Practicing Anthropology Professionally and Personally: Balancing Institutional and Activist Ideals
Moderator: Davis ShouldersDate: Tuesday, 3 Mar 2015
Time: 7:00 pm
Location: Sumner School
Panel Discussion
The professional identity and personal beliefs of practicing anthropologists can often inspire informative critical perspectives for the institutions they serve. Hopefully, professional identity and personal beliefs are not mutually exclusive, but what happens when the institution you work for has a philosophy that runs contradictory to your personal beliefs? With the recent debates surrounding Ferguson, the AAA’s boycott of Israeli academic institutions, the controversy over the Washington Redskins football team, and other topics, professional individuals and anthropologists are faced with the fear that standing up for a particular issue in public may have implications for their professional positions. How professional anthropologists, maintaining a critical perspective of the institutions they work for, choose to react to this conflict of identity is the principal topic of this panel. A complementary train of thought juxtaposes the differing professional and student identities in activism. Is it somehow “easier” to be an activist as a student or academic, and how does that activism translate when brought into the professional world? The panel speakers will bring a variety of perspectives from their positions at the State Department, the National Park Service, and American University on how anthropologists can approach popular debates and activism in the public sphere while balancing their professional identity.
Website link: http://wapadc.org/event-1751294
Facebook link to event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1554666561451607/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular
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