My Necessary Disillusionment

Bianca Renzoni UMass Freshman Anthropology & History Double Major

Bianca Renzoni
UMass Freshman
Anthropology & History Double Major

By Bianca Renzoni

UMass Public Anthropology Course | Anthro 397D

Spring 2014

I am frustrated. I am frustrated with my colleagues, peers, supervisors, the world, myself. Fall 2013 I was a naïve first year undergrad student and by spring semester I had blossomed into an undergrad student filled with angst from the discipline I was so previously charmed by. I never thought in my future I would be combatting funding problems, backlash from my own field, or tenure parameters.

Indeed I was naïve. I should have surmised that most anthropology is not within the area of public and engaged scholarship. Somehow I thought there would be many more anthropologists entering the political domain, or gracing the news with their presence. Well, we do see anthropologists in the news when they’ve discovered some type of archaeological wonder such as a “lost pyramid” or King Richard in a parking lot, but too often they have little meaningful engagement with public policies. Their opinions on legislation and human rights seem to be only accessible within the world of academia. It is ironic that the people who dedicate their lives to studying people have little to say about it to the people.

Let us back track. I am an anthropology undergrad student who previously existed in a utopic bubble where working for the people, with the people for changes the people had envisioned was the norm. For me, ‘the people’ were those oppressed by power structures, never realizing I was oppressed by my own discipline, which attempted to channel my focus into academia rather than encourage my flaunting of the boundaries. I foolishly thought that anthropology was a place where egos were left at the door and everyone involved stood on equal footing.

Looking through the Spring 2014 course catalog, I stumbled upon Public Anthropology 397D and with pure delight signed up for the course. Anticipating a course about the widespread community-based engagement in the field, I was sorely mistaken. In fact I found the exact opposite: we do study the work of those engaging with the world in different ways, but I found that much of this type of scholarship is marginalized within academia and the wider field of anthropology. My very first class was just the introduction to my disillusionment. The syllabus states: “For some anthropologists, the goal of research is not simply to study the world” FOR SOME! Not for most, not even for many but for SOME “the point is to engage with the world and bring about positive change.” Immediately, I began to wonder: then what is the majority of anthropologists doing? Where does their research go after they have collected data and published their ideas and results? Are they content to put their research on a shelf, behind a subscription paywall, or a jargon laden book where only academics have the chance of finding it? I thought to myself this cannot be real, but alas article after article, professor after professor, expressed the challenges they faced within academia as they conducted engaged research, worked closely with communities outside of academic, and attempted to share authority and their position of power.

The most obvious power structure people struggle with is the neoliberal capitalist infrastructure, which oppresses the poor for profit. In this class we explored such power structures in Paul Farmer’s Pathologies of Power Health, Human Rights and the New War on the Poor, where he investigates the structural violence enacted by powerful corporations and governments. It was this power structure my pre-397D self had dreamed of demolishing.

We also read about Professor Julie Hemment’s work in Russia. We learned how she struggled with financing her and her colleagues’ projects. In order to get funding from international agencies or the local government they often had to prioritize and rework projects to maximize their chances of getting funding. In 2003, when funding stopped the center that Hemment and her colleagues formed through their collaborative work was forced to shut down. I learned that many community-based research projects face serious funding challenges. This can pose real ethical and practical challenges for community-based projects. When organizations pull out or a researcher does not receive additional funding from their institution, the community and the products of the research can truly suffer.

Another funding related issue engaged scholars face involves the expectation that granting agencies have for project proposals. Grant agencies expect a detailed outline of the research it will fund, however, anthropologists working in engaged settings often require funding at an earlier phase of the work so that they can develop questions and a research design in full partnership with communities. Thus, for many community-based projects, the problem is not just where to find funds, but how to explain a project that will be determined and developed through a community collaboration.

In considering all the structural challenges that engaged anthropologists face, I have realized that one of the most problematic power structures is found within academia. Egos are inflated instead of left at the door. We judge each other, and create a hierarchy where community-based work falls at the bottom and publications that are scientifically rich, yet often unintelligible to the anthropological layman rise to the top. It can be a place where people must censor themselves to get funding or tenure. It is a place where a person’s life work can be deemed unworthy of tenure because it is written in “real people language” or allows “subjects” as co-authors and gives them a substantial role in the published products. This is where academics need to begin to look in their efforts to change the world. It is this power structure we need to dismantle first in order to truly bring power to the people we “research” or for anthropology to be socially and politically relevant.

Remember that my piece is entitled “My Necessary Disillusionment.” This is because without being disillusioned I could never work to change any of these power structures. Initially I saw my future working in the field and ending in academia, but I have realized that first I must infiltrate academia in order to bring change to the people. I am a member of the new generation of anthropologists and this is my rally cry. It is time to change the archaic standards so imbibed in academia, and replace them with new malleable standards that we create. We cannot limit each other or dismiss each others’ work because it is practice-based scholarship. As the world evolves, shouldn’t anthropology? My answer is yes. The answer of classmates in Public Anthropology 397D is yes. The answer from my professors at University of Massachusetts Amherst is yes. It is time to break down the walls of academia and let anthropology move into the context of society.

Bibliography

Farmer, Paul

2005  Pathologies of Power Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the

Poor, Berkeley: University of California Press

 

Hemment, Julie

2007  Public Anthropology and the Paradoxes of Participation: Participatory

Action Research and Critical Ethnography in Provincial Russia,

Human Organization 66:301-14