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From the February 2003 Anthropology News Shock-Absorbing and Sense-Making A Different Public Arena
Consider the case of Enron. Soon after that debacle was reported in the media, we read accounts of the lost pensions and ruined retirements of Enron employees, followed by commentaries suggesting that the employees had only themselves to blame. After all, there had been sufficient warnings that things were not right and so they should have taken steps to avoid the impending disaster. As anthropologists who have spent the past few years in fieldwork with middle-class families, we mused about how they would have acted in the same situation and with the same information. We concluded they would have done nothing because they were overwhelmed by the sheer busyness of their lives, the products of decades of deregulation and the proliferation of consumer choices. These families are awash in a sea of requisite information, without the time or ability to make sense of it. No one is watching out for them; they are “empowered,” required to act for themselves, regardless of their interest or aptitude, highlighting how wider social transformations have quietly altered the fabric of everyday life and of American families. A Place for Anthropologists Families are the social arenas in which events large and small are interpreted and ultimately acted upon. They are where people make sense of those contradictions and absurdities, and where they make and modify short and long term plans. They are where people translate disparate experiences and fragments of information into daily life. From decisions about whether and when to travel, to choices about appropriate ways to celebrate Halloween in an era when fright and terror take on new immediacy, families are engaged in rearranging their moral universes. Furthermore, families are the metaphorical “shock absorbers” in an era of the “empowered” individual. Whether it is assuming responsibility for our own financial futures, the education of our children or the health of an ill spouse, families are invariably implicated in how we absorb shocks to our lives. Understanding this does not merely satisfy our academic curiosity, for family members crave information about how their own family practices compare to those of others, and how they can do better. Consequences of Engagement First, we are prompted to generate knowledge that is useable or has practical implications for different audiences. We can pursue policy research and provide decisionmakers with information not otherwise available. Yet policymakers’ goals and agendas can come into conflict with other research priorities, creating blinders that limit what is relevant and irrelevant to an issue. Alternatively, we may seek to produce insights based on our research data whose practical implications can be delineated and debated by a wider public. The result is a change in civic discourse and topics of conversation that ultimately contribute to policy agendas. This activity is less dramatic and subtler, but the ultimate impact may well be greater. Second, we communicate about our research by writing broadly accessible books, articles and reports. We may also work with journalists. Many of us do this with trepidation, since journalists often use us to provide cases or quotes that validate their preexisting stories. The issue is typically less one of misquotation than of “miscontexting,” as accurate quotes are misinterpreted. Yet working with journalists can also bring positive rewards. We view many journalists as valued colleagues whose assessment of our research provides valuable clues as to what our story really is. Journalists can shed light on what will interest or excite the public. They can also correct the academic tendency toward jargon and obfuscation. Good journalists remind us that we should be able to communicate the implications of our research in vivid and clear language. Third, the study of American families challenges our very definitions of the discipline and of ourselves as practitioners. We study across a thin line between our own and other families that constantly reminds us that the familiar can be exotic and the exotic very familiar. We do not simply engage new audiences from the position of being anthropologists, for we are compelled to re-examine ourselves as anthropologists. Such research sharpens our awareness of our own moral compass and sense of self. Such awareness is part of any fieldwork, but it is especially compelling when the people studied are intimately bound up with our fundamental sense of who we are and what it means to live in good ways. Such fieldwork provides knowledge that can be both simultaneously liberating and unsettling both for anthropologists and the families they study. C N Darrah, J A English-Lueck and J M Freeman conduct fieldwork with dual-career, middle-class families in Silicon Valley. They are writing Busy Bodies, a book that describes their research into the causes and consequences of busyness among middle-class US families. |
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