[Air-L] Reputation and professional degrees

Matthew Bernius mbernius at gmail.com
Tue Jan 5 13:57:26 PST 2010


Liz <nwjerseyliz at yahoo.com> wrote:

> But when I first started following people on Twitter, I did a bio search
> for those who describe themselves as an anthropologist or sociologist and
> was surprised how much these titles had been appropriated by people who, as
> part of their job in marketing or media, try to make sense of why people act
> as they do. "Technology anthropologist" is one title I've seen several times
> by people working in social media.
>

Ingbert Floyd <ifloyd2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems to me that the values of the academic anthropologists, whether or
> not they have a degree, and the values of the people who are employed by
> corporations, are at times radically different, and that is the source of
> the tension, especially because the people on the corporate side who use the
> label often make little effort to understand the academic use of the label.
>

Speaking as an anthropologist (or at least one in the midst of
professionalization), what Ingbert writes is completely correct. It should
be noted that this goes far beyond simply what is meant by "ethnography."
What tends to tick anthropologists off is the reduction of anthropology to
ethnography.

<rant>
In fact, what makes these self-glossed anthropologists often a bit
problematic is their habit of reproducing (and dare I say fetishizing) the
very ideas and tropes that anthropologists have spent the last few decades
trying to move beyond.

The danger of any self appointed "professional" is that while they have the
"tools" (for example "ethnography", a form of study to which Anthropology
cannot and should not claim exclusivity), these individuals often miss the
context -- not just of the tools, but of the field itself. For the
non-professional anthropologist that usually means using terms like "native"
and (implied, if not specific) references to Malinowski and Mead.

Apologies for the rant. Anthropology tends to be one of the more abused
professions when it comes to people self glossing in the technical sphere.
</rant>

Ingbert, I'm really glad you singled out Dourish as a good example of how
people can appropriate tools like ethnography in a nuanced and very open
way. I'm a really big fan of his work.

- Matt

-----------------------------
Matthew Bernius
PhD Student, Cultural Anthropology, Cornell University (
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/anthro/)
Researcher At Large, Open Publishing Lab @ the Rochester Institute of
Technology (http://opl.cias.rit.edu)
mBernius at gMail.com
http://www.waking-dream.com



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