Teaching as Social Acxtion: Ethics of Access and
Relevance in Introcluctory Anthropology
Deborah Pruitt
These comments are in honor of Gerald Berreman, without whom I would not
have the license to be here. A personal story will make it clear why I say this.
As we all know, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between existential angst
and writers' block. One afternoon while finishing my dissertation, I was in the throws
of severe doubts about my abil'ity to finish and in anguish about the ethicality of the
task; questions of representation, authenticity, objectification, and more plagued me.
Professor Berreman urged me on, voicing appreciation for my concerns, stressing that
the questions need to be raised, and that they "need to come from a card carrying
member." His words continued to spur me on and I completed my dissertation soon
after. However, it still took several years to wrestle with my position in what
Raymond Firth has called an "uncomfortable discipline" (Firth 1981:200).
I did not work in academic anthropology for several years after finishing my
dissertation, although, like so many, I did submit numerous job applications. I have
recently reconnected to the profession through teaching, so what follows are some
comments from a "card carrying member" after a hiatus that has given me a bit of an
outsider's perspective on anthropology. My gratitude to Professor Berreman is
expressed everyday in the way in which I teach.
What concerns me here is the lack of accomplishment in making
anthropological knowledge and, more importantly, the per-spective that anthropology
offers, more accessible. Of course, I am not the only one with this concern; "Public
Anthropology" was even the theme at the 2000 annual meeting.
Ninivaggi (1999) examines why it is that anthropology is so absent in
academic conferences and courses on multiculturalism and diversity. She says, "It is
the paradox of our times that as colleges scramble to respond to the demands of a
globalizing and communications technology-driven workplace, anthropology has not
expanded as a discipline .... Anthropology is and has been a muted voice in the domain
of race relations" (Nin1ivaggi 1999:16). A Ph.D. student who teaches in the field
called "Intercultural Communication" recently discussed with me the need for more
anthropologic-al insigrht in that fie-ld, e-ven while- it sucsflyreache-s largre nuimhers
of students and clients.
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We can also repeatedly see the need for an anthropological perspective when
watching the news, pundit talk shows, and various discussions in the media as well as
our neighborhoods and civic groups. It is really quite striking what a poor job the
anthropology profession has done in communicating to our larger community the
understandings and insights gained from all the hard work of so many dedicated
professionals.
This is largely a problem of detachment: anthropology has become an isolated
speech community in many ways. This was made poignantly clear to me by a
comment from an engineering faculty member as I worked on a multidisciplinary
task-force of the academic senate at the University of California, Berkeley for
increasing student diversity in the sciences and engineering. Saying something
comparable to, "you're not like other anthropologists," he remarked to me that he
usually found it frustrating to try to work with anthropologists because he could not
understand what they were talking about most of the time. He thought they speak in
their own language in ways that are esoteric and contribute little to practical matters.
In 1971, Berreman called for an anthropology that is "relevant in the sense
that it address the issues facing people in their social existence, and we ask that it
reflect the quality of that social existence as it seeks to provide foundations and
practical recommendations for improving it" (1981).  It is disappointing and
frustrating to read some of Professor Beffeman's work from the 1970s and 1980s and
realize how relevant his concerns still are today. This matter of relevance continues to
plague the profession.
One only need attend an annual meeting of the American Anthropological
Association to be reminded of how out of touch a great deal of the work published in
anthropology actually is. It is often hard to see what the purpose is beyond idle
curiosity. It is terribly extravagant to ask esoteric questions and analyze people's
experiences for no benefit to them while many people struggle to survive. This is not
lost on students and it erodes our credibility.
Clearly much of our profession has lost touch with our responsibility to our
teachers (Michael Agar's (1980) term for what others have called "informants"), our
students, and our community (Berreman 1981). Yet our professional code of ethics
includes the statement that "Anthropological researchers should make the results of
their research appropriately available to sponsors, students, decision makers, and other
nonanthropologists" and ensure that it is "well understood."
Denzin (1997) takes it a steD fuirther and refers to ethnograDhv as the moral
discourse of our time. To have real significance, our work must relate to those around
us and be accessible to our entire community. One important mechanism for
remaini ng relevant and significant is the introductory anthropology course.
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Pubfic Anthropology
I am a "public anthropologist" and a very fortunate woman. I spend my days
introducing scores of people to the perspective that cross-cultural research in
anthropology provides.  I teach introductory anthropology in more than six
community and private colleges in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition, I provide
coaching and consulting services to managers and directors of non-profit
organizations. Both occupations enable me to 'impart an anthropological perspective
on life's challenges.
My focus here is on my experience as a teacher and my attempt to engage
teaching as social action. I have joined the ranks of many others as a broker of
anthropological knowledge. I don't have time for much original research and
production of knowledge these days thanks to the realities of academic employment in
an adjunct economy. Rather, I play the crucial role of presenting the knowledge of
our profession in a formi that is accessible to non-specialists.
I can think of no better place to confront the ethical issues of anthropology
than when teaching an introductory course. Deciding what our students must learn,
how they will learn it, and how they will demonstrate their learin calls up all of the
thorny moral questions facing our profession today. The dilenunas over science,
explanation, description, representation, fiction, journalism, access, relevance, and
authority are all present-whether they are consciously addressed, or unconsciously
resolved through doing what is most familiar, the uncritical move of repetition.
While the field is challenged directly on many fronts (such as the subjects of
ethnographic studies talking back, members of the profession from the cultures
traditionally studied by anthropologists, and so forth) the same dynamics are
occunring, more quietly perhaps, in the classroom. I have had numerous students from
those cultural groups that frequently provide the source material in anthropological
literature. And the overall ethnic and social diversity of my classroom constantly
reminds me of the hegemonic potential when presenting representations of
"otherness." This is the advantage of the community college envirornment in the San
Francisco Bay Area.
Comm-iunity College Learning
The vital role of the community college in adult learning is indisputable. In
1995, thirty-seven percent of all enrollments in post-secondary education were in
community colleges (W. Norton Grubb & Assoc. 1999:333). The signifilcance of this
figure is made more apparent by the fact that upper division and graduate students are
included in the statistics at the four-year schools, while community colleges only
include lower division. In California in 1999, there were three-quarters of a million
more students enrolled in community colleges than in all the rest of the public and
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private four-year colleges and universities combined (California Department of
Finance 2000:96).
We reach a substantial portion of the communilty through state supported
community colleges. And we reach niany people who would never be in a four-year,
post-secondary institution. Many people take advantage of the community college to
get associates degrees and vocational degrees that advance their work opportunities.
And there are always a few who take classes because they are interested in learning
with no degree objectives.
The community college is the avenue for what are called "non-traditional"
students to enter the college track. This includes those who did not continue through
college directly after high school, those who can only afford to go to college part-
time, and many who are developing second and third language skills to enable them to
advance in their new society. Most of the students work, many of them full-time, and
many have children. For self-supporting students who end up taking variable loads
each semester (three-quarters of the students at Laney College in Oakland attend part-
time), a B.A. might take six or seven years or longer, but is literally made possible
through part-time and creative scheduling options.
Because the community college offers an open door to students who need
alternatives to the conventional four-year colleges and universities, students tend to be
older than those at four-year schools. At Laney College 45 percent of the students in
2000 were between the ages of 25 and 54. Nationally, 52 percent of community
college students are older than 24 (W. Norton Grubb & Assoc. 1999-:333). They also
tend to be more culturally diverse. While community colleges are one-third of all
U.S., colleges and universities, they enroll nearly half of all the minority students in
higher education (McClenney 200 1: 1).
My classroom is a veritable microcosm of the world. Every semester I have a
combination of students from every part of the globe-fiirst generation inunigrants,
recent immnigrants struggling to study college level courses in a new language, and
American-born folks from African, European, Latin, and Asian heritages. The 1999
enrollment at Laney College is reported as 20% Asian, 32% African American, 5%
Filipino, 10% Hispanic/Latino, 2% Native American, and 23% White non-Hispanic..
These categories obscure the complex diversity, as I encounter students from Kenya,
Camaroon, Turkey, Afganistan, Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Vietnam, Cambodia,
Columbia, Argentina, Navajo, Black Feet, Russia, Nigeria, Mexico, Guatamala,
Guam, Hawaii-to name just a few.. At least half of my students identify as
multicultural. It is an excitingz learning environment in which the students often
become the teacher.
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The role of the community college in providing access to higher education is
profound, a role which will only expand as the gap between the elite and the rest of us
grows.
I have been unable to find any reliable statistics on how much anthropology is
being taught in community colleges. ,The American Anthropological Association does
not accumulate such information. This is unfortunate because it reflects an oversight
and perhaps bias about the importance of what happens in the community colleges.
Given the overall statistics, I feel comfortable saying that at least as many students
brush up against anthropology in community colleges as the rest of the schools
combined. It is an invaluable opportunity to impart an anthropological message to
vast numbers of people, and to significantly broaden our perspective from the insight
gained from our diverse students.
Yet, the conditions for many of us teaching in community colleges makes it
very difficult to exploit the full depth of the opportunity available.
Introducing Anthropology
I suspect that my situation is not unusual. My first teaching assignment came
when I was asked to teach a summer course at the last minute--one week before
classes started. With no time to order books, I inherited a text book from the prior
instructor. By the time I had constructed the course schedule, lectures, class projects,
exams, and assignments, I had quite an investment in that design around that
particular textbook, a textbook that is frequently used and represents the classical
approach to an introductory course. By the next semester, when I was slated to teach
six courses at three different schools, I was not in the position to redesign the course
from a more creative perspective. A full-time teaching load at a community college is
five courses. Yet, most of us are part-time adjuncts, a full 52 percent according to a
recent study (W. Norton Grubb & Assoc. 1999)1, and teach six to seven courses a
semester. We must teach at multiple schools and most of us do other contract work in
order to make ends meet. The time and energy to creatively design courses is very
hard to come by.
So,, we rely on the materials readily available. This is what concerns me- the
nature of the materials easily obtained for teachers of introductory level anthropology
courses. Graduate school prepares us to conduct research and function at the most
sophisticated levels of the discipline. Thus, we become better adept at teaching upper
division and graduate level courses. I suspect it would be quite easy for most of us to
pull together a sophisticated course on any number of topics in anthropology in a few
weeks time. It is much more challenging to devise a meaningful introduction to
cultural diversity that is relevant and accessible to people with little to no academic
background.
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Yet, this is perhaps the most important work we do. It is the introduction that
is often the most radical moment. Students who have cultivated their curiosity and
developed skill at pursuing knowledge on a subject need very little assistance.
Encouragement and guidance in unknown areas is often the most substantial thing we
do. But the uninitiated, the students who have never learned to independently pursue
their curiosity or been exposed to experiences beyond their particular community, are
the students to whom we have the most to offer and I believe the greatest obligation to
reach.
But the materials ready-at-hand, the textbooks provided at no cost by the
publishers, replete with instructors' manuals and computerized test-banks, are
virtually unchanged since my first anthropology class in 1983. In reviewing textbooks
for my introductory classes I have examined more than twenty textbooks, most of
them current, with a few from the middle 1980s. There is a pronounced paradigm
visible from that time that is still alive and well. We all probably experienced it in our
first anthropology course: chapter one introduces anthropology, chapter two explains
culture, chapter three describes anthropological theory, chapter four discusses
language and communication, chapter five introduces different modes of subsistence,
chapter six deals with economic systems, then comes family and niarriagel, kinship,
religion, and so forth. Some have added a chapter on peasants, or colonialisnm, or
rearranged chapters, but overall the format for the introductory course has not changed
much., notwithstanding all the years of "reflexive discourse"" about the anthropological
project. While the discipline has been undergoing a transformation and renewal as we
have reexamined our motives, our methods., and our results., the introductory course
plods along., largely unchanged.
Now I am sure many authors would take exception to my comments, and I do
not mean in any way to disregard the value of the many modifications and additions
made by various authors over the years. But structurally and stylistically., most
introductory textbooks are an updated version, not a new model.
Whither Holism?
I view the introductory course as first and foremost about leanin from a
cross-cultural holistic understanding of the world. I am much less concerned with
"training" new anthropologists than with giin my students a sense of the experience
of different ways of constructing reality. I rarely see a student who is pllannn to
major in anthropology. Rather, most of my students are pursuing a wide range of
interests and careers., and take anthropology to satisfy a general education
requirement. But if I can help) them acqui're a holistic perspective, then in addition to
a richer, more complex understanding of different cultures, they will become more
aware of the links in our own seemingly fragmented culture and can be more effective
agents in their own lives.
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Thus, I look for ways to help my students imagine the experience of realities
defined by different cultures. I want them to identify with people in other cultures, to
ponder questions like, "What would it be like to grow up in that family? How might I
make a living in that place?" and so forth. But the introductory paradigm is still too
often a litany of analytic categories and essentially lists of (often some of the most
"6exotic" or salacious) facts. Far too little of the complexity of the lived realities of
people in different cultures comes through.
This is in part a problem of dividing up the world, and the anthropological
text, into analytic classifications. We preach about holism (well, I do anyway), then
present our most basic introductory information in the formi of discrete categories.
Even when something close to a "thick description" is provided, sometimes a vignette
or a case study of a particular culture, it is usually only one element of life that is
elaborated-the economic system, or family structure, or ritual practice for instance.
We rarely get a holistic sense of the connections between that element and other day-
to-day aspects of life in that culture.
It is difficult to grasp the integrated nature of culture when it is in separate
chapters. Yet this is one of the most valuable and pertinent things we can teach. It is,
in fact, perhaps one of the only purposes (justifilcations) for anthropology today. If
Anthony Giddens is right, as I think he is, the practical relevance of anthropology lies
in "forging new perspectives, new ways of looking at things" (1995:277).
The new perspectives needed emerge from our roots- the holistic and
comparative perspective. While sociologists, historians, economists, and many others
grapple with many of the same issues today, my reading suggests that none of those
disciplines grasp the nuances of holism as well as anthropology does. This is the
powerful contribution we make, when we make it in tenms that others can understand.
A considerable challenge is to bring this squarely into the introductory class.
This means integrating the most 'important and cutting edge work of our discipline in
the introductory moment.
I try to address this challenge by teaching about typologies and telling my
students to think in terms of the value of analytic categories while being aware of the
de(con)struction involved. But this is ultimately not sufficient, and the introductory
course too often becomes an exercise in learning a catalog of tenms. The meaning of
the term "6exogamy" or "matrilineage" can take on far too much signifilcance
compared to the real potential of the introductory course for developing global
awareness, deep understanding and empathy for different realities, and a critical
perspective.
This is particularly a danger in college settings such as those in which I teach
where most students have had little exposure to anything but rote learning. They are
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anxious and sometimes demanding for clear, familiar, masterable formulas for getting
a grade. The instructor is equally impacted by the political economy of education: the
time constraints, the pitiful wages, and overall lack of resources that we find ourselves
submerged in means that we repeatedly have to make the compromise choice such as
deciding "well, a multiple choice test can be graded by a machine."
Evidently others have had similar concerns as mine. A few of the current
texts are organized according to subsistence strategy or type of political organization.
These categories can be seen as "first order" distinctions that allow for more
integrated descniptions of the cultures that fall within those categories. Authors such
as Mari Womack (2001), whose text Being Human is partially organized by
subsistence strategy uses examples well and integrates more vignettes and
comprehensive descriptions than most any other text. She even includes short pieces
by different authors who write about the people they know best.
However, I find most of the introductory texts still lack the political
perspective needed to fully understand today's world. For instance, references to the
current conditions indigenous people confront are described as a "pattern" of life that
"has emerged" (Womack 2001:268). Seated firmly in the conventional paradigm, too
many texts still deal with colonialism and globalization in one chapter at the end of
the book on culture change. Thus, most of the semester would be spent. tL% ing. about
people and ways of life that no longer exist; the introductory course is thus squarely
stuck in the "ethnographic present."
An obvious solution is to build a course on ethnographies. Yet, I struggle to
find ethnographies to use. They are too often a relatively dry description and analysis
that does little to evoke an experience, or convey a new wisdom into the nature of life.
They also are usually aimed at an 4anthropological audience, too often caught up in the
jargon of the discipline and attempts to prove a scientifilc or intellectually
sophisticated approach. Furthermore, much of the more progressive forms of
ethnography since the 1980s that emphasize new fonrns of writing and representation
are simply not accessible to most people.  This is the problem with most
poststructuralist, postmodernist, discursive anthropology-it is not comprehensible to
anyone outside the field, or even outside that particular speech community. No one
outside a very narrow segment of the profession can understand it, or, more
frequently, is likely to bother to read it. If the idiom used by many in the profession is
quite impenetrable, even to myself, an indoctrinated one, how would anyone else
understand any of it?
Another maj or hindranlce to using ethnographies in many introductory courses
is that most are simply too long to use. To convey the breadth important in an
introductory course, I would have to assign a half dozen books or more. This is, of
course, absurd. Finances are a maj.9or consideration for most of my students. The cost
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of educational books is having a substantial negative impact on access to higher
leaming. A single textbook is a financial obstacle for many students.
Malcolm Margolin's works, The Ohlone Way (1978) and The Way We Li'ved
(1981) are two of the best things I have read for conveying an experience of life of a
people while also transmitting a lot of the sort of factual information that is considered
important in anthropology textbooks. Interestingly, Margolin is not an anthropologist.
He seems less concerned with presenting anthropology and more concerned with
describing a way of life.  Too much ethnography is so predominantly the
anthropologist's voice and preoccupation that it holds little meaning for my students.
This is true of many of the introductory materials; they tend to be overly
concerned with anthropology and teaching about the discipline, rather than imparting
the information and perspective we have to offer. It is as though the purpose has been
inverted. A look at textbooks in the fields of economics, math, biology, physics, and
astronomy, for instance, is enlightening. They present what they know. They do not
burden the students with the twists and turns of debate in the field. This is all valuable
knowledge for a specialist, but not necessary when introduc'ing people to the insights
gained from intensive learning about other cultures.
As a teacher and educator of a broad public, I need more stories. Our students
and neighbors need the kind of narratives, the short stories, vignettes, and quotes that
reveal people's lives and their views of reality-in their own voices. These are the
kinds of stories that engage the reader and help her to identify with the individuals,
even though they may resolve life's questions very differently. This involves much
less concern with categorizing and analyzing, and much more description and
empathy.
Multiple Perspectives
This is the radical shift of an interpretive epistemology-to act as a translator
and facilitator of multiple voices/worldviews. It requires a constant rem-a-;n  of
ourselves as we confront the new insight gained from listening to other realities.
Kilani states that anthropology "must never stop tearing itself from particular systems
of thought...including those which are at the origins of its own conditions of existence;
in other words, universalistic authority and the modern ideology which accompanies
it" (Kilani 1994).
This is a complex move, but not impossible, and does not necessarily involve
the self-centeredness so prevalent in much of the postmodernist experiments.
Criticisms of being overly reflexive and narcisistic have been levied. I recall
Professor Laura Nader referring to "navel gazing." I couldn't agree more. Much of
what is being done in the name of anthropology today verges on the fetishization of
anthropology.
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I interpret the retreat to hyper-intellectualism as elitism par excellence. The
more esoteric, obscure, and pedantic their language, the more superior some people
seem to feel. They certainly would be seen as no "ordinary" person. It appears to be
another example of constructions of the "distinctilons" Pierre Bourdieu (1984) so
obscurely described. And at this level it is not at all unlike the retreat to ""scientismf"
characteristic of the previous generations of scholars that is so often scorned by the
postmodernists .
Continual parsing of experience into ever more esoteric categories is not what
we need more of at this time on earth. And I think we are no longer there, or no
longer need be anyway. There is an alternative to the self-absorbed stance that has
consumed so much of the poststructuralist/postmodernist/discursive work of the past
decade in which the anthropologist has too often become the focus.
Denzin refers to the "Sixth Moment" in anthropology and provides a useful
discussion of the possibilities for a new writing in anthropology that is based in
communitarian femnii'msm and a combination of anthropology and the new journalism
(Denzi 1997). We have effectively decentered the claim to a singular authoritative
voice inevitable due to the inherent challenge to authority implied in the acceptance
of differing versions of realities. Our consciousness has expanded beyond the purely
scientif'ic. We have opened the door to multiple voices, to different perspectives.
There is an ethical imperative to welcome different voices into our ranks,
different approaches and philosophies for what we do as ethnographers. It was
Professor Berreman who helped me appreciate the diversity within the discipline
when I heard him describe the "catholic nature" of anthropology in an introductory
course.
Anything less is a sham. We cannot argue for cross-cultural understanding
and acceptance if we cannot resolve our own tendencies to resist and seek to eliminate
differences within the profession.
I was reminded of the bickering over differences again recently while
listening to a discussion on the national radio program "To the Best of Our
Knowledge." The topic was the current thikin about culture among chimpanzees.
When asked about what responses this idea had received, the primatologist being
interviewed remarked that one might expect strong reactions from cultural
anthropologists on this question. But, he said, "they're so busy arguing amongst
themselves, we haven't heard much from them." I felt sad and embarrassed that this
is how our profession is talked about.
I must say that I also see some of the bickering that anthropology is
reknowned for as akin to the squabbles that arise from "too much ado about nothing-"
This appears as a relentless search for meaning because too many folks are engaged in
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predominantly self-serving preoccupations rather than engagement with things that
really matter to our communities.
We must also see that as the profession struggles with competing points of
view about "what anthropology is," how to do it, and how to present it, we are simply
exhibiting the same responses that all people tend to have to people of different
perspectives and different cultures. Our experience as a profession is illustrative of
the challenge cultural diversity presents to society.  Uncertainty, frustration,
confusion, irritation-all the things we have all experienced who have lived in a
culture other than our own or even when dealing with a neighbor or the shopkeeper in
town-are common to the experience of confronting someone who defines the world
substantially differently than we do. We should not be surprised if confronting a
radically different point of view in our midst makes us uncomfortable and resistant. If
anyone knows this experience, anthropologists do. And what we claim to possess is a
uniquely powerful perspective for coming to terms with those different voices.
T'his is what we have to share with our communities and in our classrooms.
Our greatest contribution is our experience of difference-the act and process of
learning to understand it, come to terms with it, and perhaps even to appreciate it.
This is where our authority lies, in our experience of that "other" reality and how we
reconcile it with our own. This experience is distinctive and profound and from it we
have developed the perspective, at once -intensely personal and political, that still
distinguishes anthropology. We can speak about the disturbance and confusion that
can go along with confronting difference and the accompanying shift in perspective as
well as ways to resolve that distress, ways to find commonality, understanding, and
empathy.
T'his foundation of experience that we build on is sound and badly needed in
the world. We have tools and perspectives that are extremely valuable to people if we
do not retreat to the seemingly safe, but detached, intellectualization.
I think in our own ways most of us are probably trying to do this. My purpose
here is simply to encourage us to look carefully at our method of teaching and to press
harder for bringing the best of our experience to our introductory classes.
'SVhat Then, Must We Do?" - Tolstoy
So, once again I will say, We need more stories. Stories from people of
different cultures, in their own voices, that can convey to our students the richness and
diversity of human experience. And stories of our own experiences in learning to
reconcile those differences. Publish your stories.
Research on learning and the human brain suggests the need for multisensory
rersentations. We need to create rich experiences that are simnilar in complexity,
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challenge, and creativity to those of the experts (Caine and Caine 199 1). This requires
doing a better job of translating our findings into a form that is accessible to outsiders
and, most importantly, supporting more experiential learning methods.
This means we need to support people who can do this work. Some of us will
always be working on the more esoteric side of questions. It is in the nature of
scholarship and how we push the limits of knowledge. Yet, it is a mistake to allow
that mode of scholarship to dominate. For ensuring accessibility and relevance, we
need translators, in much the same way we can translate for those of diverse cultures
that we live amongst and from whom we learn so much.
Because most of this translation occurs in the introductory classrooms we
need to support teaching more, especially at the lower echelon schools like
community colleges. As I speak here at the University of California, Berkeley, I feel
compelled to remind you that you are at the top of the food chain. That conveys a
particular ethical responsibility to address the needs of those of us closer to the
bottom.
We need more teaching positions, more support for developing materials for
introductory courses, and more support for working outside the academy in an
educational capacity. We need more recognition of the specializations in the field that
involve translation and application of the rich and profound understandings that
anthropologists generate. Make room on the faculties, support our publications,
acknowledge and include these efforts in the prestige economy of the profession. This
ultimately means we must change the reward structure in the profession even if we
cannot affect the entire academy. While we may not be able to radically alter the
political economy of higher education today, we are in control of the profession. If
not us, then who?
Conclusion
The face of education is changing rapidly at all levels. It is taking on many
new formns under the rubric of "distance learning." It is being privatized and
computerized. Stanford University offers an engineering program online; Duke
University offers an MBA program online. The for-profit University of Phoenix, with
standardized, packaged curricula, is the fastest growing higher education institution in
the world. In 1998, there were 1.6 million students enrolled in on-line courses.
Education happens everyday in the workplace, on the radio, and on cable TV
channels.
Anthropology needs to be a part of this. I hope more people get inspired to
communicate to a larger audience. Opportunities abound to reach the larger
community.
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I am reminded of one of the lessons I learned while living in Jamaica. I often
tried to help people with limited opportunities by providing introductions to people
with jobs, access to resources, suggestions of things that might offer them a way out
of their restricted situation. Yet, they often failed to follow up on introductions made
on their behalf such as not showing up when agreed to for a job opportunity, and in
various other ways failing to take advantage of a new opportunity. As I observed this
closely, I saw time and again how their behaviors were based on the options, values,
and expectations defined by the community surrounding them and their immediate
situation and perspective, while miss'ing sight of the larger viewpoint and possibilitiles
present. It was often a matter of making choices derived from the community in
which their reputation and prestige were earned. It might have been a choice that
failed to take advantage of a new opportunity, but it was the choice that made the most
sense to them because it would gain them the most prestige in their community, or
minimally would serve to reinforce reciprocal obligations.
I cannot say it was a bad choice for them, but I can say that it frequently
limited their options. I urge us all not to fall into the trap of segregation into a
professional prestige economy and miss the larger and much more important
opportunities here.
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