use to  maintain the boundaries between anthropological and other kinds of knowledge and what are constituted as the professional capabilities necessary for its production.   Situating knowledge is an active process.  The social construction of  relevance and authority  is  not confined to the development universe.

Here is the standard speech I give students: There is no strong connection between your college major and occupation (at least for anthropology and most other majors). The purpose of an undergraduate degree is to give you general skills which will enable you to be a citizen of your country and the world. These same generalized capacities you need for citizenship are what you need for the job market. There is no point learning how to mechanically follow orders, since that just means you can be replaced by a robot. What’s key is the ability to learn quickly is key, since companies don’t really believe in training any more. You will be paid best if you can build or maintain the lives of the privileged. You will be paid poorly if you work for the poor or disadvantaged. The answer to the question “what can I do with this major” is not a fake list of job choices. It is ask “what do you want?” If you are waiting for your college professors to hand you a high-paid job, that’s not going to happen. And this is not our fault: it isn’t the educational sector that keeps blowing up the economy so the rich can get richer. College is not about choosing a major off a menu so that you can chose a job off a menu. College is about figuring out what you want to do and then seeing how possible that is in the world we live in today.

Now, the Hamilton Project doesn’t deal with the more philosophical liberal arts-end of my spiel to students. But it does underline one central point: There is no such thing as ‘anthropology job’ for anthropology majors. Take a look at this chart:

The most common jobs for anthropology majors are: law, management, teaching, and ‘postsecondary teachers’ which I think means ‘professors and adjuncts’. The body of the graph sorts these occupations by income, with the most lucrative on the left. But check out the bar on the left which measures how common each job is: 6.5% of majors are postsecondary teachers, 4.8% teach elementary and middle school, 4.1% are managers, and 3.8% are in law. In other words: even the most common job for anthropologists do not account for 93.5% of occupations for anthro majors. The top four occupations account for less than 20% of occupations. In other words: you can do anything with an anthropology major. But getting an anthropology major doesn’t give you skills for any job in particular. Except maybe being an anthropology professor.

The Hamilton Project uses the same ACS data data I’ve been using to advise students. When  I tell them the most likely thing that will happen is that they will be a high school teacher or a paralegal, they are often depressed. Partially this is because they have this idea that they’ll be issued a bullwhip and fedora along with their BA. But also this is because of the false and inaccurate statements made to them by the university. Universities today are increasingly telling their students that undergraduate degrees are vocational degrees. When asked to pick a major, students are given flyers listed ‘jobs you can do with an anthropology major’. These jobs are typically glamorous and involve a lot of international travel and helping people (aid work is popular). But there is no evidence — no evidence — that these job menu advertisements have anything to do with reality.

No one should tell an anthropology student that it is likely that they will go into a life of highly-paid, benevolent international travel if they get a BA in anthropology. Statements like this are 1) baseless 2) encourage students to imagine undergraduate education as vocational, not liberal 3) discourages imagination rather then encouraging it by giving students a list of possible futures rather than asking them to imagine their own futures 4) discourages students from studying what they care about (and thus cultivating a personal project that could get them an actual good job) and encourages them to study something which they believe (wrongly) has good job prospects.

Colleges and other groups — like the American Anthropological Association — do not concoct these job menu fantasies to help students. They do it to help themselves. They are the result of academic departments and associations trying to remain relevant as they compete with other disciplines for majors and enrollments. It is not too much to say that fantasy job menus constitute a sort of bait-and-switch by which future elementary school teachers are told they are going to work for the World Bank or Google.

The good news is that you can do whatever you want with an anthropology degree — but you have to know what you want, and then go out and get it. And the job may not be about making as much money as possible (although, to be honest, given the state of the world today that would probably be a good idea). Like most majors, anthropology is a welcoming discipline that will let you find your own way.

The bad news is that anthropology does not live to a life of adventure and excitement. In fact, most majors don’t. The world today is not a good place, and the prospects of well-paid, rewarding employment are not that great for most Americans. We owe it to our students to be honest with them about this fact, rather than subtly suggesting to them that declaring a major will somehow teleport them to an alternate economy of Endless Fulfillment. And if, on being told their future will be uncertain no matter what they chose, they get curious and start thinking about social stratification, politics, income and education, then… they might really be anthropology majors after all.