After an unanticipated hiatus brought about by a series of unfortunate events, Out of the Armchair is back! We're starting the new year with the second in the "Conversations" series,  a Q & A with Karsten Ch'ien. Currently in his first year at Harvard Law School, Karsten graduated in 2009 from Yale where he majored in anthropology. Here's what Karsten had to say about his experience studying anthropology as an undergraduate.

Anthropology was a completely new discipline open to me in college. I had no prior experience and few preconceptions. I thought: Who doesn't like people and culture and learning how societies work? I took a couple classes my first semester and knew I had found my major.

I took all sorts of classes. Some areas of particular interest were climate-based explanations for societal collapse, politically-rooted cultural programming (totalitarianism and colonialism), cultural expressions of rebellion under colonialism, feminism, and bodily/behavioral representations/perceptions of different social categories and their potential complications. 

I loved the subject's breadth. Within my major I was able to study human evolution, primate behavior, archaeology, evolutionary explanations for social patterns, linguistics, and, of course, a myriad of societies and cultures. Within sociocultural anthropology, I appreciated being exposed to a wide range of texts, from classic social theory to contemporary ethnographies. I also appreciated how modern anthropology seems to have unburdened itself of the facade of objectivity in research. Newer ethnographies have a literary element that can be fascinating.

Like other social sciences, anthropology can get a little jargon-heavy. You can only hear words like agency, essentialism, power, problematize, and hegemony so many times before you start to question whether people presume that such words have significant meaning in and of themselves. It's important to find the right balance between finding necessary complications and expressing ideas with clarity.

From early on in college I was quite sure I wanted to go to law school. Anthropology was an interesting and sensible choice for my undergraduate studies. 

I've only just begun studying law, but I can see some similar intellectual themes. The law and legal institutions can be a seen as a very formalized mode of social organization. On a smaller scale, the stories and people that operate in a legal framework are real. I feel like I've been primed to recognize the underlying sociocultural bases of how the law is defined and people's interaction with the law. From a skills perspective, I've found that the amount of reading and writing I had to do as an Anthro major helped me develop good work habits. I've also been trained to apply general principles or observations to particular situations, or at least recognize when such applications might be relevant.

Definitely. I feel like I had a great, well-rounded, and skill-building college education. 

I feel like I gained a strong, practical sense of social justice. I realize that institutional action must be done in light of sometimes very particular social, religious, historical, political, etc. circumstances. I've also learned to always question the assumptions I make about how the world around me is defined and organized. How important is it to impute meaning X to characteristic Y of thing Z? Does it help me to understand Z better? Does it help Z?

(Läs bloggan på svenska här)

Let's be frank. The main reason that any of us go to university today is not because we all love memorizing the theories of long-dead "thinkers", nor because being awake at 3 am tearing your hair out over the essay that's due in the next day is your idea of a good time. No no... it's because people keep telling you that if you want to get a good job, make money, and have the slightest hope of "doing something with your life", then you need a degree. You need physical proof (i.e. your name on some nice embossed paper) of your intelligence and capabilities. 

So while you're considering your options and deciding what you want that piece of paper to say you're good at, don't discount a degree in social/cultural anthropology.

Starting with the more obvious one... If you study anthropology and you like it, you can do a PhD*, then potentially a post-doc, and if you're in the right place at the right time you might make it to assistant professor and one day, professor. But if academia is not your cup of tea, don't despair! According to an article I read today**, over half of professional anthropologists work outside of academia***, and that's not even counting the people who don't actually call themselves anthropologists but who have anthropology degrees. There are plenty of other things for you to do, whether you have a bachelor's, master's or PhD. A recent newspaper article in The Guardian reports that "anthropology graduates enter a variety of professions and their employability will no doubt increase as the world becomes ever more globalised". 

The American Anthropological Association has a really thorough section dedicated to different career paths that anthropology graduates can take. Take a look here. You should also have a gander at this interview, where John Fox (PhD, Harvard University) talks about his career success in the non-academic world.

What is it then, that you will get from an anthropology degree? Research skills, analytical skills, critical thinking, cultural awareness and knowledge, in-depth knowledge of whatever area you specialize in (e.g. violence amongst youth, health, human rights, religion, etc.) And there are so many places you can go with those skills: government agencies, charities, NGOs, marketing, anything to do with research, policy...

I'm not gonna go on with that because we'll be here all day. And I don't like lists, a list of jobs is not exactly inspiring is it? My whole aim of this blog is to show why anthropology is interesting to study and to show through example, share real-life experiences of the people that have studied/are studying/are working with anthropology. That said, come back next week (yes, next week, I promise) and read the second in the "Conversations" series where a friend of mine will be sharing his thoughts about his undergraduate anthropology education.

* PhDs in anthropology are much more fun than PhDs in other disciplines because we get paid to spend a lot of time in other countries. If you pick your field location wisely enough you can get paid to spend the whole winter somewhere sunny and warm instead of slipping over on the icy streets of Sweden... or wherever you live.

** You need a subscription to read the article but here it is: Anthropology Group Restyles Its Offerings to Lure Nonacademics, by Audrey Williams June.

Professor Ulf Hannerz öppnar konferensen med att ge sin syn på svensk antropologis förflutna, vart tiden har tagit ämnet under de senaste årtiondena och vart det kan bära hän i framtiden.

Söndagen avslutas med en paneldebatt på temat ”Antropologins framtid i Sverige”. Se uppdateringar på hemsidan för mer information.

Sveriges Antropologförbund firar 2011 sitt tjugoårsjubileum vilket givit inspiration till temat för SANTs årliga konferens: Tidens Gång.

Tidens gång har präglat antropologins utveckling sedan ämnets begynnelse då det alltid haft ett kritiskt perspektiv i förhållande till dominerande trender och sanningar. Dess tvärkulturella perspektiv medvetandegjorde också att uppfattningar om tid, vare sig det gäller att dela in dagen i timmar och sekunder, eller en förståelse av kosmologisk förändring i episka cykler, var kulturellt betingade.

Antropologins kritiska ansats möjliggör en dekonstruktion och problematisering av vedertagna tidsbegrepp och deras relation till socio-kulturella uttryck. Tid utgör dels bakgrunden mot vilken studier om social och kulturell förändring positioneras och dels utgör den själva studieobjektet. Frågor rörande vilka sociala aktörer som tillskrivs auktoritet att kontrollera vår tid, uppfattning av den och relation till den är av central betydelse för att förstå samhällelig förändring. Historia och framtid, kulturarv och globalisering är, för att bara nämna några dagsaktuella begrepp, genomsyrade av olika föreställningar om att tider obönhörligt förändras eller bör bevaras, vilket väcker förväntningar, längtan och motstånd.

I dag måste antropologin också förhålla sig till nya trender i det forskningspolitiska landskapet där gränserna mellan socio- politiska och akademiska grupperingar omförhandlas, förstärks eller upplöses.

Konferensens tema väcker därmed både frågor kring relationen mellan kultur och tid och om antropologins historia och framtid.

Konferensen kommer att följa tre ”spår”. Det första spåret behandlar ”Kulturella aspekter av tid” där vi samlar bidrag som berör tid i relation till olika socio-kulturella fenomen och de bidrag som närmar sig frågor om hur tid ”kontrolleras” och konstrueras. Det andra spåret ”Antropologi i tiden” tar upp antropologins historia och framtid. Här berörs frågor om ämnets relevans, hur det påverkats och förhållit sig till olika tiders ”etos” och politiska svängningar samt dagens krav på, till exempel, ”nytta” och ”produktivitet”. Det finns också ett tredje ”öppet spår” för bidrag som behandlar andra ämnen än tid.

Vi bjuder nu in alla att presentera antingen paneler eller enskilda papers i de olika spåren. Panelerna kan vara fokuserade kring vissa aspekter, teman eller regioner. Vill ni föreslå en panel förutsätter vi att det finns minst tre ”commited” papers. Man kan också presentera enskilda papers i något av spåren.

Deadline för abstracts och paneler är söndagen 13 mars.

Enskilda papers: Skicka ett abstract på max en sida till sant@globalstudies.gu.se. Märk mejlet med ”Abstract”. Inkludera namn och kontaktadress. Klargör också vilket ”spår” papret avser att placera sig i.

Panelförslag: Skicka ett abstract på max en sida till sant@globalstudies.gu.se med en presentation av panelens tema samt en lista över de paper som ingår. Bifoga även (om möjligt) abstracts på papren. Märk mejlet ”Panel”. Inkludera namn och kontaktadress för panelansvarig. Klargör också vilket ”spår” panelen avser att placera sig i.

Anmälan till konferensen och betalning startar i Januari. Kostnaderna är inte beräknade ännu men vi kommer att hålla dem så låga som möjligt. För information se konferensens hemsida.

Alla paneler, presentationer och måltider kommer att vara i Annedalsseminariet på Institutionen för Globala Studier i Göteborg. Alla salar är fullt utrustade med audiovisuella hjälpmedel.

Konferensen äger rum 13-15 maj.

Fredagen 13 Maj: Konferensen öppnar med registrering och mingel.

Lördagen 14 Maj: Key note samt de tre spåren. Dagen avslutas med gemensam middag.

Söndagen 15 Maj: Spåren fortsätter och konferensen avslutas med en paneldebatt på temat Antropologins framtid.

Observera att tiderna är preliminära.

Anthropology is traditionally defined as the study of humankind. That's an incredibly broad scope but it's true. Pretty much anything you can think of is being or has been researched by anthropologists. Even among the small group of anthropologists that I know personally there is huge diversity - security after natural disasters, material culture and cultural heritage, gender politics in South East Asia, life in a Palestinian refugee camp to name a few. And that's just the broad topics, listing all the sub-areas that come up while researching and writing on those topics would take all day. You can also find anthropologists working on and in probably every country in the world.

So if anthropologists research everything, what makes anthropology different to other disciplines? Firstly, ethnographic fieldwork. Traditionally anthropologists spend a long time living amongst the people that they're researching; the average is probably a year (although I have met PhD students who have spent two years in their field and others who have spent 5 months). The time scale varies according to the topic of research (and funding!) but long term fieldwork has been an important part of fieldwork since Malinowski (more on him another day). The idea is that long term fieldwork betters your understanding of the people you are interested in and builds a rapport and, hopefully, a relationship of trust between you. Think about it this way, how much of the ins and outs of your daily life would you be willing to reveal to a stranger who appeared out of the blue and is staying in your community for a couple of months, compared to someone you've known a long time and trust? Also long-term fieldwork allows anthropologists to spend a lot of time observing. This is important because people often say one thing but then go ahead and do something that's completely contradictory. A conducting research by participant-observation, although nowadays practiced to some degree by other social science disciplines, is traditionally an anthropological method.

Another defining characteristic of anthropology is its emphasis on holism (also another reason for long fieldwork!) It's important to understand a phenomenon in its context, see how it interrelates or is linked to other aspects of life, instead of just looking at it in isolation. Here's a good explanation of the concept: 

"Holism requires, for example, that a fieldworker studying the rituals of a people must investigate how those rituals are influenced by the people's family life, economic forces, political leadership, relationships between the sexes, and a host of other factors" (Peoples and Bailey 2008, 13).

To summarize: it's anthropology's approach that makes it distinctive - its methodologies and its framing of  issues (or in other words: the questions we ask, the way we get data, and the way we analyse and write about the data). Anthropology also has a particular emphasis on understanding and theorising "culture", and the diverse cultural lives and cultural experiences of different people around the world.

I'm not going to spend more time on defining anthropology in this blog post as I'd be here forever (people have, after all, written whole books on the subject). In future blog posts I'll write about  anthropology's issues, methods, history, famous people, etc. in more detail and as well as the debates that surround them. You'll also get a better idea of anthropological concepts through reading about the work of anthropologists that I'll be posting about. For now, here are some resources online that are good introductions to anthropology:

Alan MacFarlane (Emeritus Professor of Anthropological Science at Cambridge University) has made a series of video lectures on anthropology that you can watch. I'll be linking to his videos in future posts too.

The American Anthropological Association has a good introductory section which also includes the "Four Fields" approach to anthropology.

You can also read some of Pocock and MacClancy's Understanding Social Anthropology online.

See you next time!

Disclaimer: In the U.S. anthropology is traditionally taught as having four broad subject areas (socio-cultural anthropology, biological/physical anthropology, archaeology, and linguistics) but that's not the case in Europe where the last two are separate disciplines and courses in physical anthropology aren't offered in many places. As I have only ever studied social anthropology, and only in Europe, I don't talk so much about the other aspects that come up in American academic traditions in this blog but I'll provide links to better informed websites for those interested in those areas.

Sources:

Peoples, James, and Bailey, Garrick. Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. Wadsworth Publishing, 8th edition, 2008.

The School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg is advertising two PhD positions in Social Anthropology. Take a look at the official announcement here (for the English version click here). Deadline for applications is November 8th 2010.