Anthro notes

AnthroNotes Volume 29 No. 2

Fall

2008

OBAMA AND ANTHROPOLOGY:

Anthropology ⁱⁿ an Increasingly Global World

by

James

Peacock

[Editors'

Note:

In

1997

xht

AnthroNotes

editors invited

James

Peacock,

then

President

of

the

American Anthro-

pological Association, to contribute the lead article for AnthroNotes

20th

AnniversaryIssue.

The

article,"Anthro-

pology and

the Issues

of our

Day,"

appeared

Spring 1998.

InanticipationoiAnthroNotes 30thanniversary,

we

returned to Professor

Peacock and

asked if

he would once

again give ushis observations

on anthropology

in thistime

of

such

enormous change —

ⁱⁿanthropology,societyand.

our

world.]

A ^decade

^{ago, I}

^{wrote an}

^{essay for}

AnthroNotes

based

on

a speech I

had

given as then-president

of

the

American Anthropological

Association.

Now

^I

am

invited to reflect

on

that essay in light

of

the currenttime.Iwillbriefly revisitthatessay,recount

some

activitiesI

and

other anthropologistshave

been doing

that follow

up on

the

admonitions

I offeredinthatfirstessay,

and

finally

conclude with some of

thechallenges

and

op- portunities that face us in the era

of Obama.

The Nineties: "Public or Perish"

This

slogan,

which

Iappropriated

from museum

anthro- pologists,

summarizes

the

message of my

speech that I

gave to

my

fellow anthropologists in 1997. I called for anthropologists to address

more

effectively issues ofthe

wider

society,thatis,the public.AnthroNotescleverly

sum- marized my message of

three possible futures foranthro-

pology

withacartoon

by

thelate

Robert Humphrey show-

ing

"Anthro-man,"

flyinglike

Superman

to rescuesociety.

The

speech/essayhelped stimulatethe creationofasub- field

sometimes termed

"publicanthropology."

A

website

and book

seriesedited

by Rob

Borofsky,aswellasapro-

gram

in"publicinterestanthropology"led

by Peggy Sanday

attheUniversity

of

Pennsylvania, exemplifythisdirection.

Coincidentally, this

was

the

Clinton

era

—

^atime

^of

^pros-

perity inthe

USA and

therise

of

globalization.

Early 21st Century:

Efforts to

Walk

the

Walk and Talk the Talk

Following

my

callto"gopublic,"I

found an

opportunity to actin

my own

locale.

Back

in 1993, theUniversity

of North

Carolina

(UNC) had

celebrateditsbicentennial.

UNC

was

thefirststateuniversity

and

Bill

Clinton spoke

atits

bicentennial, signifyingits

movement from

astate

and

re- gional to a national focus.

However, UNC was

not very global initsidentityatthattime,even

though

it

had

wel-

W^

EXT»MCT16M ^?

LWlMfa

Page ¹⁵

inthroNotes Volume 29 No. 2

Fall

2008

corneditsfirstinternationalstudent(fi-omJapan)in 1893.

However,

in

1993

Craig

Calhoun, now

President

of

the Social Science Research

Council (SSRC), had

created a University

Center

forInternational Studies(UCIS),

which

Idirected

from 1996

to

2003.

Fortunately,thissmallcen-

ter,

which

receivedlittle

funding from

the University, be-

came an

engineto internationalize theuniversity,state,

and

even region while reaching outglobally. (Theseregional/

globaleffortsarerecountedin

my

book,

Grounded

Globalism.)

Idefined ninesteps to internationalize

UNC,

in- cludingthreekeyones:defining international

work

asatop priority

and

identity

of

theinstitution,appointingacentral administrationofficialtosupportthis

work, and

buildinga spacein

which

to

work. During my

sevenyears as direc- tor,

our

center

accomplished

allninesteps.

Both

thesix-

teen-campus

system

and

the

Chapel

Hill

campus

agreed

on

international

work

as

one of

sixpriorities,

an

Associate Provost for international affairs

was

appointed,

and an 82,000

square foot building

was

erected (financed

by

a state-wide

bond)

to

accommodate

rapidly

growing

activi- ties,

which were

then

housed

in

nooks and

crannies. Fol-

lowing

isabriefdescription of

one

activity:

World

View.

World View Program

World View

(www.unc.edu/world)

was

establishedten years ago

by

lawyer

Robert Phay

to help schools

and

colleges prepare students tosucceed in

an

interconnected world.

The

Program's missionistohelp educatorsinternationalize schools

and

integrateaglobalperspective intoeverysub- jectarea

of

thecurriculum

and

ateverygradelevel,helping educatorsrespondtorapidethnic

and

culturalchanges

and promoting

foreignlanguagetraining

and

internationaltravel.

Phay

remainsdirectorwhileIchairtheboard.

During

these years

we ^have worked

with almost

13,000 K-

12

and com- munity

collegeteachers

and

administratorsin

95 of North

Carolina's

100

counties.

Our main work,

however,iscon- ducting

workshops with

teachers

and

administrators

of K-

12schools

and community

colleges.

These

culminatein action-plans thathelpguidethe

numerous

school

and

col- lege

programs throughout

thestate.

World View

exemplifies a

kind of work

thatedu- cators,including

some

(butnotnearly

enough)

anthropolo-

gists,have

been doing

inthe pastdecade.

These

globally- oriented educationalactivitieshaveflourished inresponse to therise

of

globalforces, positive

and

negative,

and

the

need

toaddress

them

in

K-12

education. Itis

important

thatthis

work

continue

and

evolve

—

^achallenge

—

^given

current

economic

pressuresthat,

among

otherthings,lead legislators

and K-12

administratorstocutout "non-essen-

tials."

Courageous and

wiselegislators

and

administra- torssee,however,thatglobaleducation^isincreasingly

im-

portantas

our own

society

grows

increasingly global. For this reason,

our

state legislature has

provided an

appro- priation for

World

View, enabling school administrators

and

teachers toattend

our workshops.

Unfortunatelyaca-

demic

departments, including anthropology,have not

been

particularlyinterestedinorsupportive

of

such "outreach"

activity.

This

reflectsthe

academic reward

systemthatpri- marily

rewards

research

— ^an

^artifact

^of

^the

^graduate

school/research

model imported from Germany

in the latenineteenth centurythatisgraduallyshifiiing,perhaps,to a twenty-firstcentury synergy

between

research,teaching,

and "engagement"

orapplication.

What

is the relation

of

these activitiesto public anthropology?

The work of World View

certainly con- nects topublicissues,

whether

thoseincludethe

impact of immigration on

schools(ourstatehas

one of our

country's highest percentage ofincrease

of

Latino

immigrants)or

the

need

to grasp global issues as part

of

education.

An-

thropologyis

one

of

many

disciplines involved; inthisef- fort,a

broad

interdisciplinary

paradigm

has

proven more

effectivethan

any

single discipline,butcertainlyanthropo- logicalconceptsarepertinent.

Looking Toward the Obama Era

Unfortunately,as

we

^{anticipatethe}inauguration

of

a

new

President,

our

era

looms

as

one

ofaterrible

mess

threat- ening awfulsuffering

by many

whilealso

promising

avi- sion fora

new world

led

by

a visionary.

Wall

Streetisde- stroying

main

^street

and

vast lands

beyond by

irrespon- siblepractices reflected in theillusoryprofits

rewarded by

excessive bonuses.

The USA ^and

^global

economies

are spinning

down and

out

of

control.

Nations — ^{from Zim-}

babwe

to the

Congo —

^are destroying themselves

by

tyr-

anny and

violence. Iraqis only

one of an

estimatedforty conflictzones.

Famine and

obesityviewith

AIDS and

stroke askillers

of epidemic

proportions.

Calmly

poisedasavisionary

New Deal

rescueris

Barack Obama.

Prior tohis inauguration

he

has already

appointed

his cabinet

— ^working

deliberately

but

very quicklytobring

on board

highlycapable, largelycentrist

Page 16

AnthwNotes Volume 29 No. 2

Fall

2008

experts

—

^{ineconomics,healthcare,labor,}environment,

and

internationalaffairs.

Not

surprisingly,thesecabinetappoin- tees

come from

fields outsideanthropology; several are,

however,

distinguished

academics —

ⁱⁿ

^economics,

^phys-

ics,

and

biology, forexample.

Obama

himselfis

presum-

ablyinfluencedin

some way by anthropology inasmuch

as his

mother was an

anthropologist,

working on

microcredit organizationsinIndonesia

and

elsewhere. Certainly,

he

is

influenced

by

hisglobalexperience,livinginIndonesia while attendingelementaryschool.

However,

histrainingisinlaw

and

hisexperienceisinU.S.

government and

politics.

Shotild

anthropology shape

the

Obama

^adminis-

tration in

any

way, that

shaping must come from

outside the central

government —

^trickleup, so to speak,

from

the grassroots/communities/academies/schools

where we do our work. What

situation

might we

asanthropologistsad- dress?

Our

^forte,traditionally,has

been

aholistic

view and

perspective. If

we

take aholisticlookat

our

society's situ- ation right

now, what do we

see?

QuaJititative

over Qualitative

The importance

ofthe quantitativeoverthequalitative(i.e.

thequalityoflife) is

one

pervasive

theme

today.

We

can- not,

of

course, ignore or negate

numbers: population

growth, destruction ofrain forests,

immigration demo-

graphics,

and economic downturns —

^all

^important

^indi-

ces.

However, we must go beyond measurements and

try to

put them

together

with

otherevidenceinordertotake a

more

holisticpicture.Anthropologiststendtofavor

and

see balances

and

systematic interplay

among

economics, politics, religion,

and

social forces.

Our

writings

and

re- search plot interrelations

among

suchforcesas

fundamen-

talism

and

terrorism;relationstopoverty,diversity,oppres- sion;

and

the

complex

connectionsto

environment,

ecol- ogy,

and

identity(asin

gender

identity

and

sexual orienta- tion,

among many which

alsoincluderegional,ethnic,class,

and

religiotisorpolitical identities,all

grounded

inbroader social

and

ctilturalcontexts(Peacock 2007a.).

The

general lessonofseeing

how

piecesfittogetherin a

way missed by

specialists ispertinent

when imagining how

anthropolo- gists

might

contribute

understanding

of broader contours

of

the

USA and world

societies.

Turning

tospecific issues

and

the

ways

toaddress them, considerthespecialtiesrepresentedinthe

more

than thirty sections

of

the

American

Anthropological Associa- tion.

Human

^rights,

environment,

gender,^{diversity,eco-}

nomics,law, politics,culture,psychology, education,biol- ogy,archaeologyare

among

the specialty

groups

in

AAA, and many of

these

have

applied

and

activist aswellasaca-

demic

foci.

The human

rights

committee,

for example, directlytreats

human

rights issuesthatarise aspart

of

the

work

ofanthropologists,

and

anthropologists

work

inevery corner

of

the

world

at grass roots

and community

levels hardlyvisibleto

UN

^officialsorothers

who

associatepri- marily

with

heads

of

state

and

officialbodies.

What we know and what we do

are cruciallyrel-

evanttopolicies

and

practices

up and down

the hierarchies

of

thestatedepartment.Similarly,the

AAA committee on

relations

between anthropology and

the military orintelli-

gence

communities

^isindialoguewithanthropologistsac- tually

working

with such communities.

Another example of where anthropology might

prove helpful is

Obama's

proposal to

convene Muslims of

the

world

to discuss terrorism

and

otherissues.

Lam-

basted

by some

Islamic scholars as artificiallyseparating

Muslims from

everyoneelse,

such

aproposalcanusefully

be

evaluated

by

anthropologists

of

religion (anothersec- tion

of AAA) who

are

accustomed

to seeing religion in context.

Beyond AAA, thousands of

anthropologists

do

applied

work

withinthe contexts

of many

institutions

and

organizations, for example, the Society

of Applied An-

thropology;

WAPA,

^the

Washington

Association

of

Prac- ticingAnthropologists;

and

the

Center

forIntegratingRe- search

and

Action,

an

effort at

UNC

to coordinate aca-

Pase 17

VnthroNotes Volume 29 No. 2

Fall

2008

m.sm

ant\^^opolo(^^

demies and communities

in

such

projects as nutrition. I

believe that

much

ofthis

work

can

inform

efforts at re- shaping

our

societyintheage of

Obama.

Let us all

draw on anthropology

together

with

other

wisdoms

toenrich the

work of

thisera.

We

can

do

thisin

our

teaching,inour

communities, and

perhaps,

by

"trickle

up" means,

^helpingtoshapethepolicies

and

prac- tices

of our government and

the

wider

^society.

Further Reading

Sanday,PeggyR. 1976. Anthropology

and

thePublicInterest:

Fieldwork

and

Theory.

Academic

Press.

Borofsky, Robert,

and Naomi

Schneider. PublicAnthropol- ogy Series. University of California Press

200

1-. http://

www.publicanthropology.org/Bookseries/Ucseries.htm

Peacock, James, Patricia

Thornton, and

Patrick

Inman.

2007a.IdentityMatters:Ethnic

and

SectarianConflict.Berghahn Press.

Peacock,James. 2007b.

Grounded

Globalism:

How

theU.S.

South Embraces the World.

(The New

Southern Studies).

University ofGeorgia Press.

James

Peacockisthe

Kenan

Professor

of

Anthropology,

Uni-

versity

ofNorth Carolina-Chapel

Hill

and

past President ofthe

American

AnthropologicalAssociation.

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