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| From the January 2006 Anthropology News Models for the Future of Anthropology Mary K Shenk
In conversation with a colleague in a recently-divided department, I was surprised to discover that faculty considered the division of their department in a near-universally positive light. This ran against my own prejudices as well as the conventional wisdom that split departments would suffer in terms of economics and research. Thus I thought it would be useful, as a prelude to this series, to do a bit of investigation on divided departments as well as departments that have made an effort to put the anthropological ideal of holism into practice. My goal was to discover what models or lessons there might be for other departments in the experiences of those who have taken unusual paths.
Departmental Divisions: Causes and Consequences Duke University Duke’s 1988 departmental split was precipitated by events in Duke’s medical school that left several senior faculty—all anatomists focusing on primates—without a home. This prompted an administrative decision to move Duke’s biological anthropologists to join the anatomists in creating a new department of biological anthropology and anatomy (BAA). Naomi Quinn, former chair of Duke’s department of cultural anthropology, thinks her department benefited from the split. “Funding basically doubled, because each new department got its own budget, so there were no longer tensions over money between subdisciplines.” Further, she says the split “clarified our mission” and “centered our department,” making the atmosphere relatively more cohesive. Likewise, BAA Chair Steven Churchill adds, “we have more biological anthropologists than we probably would have in a four-fields department” as well as unusually strong ties with faculty in biology. Faculty admit, however, that the administrative, physical and theoretical divisions between their departments preclude much interaction. Churchill adds that the split also makes it “difficult to engender any holistic perspective” in students, as majors are entirely separate. Stanford University At Stanford there had been a long history of departmental tension, and when in 1997 the administration allowed faculty to vote on division the measure passed with limited opposition. Of the resulting departments, cultural and social anthropology (CASA) chose to focus on sociocultural anthropology while the department of anthropological sciences (DAS) chose to become an empirically-focused four-fields program. Faculty from both departments agree that the results of the split have been overwhelmingly positive; both departments have been able to attract talented new faculty and graduate students, and both report more collegial relations and fewer disputes over departmental concerns. Former CASA Chair Sylvia Yangaisako comments that “the split gave us an opportunity to pursue a vision of cultural anthropology and forge alliances with archaeology that we would not have been able to do otherwise”; a similar feeling is shared in DAS about its own approach. “There is a lot of fear of division—that the new departments will have fewer resources and a weakened ability to recruit,” says Yanagisako, “but that has not been the case here at all.” Harvard University In June of 2005 the biological anthropology wing of Harvard’s anthropology department submitted a preliminary proposal to divide from anthropology and form a new department of human evolutionary biology. Peter Ellison explains that the proposal is “about trying to figure out where biological anthropology fits in the intellectual map of the 21st century and the administrative map of Harvard University.” On a practical level, it was influenced by Harvard’s 2003 creation of a life sciences division, under which the proposed department would be administered. However, Ellison cautions that administrative motivations were only important insofar as they linked with theoretical concerns. “There are several possible ways to position biological anthropology intellectually,” he explains, one of which is to “place biological anthropology within the domain of evolutionary biology, akin to ecology, evolution and organismal biology.” As of yet no decisions have been made, though Chair Arthur Kleinman reports “broad support in the department at the ideational level, but more concern about the details of how and when.” He also makes it clear that the department is “not in a crisis. It is a serious proposal, but it is being very calmly faced.” British Anthropology A final perspective on departmental divisions comes from outside the borders of American anthropology. Leslie Aiello, current president of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, reports that “in the UK it is very unusual to have a combined department. Historically, anthropology was social anthropology while biological anthropology was a graduate medical course.” Perhaps not surprisingly, one of the enduring reasons for this split is funding. British governmental agencies don’t recognize biological anthropology as a discipline; as a result, faculty who do such research often have a better chance of getting funding if they join a biology, geography or psychology department. For decades University College London, where Aiello was chair from 1996–2002, had the only combined department in the UK. Recently, however, the University of Durham adopted a combined structure and Cambridge University added a joint degree. Interestingly, Aiello reports that combined departments are “very popular with students, who have begun voting with their feet.” Integrative Departments: In Pursuit of Holism Emory University Emory’s 17-year-old graduate program was developed with what Chair George Armelagos calls “a commitment to holistic anthropology” and to “a dialogue between biological and cultural anthropology.” In practice this means staggered offices, a joint seminar series, a broad-based graduate program and an emphasis on communication among faculty. Student projects clearly show the effects of joint training. Armelagos estimates that about a quarter of PhD graduates have done truly biocultural dissertation research, while as many as half show integrative elements in their work. Moreover, while the approach taken at Emory may be unusual, Armelagos says that “the hiring record for our graduates is pretty incredible; the product we are producing is something people are clearly interested in.” Armelagos comments that “in discussions of the biological vs cultural divide in anthropology, people sometimes ask, ‘When was the last time you learned something from a physical anthropologist?’ At Emory the answer is yesterday—or last week.” University of Florida At UF the ideal of subdisciplinary integration has a long history. Former Chair Allan Burns, who came to UF in 1978, says “the attitude predates me, but I became a big proponent … and the attitude is now widely shared in the department.” This is most clear in the arena of hiring, where Burns says “our attitude has been to integrate across areas rather than just strengthen four or five different silos. By consensus, a lot of hires are people with three quarters of their feet in one subfield and a quarter in another.” This process produces an increasingly intersubdisciplinary faculty, frequent collaborative research and coursework combining material from multiple subfields. On occasion the degree of integration is so strong that Interim Chair Kenneth Sassaman calls it “not just interdisciplinary but almost truly holistic.” University of Pennsylvania Chair Greg Urban says the attitude at Penn is that you “can’t be a first-rate department and not be four fields.” Yet they also recognize that “subdisciplines tend to create alternative status hierarchies. So instead of talking about ‘four fields’ we see our department as organized around a series of themes that cross-cut the traditional subdisciplines.” He lists current Penn themes as complexity, evolution, semiotics/meaning and public interest. Structural factors also help keep the department integrated, including Penn’s tradition of health-related research, an ethnohistory program that hosts an interdisciplinary seminar series, an active Center for Community Partnerships, and Penn’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. As at Emory and UF, the graduate program is four-field based, and ideal hires are those whose research involves data, methodology or theory from more than one subdiscipline. Arizona State University In November of 2005 ASU launched its School of Human Evolution and Social Change, a reorganization and expansion of the anthropology department. The new school, according to an ASU release, aims to “re-energize the field of anthropology and focus it on the challenges of modern societies.” Along with anthropologists, the faculty will include computer scientists, economists, geographers and sociologists. Rather than subdisciplines, the school will be organized around research themes, including “human origins, evolution and diversity,” “societies and their natural environments,” and “natural, social and cultural dimensions of human health.” Such a novel undertaking is not without controversy. Some believe that the initiative has great potential to stimulate original research, but there is also concern that the school’s unabashedly interdisciplinary ethos might result in a dilution of the importance of anthropology at ASU. Departmental Models: Divorce or Reconciliation Ultimately, decisions about whether to divide or integrate are the product of both broad intellectual forces and small scale historical contingency, and multiple paths appear to be both possible and desirable. “The question of what anthropology should be really goes back to your research objectives,” comments Aiello, “One size doesn’t fit all; a combined approach is appropriate for some research topics but not for others.” Divided departments often have a sharper academic focus, allowing less divisiveness and a greater concentration of like-minded scholars. Theoretical motivations, however, may ultimately play the greatest role. Quinn argues that “it seems a natural split; I don’t think departments can hold themselves together against the inevitable intellectual divorce.” And Ellison stresses that anthropology is not alone in facing reorganization: “It is important, I think, to realize that the intellectual map of other disciplines is changing as well.” Finally, Yanagisako provides an alternate way of looking at division. “Let’s not assume,” she says, “that four fields is always the best case. If people could get freed from this convention, they could have more creative results.” In contrast, integrated departments offer an unusually broad perspective on human nature—but may require both vision and vigilance to maintain. Holism is also aided by mechanisms, such as theme-based research, that promote dialogue and cooperation. Of his own large yet integrated department Sassaman explains: “Why would a department like this exist in an era of atomization? It comes down to the individuals that we have here; they have been striving to branch out in their own research.” In the end, perhaps we can conclude that the fact that some departments split does not mean that four-field ideology is defunct, but neither does the existence of integrated departments mean that divided departments won’t make important original contributions to anthropology. My research on this topic leaves me optimistic that there is room in anthropology for both approaches. Mary Shenk is an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center at UNC-Chapel Hill and contributing editor to AN for the Evolutionary Anthropology Society. | |||
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