Trying to get back in the swing of things; Note on Florida State's anthropology problem

I'm going to try to get back into updating this blog. I have a few things I'd like to note about how the Human Terrain debate within anthropology has helped me see clearly the cultural divide that is driving this debate. To summarize: There are those who see anthropology as useful and those who think of it as a vehicle for activism. These are not mutually exclusive categories but those who only think of anthropology as a means to activism and don't care or don't know about how anthropological research can be useful are the ones who are primarily against anthropology's involvement in HTT. That is a very simplistic summary but I have seen a few things over the past few months that have made this clear to me.

I was inspired to write this post after seeing something that I have been waiting for...infrastructure driving superstructure. I have been waiting for the usefulness of anthropology, especially in relation to the usefulness with regards to the military, be used as an argument for the survival of anthropology departments. I expect that if a department is going to disappear and people are going to lose jobs/income, the thinking about the military will start to change.

Here is the first sign of what I expect will be a growing trend. The Florida State anthropology department has been told to not accept any more graduate students. This is a bad sign for a department. It is a clear indication that the department may be shut down. In a defense of the need for anthropology on campus, Cheryl Ward made the following argument:

Cheryl Ward, an anthropology professor, last Thursday set up the Facebook page “Noles Need Anthropology” to give students an opportunity to comment on what the department means to them and why it’s important to FSU. By Tuesday morning it had 527 members.

Anthropology plays a vital role in today’s geopolitical world, Ward said. The military recruited anthropologists to help it better understand and communicate with people in Afghanistan, she noted.

Of course the article did not note that the American Anthropological Association's executive board declared its opposition to anthropologists playing this particular role. But Ward is making a direct appeal for the survival of anthropology because of it's usefulness. This useful role is in direct opposition to the AAA executive board and the Concerned Anthropologists, which have primarily been concerned with anthropology's activist function.

I certainly think that being actively against a war is very reasonable activity for academics and a professional organization. However, if anthropology and the AAA only exist as vehicles for academics to be activists, they are going to have a harder time arguing with Universities that have to slash their budgets that they shouldn't be on the top of the list.