Page 26 Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes. SDrina-Summer, 1998

Seeking Applications:Anthropology'sPost-Academic

ProfessionAdele Anderson

S. V.N. Y. Empire State College

One of the most important ongoing devel-opments in applied anthropology, with po-tential for discipline-wide impact, is thegrowth of professional practice beyond theacademy. Recent efforts to change the gov-erning structure ofanthropology or-ganizations are inpart a reflection ofthis growth. In-formally, manyanthropologistsstill ask who is re-ally doing anthro-pology, and howanthropology can or should be defined acrosswork conditions and settings. Practitionershave given anthropological activity a dis-tinctive post-academic presence.

In this essay I try to place practice in widersocial and discipline contexts. To addresswhat I believe have been misperceptionsabout it, I focus much of my discussion onthis new profession's definition and identityproblems. I compare anthropology's expe-riences with some issues ofprofessionalization in other disciplines. Fi-nally, I comment on current organizationaldevelopments bearing on the profession ofpractice anthropology, and try to relate allthis material to the task of teaching anthro-pology in community colleges. Recurringthemes throughout this essay include strat-egy, identity, hierarchy, competition andcreative integration, as they occur at bothindividual and organizational levels.

Practitioner Increase Manifests WiderTrends

The entry of greater numbers of anthro-pologists into non-academic workplaces af-ter they complete graduate study mirrorslarger social and economic trends in indus-try and higher education. Over recent de-cades, people and institutions have respondedcreatively to a rapidly globalizing, competi-

tive labor market. The reconfiguration ofwork and workplaces has buffeted not onlyanthropology but other professional disci-plines also. Many of these disciplines hadbeen heavily underwritten by governmentresearch funding in universities or academy-affiliated institutions. All were oriented toacademe as the normative model and stan-dard-setting location for the work of theprofession.The recent turbulence in demand for highly

trained professionals has thrown marketsout of sync with the continuing abundanceof graduates. There has been a shift, acrossmany higher education institutions, to morepractical and ready-to-use professional train-

ing programs, in order to cope with thisnew environment. One kind of re-sponse, the integration of campusesand the expansion of specialized cer-tificate programs, is particularly vis-ible at the community college level, ascan be seen in examples like theMaricopa County Community Collegesystem in Arizona A similar empha-sis on practical contentand "net-

work" organization is increasing atthe four-year and professional schoollevel, as illustrated, for example, bythe University of Phoenix. This uni-versity, just ten years old, alreadyenrolls over 20,000 students and spe-cializes in fast-track certificates, Webcourses, weekend degrees and corpo-rate programs (Traub, 1997:24,26).

In a recent New Yorker profile, JamesTraub (1997) laments the trend to practicalskills, although he acknowledges, "Just asthe Ivy League model was developed twocenturies ago to accommodate aspiring cler-ics, so the University of Phoenix is shapedby the needs of working adults in the corpo-rate economy" (1997: 117).

Practice anthropology grew over the pasttwo decades in part as a response to a similarlabor market dislocation. The dynamic ofpost-academic practice in anthropology prob-ably reflects both "push" and "pull" sys-temic elements: The movement was surelygiven an early push by a major slippage,beginning in the 1970s, between Ph.D. pro-duction and labor market demand (cf. Baba,1994:176-177). But it has also been pulledalong by the responses of practitioners andcollaborating academics. Tliis group reachedacross the gulf between the discipline's or-ganizations and the world of external em-

There has been a shift. to morepractical and ready-to-use

professional training programs..fast-track certificates, Web courses,

weekend degrees and corporateprograms.

ployment, making efforts to enhance practi-tioner recognition and participation. Men-tors and leaders advocated for greater prepa-ration and support of like-minded new gradu-ates over the subsequent years. Their collec-tive efforts resulted in the legitimation of acanon of practice within anthropology (cf.Baba, 1994: 175).

Like Traub, some anthropologists decrywhat they see as an erosion of the ideals ofliberal education. Is the rise of non-aca-demic practice in anthropology symptom-atic, like packaged-skills programs, ofcommodification of a learned profession,with an accompanying loss in the breadth,creativity and versatility oftraditional higher

learning? Inmy view,such concerns aremisplaced. Practicinganthropologists comefrom the same liberaleducation tradition astheir academic coun-terparts. In manyways, they have thisbreadth to thank for

their unique competitive edge as profession-als. If anything, practitioners have to bebroader, if they are to survive in the externalworkplace. For the most part, they have tosupply their own employer-friendly and prac-tical skills with little help, according toAmerican Anthropological Association sur-veys, from the academic departments thatgranted them advanced degrees (Givens &Jablonski, 1996: 12,13).A second obvious but largely unarticulated

myth that pervades much of our discipline isthat practice represents a sort of sell-out, anill-motivated defection from academia asthe only moral workplace. While some non-academics are said to enjoy relatively highsalaries (e.g., Evans, 1997), so do someacademics in top-ranked universities, wherecompetitive full professor salaries have risenwell above the $ 100,000 mark (C.P. Kottak,March 1997, personal communication). Asis the case in academe, not all practitioners

Teaching Anthmootoav: SACC Notes. Spring-Summer. 1998 27

Some anthropologists decry whatthey see as am erosion of the ideals

of liberal education, (however/practicing anthropologists comefrom the tame liberal education

tradition an their academiccounterparts.

make high salaries. Many in addition takeconsiderable risk as start-up businesses ontheir own. Practitioners oracademics can beequally altruistic or acquisitive.Despite these circumstances, however, the

growing presence of practice anthropologyhas so far resulted in no perceptible ethoschange in anthropology. Our discipline re-mains adamantly university-centered, hier-archical and basic research-oriented. Asanthropologists, practitioners go against aparochial academic norm of work place andwork conditions mat has also shaped thepractices and attitudes of other sciences andhumanities. Professionals whose work doesnot conform to the norm engender suspi-cion. We can gain insight into the unconven-tional position that practice occupies if welook at how applied anthropology has beendefined, and at the discipline's responses toits eariyrenegades, the practice-bound gradu-ate students and returning practitioners ofthe 1970s and 1980s.

Invisible Anthropologists, Definitions ofApplied Anthropology

The lack of clarity about anthropology'sprofessional identity is reflected in its am-bivalence towardnon-academics. However,this ambivalence is often obscured in theway applied anthropology is defined anddescribed. In these definitions, the distinc-tiveness of non-academic practice anthro-pology is generally ignored AsGaryFerraro(19%) has aske^^Whyisitso hard to defineapplied anthropology?" He suggests "theline is blurred" between theory and applica-tion. Doing anthropology well and respon-sibly in either dimension involves taking theother into account. This desire to blur acad-emy/practice lines is also evident inWinthrop's (1997) remark, "We are aping

an ancient dichotomy between biostheoretikos and bios praktikos (This]distinction . has little place in anthropol-ogy as I see it" (1997:31). Inal996memo,die former Executive Director of the Ameri-can Anthropological Association expresses

a similar desire: "Do away with the terms"distinctions among academic, applied, andpractice... [they are] either meaningless ormisleading, are divisive and not helpful."He immediately notes, "It won't happen, butI could not resist making the suggestion"(Cornman, 1996a).

Why these distinctions won't go away hasto do with the specialization, elitism andacademic hierarchy mat exist in our tiny buthighly competitive learned profession.Ferraro acknowledges this briefly, mention-ing the compromised and second-class sta-tus of applied anthropology. He attributes itto disciplinary canons about researchers'involvement in the scenes they study, differ-ing ethical stances, and cultural relativity.My own view is different: The questionsand objections raised regarding applied andpractice anthropology more often have to dowith competitive status claims inside theprofession than with the professed concernsabout quality research, relativity, or ethicalstance. They suggest to me as much a claimof ritual purity and intellectual sovereignty,associated with prestigious employment attop research universities, as any concernwith quality or ethics.

"In graduate school.. I wasadvised to keep quiet about my

plans for a nonacademic career."

Most anthropologists are likely uncom-fortable with such an open acknowledgmentof elitism, yet practice anthropology's non-normative status has long been evident inexpressed notions of where legitimate or"real" anthropology is done. Until veryrecently, if their primary job was not situatedin or near the academy, practicing anthro-pologists usually went invisible to orga-nized anthropology. Practitioners didn'toften publish or get profiled in anthropologybooks and journals. This does not necessar-ily mean that all of them stopped doinganthropology or being anthropologists. Formany, their anthropological work was partof a larger set of tasks being done for otheraudiences. In this form, it was largely unac-knowledged by the academic colleagues whodefined the discipline.

During the 1980s, several non-academic•accesses, speaking for growing contingentsof practitioners, went public with reports of

their experiences. Their observations indi-cate the clear message that practice wasoutside the norm. Karen Hansen says, "Ingraduate school in the late 1970s and early1980s, I was advised to keep quiet about myplans for a nonacademic career" (Hansen,1988.28). Max Drake, after graduate an-thropology training and two years in Africadoing survey and ethnography in publichealth, says "when I submitted an applica-tion to a school known for encouragingapplied work, it was returned with the com-ment, 'Sorry, we want a real anthropolo-gist'"^ 1988.41).

Peering at applied and practice anthropol-ogy from the perspective of the ivory towersurely obscures the view. It is hard to defineanything clearly when there is an important,growing part of it that is suspect and hard tosee, that colleagues do not understand verywell and will not acknowledge as fully le-gitimate. On the other hand, genuine desireto be inclusive and efforts to be more diplo-matic have led many well-meaning friendsof applied and practice anthropology to ig-nore the marked differences our work situa-tions. Euphemistic avoidance of status mark-ers may seem politically astute, a necessarygloss to keep organized anthropology to-gether. But it does nothing to illuminate theunderlying nature of our differences, nordoes it help practice gain a more thoroughdivision of labor or functional professionalintegration. Worst of all, it doesn't diminishthe elitism either.

If we continue to blur academic-practicedifferences (even as I believe the "dimen-sion" concept currently favored by the Ameri-can Anthropological Association does(Davis, 1997:3), we forego an opportunityto analyze these differences, using them todevelop the aspects of our work situationsthat are truly unique and valuable. Goodethnographers don't ignore such importantemic distinctions among the people we study.Why gloss them over among ourselves? Thediscipline's status hierarchy indicates some-thing important to insiders. To borrow fromBateson, it shows a difference that makes adifference: Where you work, or more pre-cisely, how and to whom you answer whenthe work is done, is a major feature of prac-ticing anthropology.As the primary authorizing agents for their

own scholarly work, basic research anthro-pologists have a greater option to speak as asovereign leaned profession. Implicit or

Page 28 Teaching AnthroDoloav: SACC Notes. Sorina-Summer. 1998

theorized in much of this work are interven-tions at grand scale, or of such broad social,political or economic scope, that anthro-pologists can simply advocate observationand need not intervene. For them, ideologi-cal rejection of the larger governing or eco-nomic system is a real option. Calls forchange at the highest levels of policy makingor the broadest sort of public education arequite appropriate.There is surely nothing wrong with this. A

basic researcher's main products are analy-sis and insights that define or redefine andlegislate, in one way or another, what thepreviously unseen realities are (or what theyare not). Organizing action or local interpre-tation that proceeds from this knowledge isleft as a job for others to do. This is asovereign intellectual stance; it claims ulti-mate expertise for its own interpretation—atleast from aparticularperspective. Of course,itmay also keep a basic researcher separatedfrom the results ofher work as applied in thewider society. This is the irrelevance prob-lem so frequently decried by anthropolo-gists.

By contrast, theories that practitioners ap-ply have to demonstrate through applicationwhat the realities do, and further, to obtainparticular outcomes in and for particularsettings. (Reeves-Ellington and Anderson,1997 give this kind ofdescription for roles ofaction researcher and participatory actionresearcher with practitioners in a businessorganization.) Analysis is conditional, spe-cific, and modest in scope. Deliverablesmust work by someone else's reckoning.The practitioner is obliged to operationalizeand interpret between worlds of understand-ing, implement findings and respond to localand existing situations that are partly de-fined by others.

The contingent nature of practice does notmean that morality is abandoned, or thatholism or scholarly freedom is lost. Valueadded comes from working with conscioussophistication about holistic and interpre-tive issues relevant to a setting. Above all,the lack of intellectual or professional sover-eignty is explicit: This is what makes thework of practitioners both more vulnerableand more fully integrated into a wider socialcontext

While the distinctions I make are far fromnew, they remain poorly understood, and areoften a sore point among anthropologists.Their implications remain to be fully worked

out in discipline-wide discussions of prac-tice anthropology. Yet we have to face ourdifferences in a more conscious and sophis-ticated way before we can build a greatersolidarity within our own discipline.

There surely is more in common thandifferent between academy-based and post-academic anthropology practice. RegardingFerraro' s comment that both theoretical andapplied anthropologists share a commonbody of methods and training (1996: 12),this remains largely accurate. But I wouldadd that in recent years, there is growingawareness that practitioners have pulled awayin certain areas. More practitioner-traineesare urged to do early, applied internships,cognate interdepartmental studies and ear-lier field placements, which call for differenttypes and styles of reports (cf. NationalAssociation for the Practice of Anthropol-ogy, 1994). So distinctive aspects of practi-tioner training are emerging.

"The tragedy is that most Ph.Ds donot value the wide range of their

capabilities because theirprofessors seldom do either."

Likewise, the post-academic tasks of manypractitioners require them to adapt theirmethods in distinctive ways. They oftenwork across disciplines as part of a largerproject whose entire scope they do not nec-essarily control. They must continuouslyharmonize and interpret methods in jointtasks. There is less time and more predeter-mined focus for study completion and out-comes. Academy-based applied anthropolo-gists have long emphasized cognate contentand rapid study methods, but in the end, theirother audiences take a back seat to the de-mands of academic life. The importance ofthis difference cannot be emphasized toomuch: The bottom line, for most academy-based applied anthropologists, is still tenure,with research and teaching in an academicdepartment. The products and deliverablescreate very different conditions of employ-ment from those of practitioners, many ofwhom are managers, mulu'disciplinary teammembers or entrepreneurs.

Visibility in an Arcane DisciplineNon-academic anthropology now gets vis-

ibility in the discipline through the efforts ofpeople in various situations. Some are dual-

occupation academics who do varyingamounts of applied work and train appliedstudents. Othen are dual-occupation practi-tioners who keep one foot inside the wallwith part-time affiliations. There are alsocontingents of returning academics who for-merly worked outside academia or in otherdisciplines' graduate professional schools,and are now "back from the beyond." Theybring with them a greater experience withand orientation to practice. Practice anthro-pology, viewed across the process of gradu-ate student preparation into the world ofprofessional work, is thus by no means mono-lithic. Indeed, this circumstance has gener-ated a rich cross-fertilization of ideas, and isone of the healthiest possible developmentsfor the future of the discipline as a whole.

Graduate applied anthropology students,an older group now than in the past, are lessoften grant or fellowship-supported (Evans,Givens, ft Jablonski, 1997:17). Their self-help and survival activities, despite a pau-city of mentoring and support in many de-partments.have raised the disciptine'saware-ness of practice, especially in publicationssuch as Practicing Anthropology. The de-crease in federal research money has nodoubt contributed to the appearance of moresophisticated, dual-discipline prepared Mas-ters graduates, who embark on outside ca-reers while staying active in anthropologyorganizations.

There remains much undeveloped poten-tial in the increased visibility of practice.Early non-academic successes had to beself-defining, self-sufficient, and outwardlooking. Organizing practitioners believethere remain many such practitioners whostill have tenuous or non-existent connec-tions to organized anthropology —resourcepeople who could be attracted back into thediscipline. I believe the oft-remarked turn-ing away from policy of anthropology inrecent years (e.g., Hackenberg, 1988: 170;Hansen, 1988:29; Winthrop, 1997:30) maybe due at least partly to the continuing invis-ibility fi to organized anthropology —ofmany mid-level policymakers who aretrained anthropologists.

Spurred by job market concerns, depart-ments have moved slowly in a more integra-tive direction. John van Willigen under-scores *<^tinuii^ need ft* self-suffteiency,adinonishing practice-bound students: "At-tempts by the relevant association! and de-partments to tout the potentials of anthropol-

Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes. Spring-Summer, 1998 Page 29

ogy simply will not be of sufficient scale tohave any meaningful effect upon you andyour [employment seeking] efforts. Youmust do it" (1993: 226). Regarding prob-lems of numerical size, he is not mistaken.Even so, this advice by itself seems a too-ready abdication of departments' responsi-bilities toward those they prepare and towhom they grant degrees. The AmericanAnthropological Association and many aca-demic departments now show signs that theyrealize this.

Anthropology Is Not So UniqueLest we think anthropology entirely unique

in its professionatization problems, otherdisciplines' experiences are instructive. Untilrecent decades, the hard sciences had alsobeen well provided with government invest-ment in research. One response to their jobmarket losses has been to call for policyintervention, at both the university and thefederal government level. In a 1996 Sci-ences article on advanced training and jobs,Tobias, Chubin & Aylesworth say that "re-structuring" the supply of trained profes-sionals is needed:

The new generation of physical sci-entists cannot be created only in theimage of the older one: highly spe-cialized practitioners who rose asprotege's to continue the narrowtraditions of their scientific forebears.That is a prescription of obsolescenceand betrayal. Nowadays mentorsmust also be willing to chart a coursefor their charges even if there is noaccurate road map U.S. scienceand the universities that act as thecaretakers of supply must have a co-herent plan for maintaining the ca-reers of science-trained profession-als even if some of these careers are,strictly speaking, outside science"(Tobias, Chubin and Aylesworth,1997:17).

These authors recognize the same kind ofnarrowness and hierarchy in the hard sci-ences that I have characterized for anthro-pology. Theynote/ThetragedyisthatmostPh.D.s do not value the wide range of theircapabilities because their professors seldomdo either" (1997.18). A retired IBM vice-president, back in academe as a visitinglecturer in physics at M.I.T., suggests that

departments require "scientific and techni-cal breadth in the graduate curriculum" and"time spent off campus in a setting wheretechnical knowledge is actually used"(1997:18). His advice echoes some of ap-plied anthropology's most outward-lookingborder-spanners (e.g., Briody, 1997, per-sonal communication; Reeves-Ellington,1997, personal communication; NationalAssociation for the Practice of Anthropol-ogy, 1994). More could be done to preparestudents in academic departments right now.The potential for individual attitude change

that spans the entire discipline is probablylimited; certainly the experience of anotherdiscipline, psychology, suggests this. CharlesRice (1997), in "The Scientist-PractitionerSplit and the Future of Psychology," argues,much as I do for anthropology, that "themajor source of tension in the definition ofwhat it means to be a psychologist is worksite location" (1997:1177). Rice traces therise of the practitioner constituency withinpsychology earlier this century. Thatprofession's development, likeanthropology's, was influenced by externaleconomicand political changes in the face ofan overabundant supply of new profession-als.As psychology's practitioner constituency

grew, resulting tensions led eventually to anorganizational split in the 1980s, when agroup ofpurer," scientific research-orientedpsychologists seceded from the flagship or-ganization, the American PsychologicalAssociation (APA). A rival society, theAmerican Psychological Society or APS(1997:1176), was formed; the majority ofmembers remaining in psychology's flag-ship APA were in the "service providerfields." (About a third of the seceded groupmembers also retained their APA member-ship,) Rice notes that psychology's split,albeit incomplete, is reflected in the twomajor kinds of psychology doctoral degreesnow being offered, the Ph.D., and a smallerbut growing number of PsyDs. In projectingfuture scenarios for his discipline, he sayseven if psychology has split too far to everreunite completely, "it is not too late for eachfaction to actively plan for its own survival"(1997:1180).

Granted, there is a difference of magnitudebetween the American Anthropological As-sociation, with average listed membershipovertenthousand (American Anthropologi-cal Association, 1997) and the APA, with

over 151,000 me mbersand affiliates (Ameri-can Psychological Association, 1997). Theelite psychological splinter group (APS)alone boasts 16,000 members (Rice, 1997:1176), more than our entire flagship. Aviable fission of the psychology kind seemsunfeasible and unlikely in a tiny disciplinelike anthropology, especially if, as recentlypredicted, it does not grow much beyond itspresent size (cf. Evans, Givens, & Jablonski,1997: 17).

Practitioners must identify andpromote their unique

anthropological skills andperspectives, in ways that employers

can recognize, and for which theywill want to hire.

V J

What psychology's split illustrates is atendency for elites in a competitive learnedprofession to pull away, with the rapid influxof numerous lower-status members. Theimplication is that their professional puritywas threatened. This should be no surpriseto anthropologists, as longtime students ofritual and political hierarchies, but we canleara something from it. We may not be ableto change the way some people behave incompetitive, bureaucratized academic pro-fessions. We can, however, supportanthropology's tradition ofbroad and rigor-ous liberal education, and build on the adap-tive potential that exists among individualprofessionals who work in a stunning vari-ety of sites and conditions.

I am convinced that we can build betterbridges between academy and practice, tothe benefit of both. This will undoubtedlyrequire further organizational changes of thekind now being proposed within anthropol-ogy (discussed below). More change willalso have to occur in anthropology depart-ments, no doubt led by those that are mostreceptive to the idea of integrated but intel-ligently differentiated basic and practicepreparations. The academy is the ultimatesite where future academics and practitio-ners are socialized as professionals.

Current Activities, Relevance For Com-munity College Teaching

During summer 1996,1 was one of severalpeople serving on an AAA Planning Com-mission group charged to consider how tomore effectively link anthropology to non-

Page 30 Teaching Anthropology. SACC Notes. Spring-Summer, 1998

academic employers. Along with our coun-terpart group, on Masters degrees and post-degree employment, we reviewed a varietyof materials, noting that approximately 160newPh.D.s find non-academic employmentevery year; roughly 1,000 new anthropologyMAs graduate yearly; and Bachelor's Idvelanthropology majors have been increasing(cf. Givens & Jablonski, 1996).

Our planning groups remarked about sev-eral areas of strategic weakness—anthropology's lack of image among non-academic employers, its general lack of jobpreparation or placement support in anthro-pology training, a lack of department growth,and a lack of strategies to attract practitio-ners. Our recommendations were wide-ranging; they included actions such as needsassessment, recruitment, further develop-ment of training and networking. A three-year commission was appointed to continueto develop and oversee recommended ac-tivities (Cornman, 1996b, 3-5).Anthropology's professional organizations

have also been trying to make structures andstrategies more responsive to the changingconstituencies and environment. The AAAExecutive Board recently reviewed organi-zation governance, toward a greater inclu-sion of presently under-represented segments(Davis, 1997:3). A telephone survey of alarge member sample gathered input on waysto make the organization's structure moreresponsive. Results indicated a high level ofsupport for a more democratic structure andamore unified discipline association (Moses,1998:3). The Association also made effortsto explore mid-career practitioners1' needsfor continuing education (1998: 10).

The two main applied and practice divi-sions, Society for Applied Anthropology(SfAA), and the National Association forthe Practice of Anthropology (NAP A), bothbegan strategic planning, in the past year(Van Arsdale, 1997). The SfAA also putforward a vote on new by-laws that wouldgrant regular members and students votingrights and add a student position to theExecutive Cabinet (Young, 1997:1). SfAA'sPresident John Young recently wrote thatthe Society embraces a value of being non-hierarchical, but that up to now, this has notbeen matched by the organization's struc-ture (1997. 1).

Despite the growing disciplinary recogni-tion of practice, the presence of long-estab-lished and evolving ethical guidelines, a

recent setof training guidelines (JointCom-mittee of Society for Applied Anthropology& National Association for the Practice ofAnthropology, 1995), and the continuedgrowth of regional organizations and ap-plied graduate programs, there remains along way to go. A major challenge is attract-ing and linking more meaningfully withnon-academicemployers. Critical to achiev-ing this will be further development andsupport of student internships, a crucial pointof linkage with the post-academic employ-ment world. (Briody, 1997, personal com-munication; National Association for thePractice of Anthropology, 1994).

/ count many who teachanthropology today in communitycolleges among the most outward-looking members of our discipline.

Perhaps the thorniest substantive problemfor individual practitioners and organiza-tions alike will be to establish and maintainan identity and image for anthropology, inoutreach to external employers. Practitio-ners must identify and promote their uniqueanthropological skills and perspectives, inways that employers can recognize, and forwhich they will want to hire. This is whatmakes a profession externally competitive.The global pressures that brought us cat-egory-killer higher education also drive thedemand for immediately salable technicalskills in areas such as statistics, report writ-ing, computing, public speaking, confer-enceand workshoporganizing, videography,and staff development programming (JointCommitteeof SfAA&NAPA, 1994.NAPA,1994). These generic skills can help practi-tioners offer some immediately familiar ser-vices to employers on their own terms.More advanced, cognate subject area skills

also link us to the outside world throughconversation with other fields and disci-plines. This has probably been most fullydeveloped in areas such as economic devel-opment and cultural resource management.Yet, in many other cognate areas, thetransdisciplinary skills have not been readilyidentified with anthropology and thus do notprovide answers to the external identity prob-lem for practitioners. To complicate things,some content and approaches that had his-torically been anthropological, such as cul-

tural diversity, qualitative inquiry, and eth-nography, are now widely and variouslyadopted by others. An approach may be-come so popular in a particular industry thatnon-anthropologists could out-compete us—in some cases, with less training and lessexpertise (cf. Squires, 1997).

Practice anthropology thus faces a litanyof challenges stemming from a combinationof circumstances. Our small numbers as adiscipline tend to limit wide public expo-sure. Historical snobbishness and statusexclusion by discipline elites tends to hindera more fruitful and integrative disciplinarydivision of labor. Competitors in cognatedomains on one side, and on the other, lesstrained contenders who appropriate our ter-minology, tend to dilute our perceiveduniqueness.

Despite these difficulties, many employ-ers of anthropologists have become con-vinced of their value, and organized anthro-pology has begun to respond. Undoubtedly,future practitioners in this emerging profes-sion will work differently from their prede-cessors. After an, the academics and acad-emy-linked contractors of mid-centuryworked very differently from their forbears—those gentlemen scholars, functionalistcolonials and relativist rebels who definedthe early discipline from the peripheries of aglobalizing world.

What all this has to do with teaching an-thropology in community colleges is a mat-ter of the actions you take, in and outside theclassroom. I count many who teach anthro-pology today in community colleges amongthe most outward-looking members of ourdiscipline: Because you teach so many non-anthropologists, you also have the difficulttask of translating our discipline's potentialand applications to the wider society. There-fore, consider this an appeal from colleagueswho are well acquainted, as you are, with thechallenges of outward-looking perspectives,holism and scholarly integration.

Give as much attention as you can to post-academic practice: Get in touch with prac-ticing and applied anthropology organiza-tions. Find and contact more practitioners,send students over, and bring practitionersinto your classroom. Have them talk abouthow they now make their living, and whatanthropology has done to their vision of dieworld. These activities can raise students'interest in anthropology's potential, whilehelping them overcome their pith-helmeted

Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes. Spring-Summer, 1998 Page 31

stereotypes. Most important, if you can, tryto build more field visits and practice expo-sure into your students' learning experi-ences. A guided, integrated exposure toanthropological learning not only lays thefoundation to success in further anthropol-ogy study; it also prepares students for amore anthropologically informed entry intoa wide array of related and socially orientedprofessions.

Good practice-oriented literature is noteasily located among the standard texts andreaders. It can sometimes be found in thepages of health care, organization studies orpublic administration journals, or in moregeneral publications, like Fast Company,Training and Development Journal, or ASIA.Practicing anthropologists know the disci-pline can't always be packaged and labeled,post-academy, as a dissertation or tenurereview committee would prefer. If anthro-pology is to flourish into the next century,we must integrate further with both the gen-eral discipline and the wider society. We cando this through continued support and ex-pansion of the full breadth of our diversity asa discipline.

Notes1 Maricopa's Chancellor says, "We are bear-ing the load for higher education in the U. S.

at Arizona State, 65% of the upperdivision students come from [Maricopa]community colleges... At Rutgers, it's 58%[community college transfers-in]" (1997:26). A dean of the MCCC affiliate MesaCommunity College says his school pro-vides "just-in-time" education (1997: 26).Another official says, "the line used to beneat and well-defined, and then the marketchanged completely with a lot morecompetition. I think we're the next healthcare" (1997:30).3 Traub says UP's president told him, "ourstudents don't really want the education.They want what the education provides forthem They want it to do something forthem"(1997:114). Traub says UP's founderbelieves "adults put very little stock in aca-demic opinion," hence "marketing would betaught by a marketing executive, accountingbyanaccountant,"etc. Thisiswhattheycallthe "practitioner system" (1997.118).3 In 1997,71 % of Ph.D.8 who found employ-ment took academic jobs (Evans, 1997:6).This suggests the strong normative pressuretoward traditional academic job choices. The

Anthropology Newsletter, which carries over90% of college and university anthropologyjobs, lists only a rare few non-academicpositions (Michael Reed, 1996, personalcommunication). Evans says, "it wouldseem the expanding economy of the 1990scould absorb more anthropologists than theaverage 400 Ph.D.s produced annually in theUS with strategic career preparation duringgraduate school and job seeking strategies"(1997.6). Unfortunately, many departmentsstill have little tracking or formal prepara-tion in place.

s~ *™™™ ~̂™~~"~™~ * v

If anthropology is to flourish intothe next century, we must

integrate further with both thegeneral discipline and the wider

society.

4 Drake also recalls how colleagues at annualmeetings would quickly find someplace elsethey had to go, once they learned he wasemployed outside a traditional academicdepartment. This writer has also experi-enced this painful annual meeting phenom-enon, right up into the mid-1990s.5 American Anthropological Associationplanning commission groups have concludedthat the discipline and the American Anthro-pological Association have ongoing respon-sibilities to those whom they train. Theyargue that the stronger the academic-practi-tioner linkage, the more effective the AAAwill be in using anthropological knowledgeto address human problems. Greater num-bers hired in non-academic positions willincrease demand and support for depart-ments of anthropology, and the more inclu-sive the AAA membership, toward greaterreal-world efficacy and influence, the largerand more influential the AAA will be(Comman, 1996,2-3). Givens & Jablonski(1996) report that over half of polled depart-ments said applied and practicing anthropol-ogy were "important" or "very important,"and while fewer than half of departmentsreported they did not currently track thecareers of graduates, some said mis was intheir department's future plans (1996:312,313).6 While PsyD holders comprised only aboutfifteen percent of APA members receivingthe doctorate in 1993, the number has beengrowing and in 199S there were already 30accreditedPsyDprograms,with more on the

horizon (1997: 1176).7 Susan Squires (1997) points out the recentpopularity of "ethnography" as a hot mar-keting research concept, particularly the tactthat numbers of consulting firms lack muchexperience or background in ethnographicmethod. Some will say they do ethnographywhen they may be doing little more thanvideotaping consumer behavior.•Ellington, 1980; Johnson, 1991; ton, 1997;and Reeves-Ellington, 1995, illustrate a sam-pling of the range of perspectives that can begained by integrating anthropology and otherfields in practice. Probably the most acces-sible journal illustrating similarareas isPrac-ticing Anthropology.

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