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Abstract We use a mix of qualitative and quantitative analyses to examine 1354 survey responses from members of the American Anthropological Association about their practice and teaching of cultural anthropology research methods. Latent profile analysis and an examination of responses to open‐ended survey questions reveal distinctive methodological clustering among anthropologists. However, two historical approaches to ethnography remain prominent:deep hanging outand amixed methods toolkit, with the former remaining central to the practice and teaching of all forms of contemporary cultural anthropology. Further, many anthropologists are committed to advancing research methods that account for power imbalances in fieldwork, such as through community‐based and participatory approaches. And a substantial number also teach a wider array of methods and techniques that open new career pathways for anthropologists. Overall, our study reveals a core set of ethnographic practices—loosely, participant‐observation, informal interviews, and the experiential immersion of the ethnographer—while also highlighting the great breadth of cultural anthropological research practice and pedagogy. The findings presented here can help inform how current and future anthropological practitioners and educators position themselves to meet the ever‐changing demands of community members, funders, clients, collaborators, and students.
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Contamination in theory and protest
ABSTRACT Contamination offers a new observatory for anthropological theory. But does it bring us closer to the world at hand? I have spent the past five years working with residents in Bennington, Vermont, and Hoosick Falls, New York, in pursuit of justice after the toxin PFOA was discovered in their drinking water. Turning from advocacy to writing, I've been struck by how prominent toxicity is becoming in certain currents of anthropological theory and how little those theories illuminate about the protests against contamination I participated in. As the theoretical dazzle of contamination surges forward toward experimental futures, planetary futures, and queer futures, toxicity can become an oracle whose ethnographic significance lies more in its prophetic intimation than in its present inhabitation. Staying close to the experience of a New England community protesting industrial pollution, I show how the ethnographic realities of contamination can orient theory for a better world without first resigning us to the loss of the present. [toxics,materiality,futures,environmental justice,PFAS,plastic pollution,United States]
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- Award ID(s):
- 1711637
- PAR ID:
- 10362372
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley-Blackwell
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- American Ethnologist
- Volume:
- 48
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0094-0496
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: p. 386-403
- Size(s):
- p. 386-403
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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