Race and the public perception of anthropology

Anthropologists have dedicated much time to deconstructing and denouncing racial myths (see, for example, the AAA's statement on race from 1998) and, as a result, the idea that "race does not exist" has been as strongly absorbed into the anthropological canon as cultural relativism. More recently, collaboration between social and physical anthropologists reaffirms that race is "not an accurate or productive way to describe human biological variation" (Edgar and Hunley 2009: 2) while scientifically detailing the genetic evidence for actual human variation. Still, dismissing fixed racial categorization as biologically unsubstantiated has done little to eradicate the very real presence of race in everyday life. So what has all the effort we have spent in deconstructing race actually achieved?

Teaching race

In Race Reconciled?, Edgar and Hunley address one of the main concerns I will concentrate on here; namely, how preconceived notions of race present a challenge for educators:

Specialists in informal education talk about "naïve notions," which, in the context of education in biological anthropology, are the ideas our students have when they walk in the doors of our classrooms. Often, these ideas are typological, even when they are not racist. Although we have now been teaching for generations that races do not exist, these naïve notions persist and they continue to have social and scientific consequences. This may be because we have failed to offer a clear and satisfactory explanation that meshes with students' lived experience (2009: 3).

Is it possible that the idea that races do not exist is itself becoming a "naïve notion" within anthropology?

Anyone who has taught subjects like race or ethnicity knows that class discussions can easily stir up intense emotions and indeed no small amount of confusion. My students, for instance, have been woefully under-prepared to discuss race beyond the idea that perceptions of racial boundaries are culturally constructed and that racial stereotyping is wrong. Past that, they are unsure of how to critically analyze race, power, politics, etc, without feeling as if they are stepping into a trap. Having said that, I taught in the UK, where most of my majority white, British students tellingly saw race and racism as distinctly American problems. Of course, this is certainly not the case, which highlights another complication regarding how to deal with race in anthropology as a project of global education.

There is apparently an all-too-common problem with the way our students perceive race based on how the standard textbook definition is framed. At Living Anthropologically, Jason Antrosio notes a similar phenomenon in his classes; namely, that his students "are very likely to conclude the anthropological critique of race supports their own desire to be 'colorblind'". Anthropologist Angela VandenBroek likewise has to explain to her students how,

despite the fact that race is socially constructed and that true color-blindness would be wonderful […] racism exists as a fundamental thread that permeates every context of everyday life. So, to approach any situation from a 'color-blind' stance denies the reality of the lived experience of racism and thus exacerbates the problem more than it solves it.

Both of these statements are from Antrosio's excellent post Anthropology on Race.

These types of misunderstandings are a good clue that more progress needs to be made in contextualizing what is meant by "race is a social construct". Accordingly, advancing the race debate in anthropology today is the argument for the recognition of privilege and its role in racial politics. This is actually not so new. The AAA statement from 1998 acknowledges that the common "'racial' worldview was invented to assign some groups to perpetual low status, while others were permitted access to privilege, power, and wealth". Nevertheless, calls are rightfully being made for increased attention to whiteness and white privilege in order to update popular anthropological notions of race to more adequately reflect its cultural, political and historical underpinnings.

What I want to explore in admittedly loose terms here is what kind of impact this shift in discourse is having on public perception of race and anthropology including among our own undergraduates. Perceptions of race among students of the social sciences are important not just for anthropology, but for future social and public policy everywhere. It is therefore important to address privilege in a way that both better informs students and offers a more nuanced discussion of race which is not simply a blanket rejection of the well-worn slogan "race doesn't exist" in favor of "race is everything".

Check your privilege

Social media is an influential platform for the dissemination of ideas about race that produces new and unexpected challenges for contemporary education in anthropology. Last year, one particular online social drama surrounding anthropology and race earned public internet notoriety when a former Disney child actor-turned-undergraduate anthropologist clashed with militant social justice bloggers - including more anthropology students - over race and white privilege on the microblogging platform Tumblr1. The controversy began when the white, teen male took offense at the post of a 19-year-old African American female who asserted that "white boys that are students of anthropology are usually not not2 students of anthropology. They're just assholes" and tagged it with the star's name.

Such an opinion itself is pretty telling of anthropology's public historical legacy and inadvertent self-sabotage regarding race. I estimate that undergraduates make up a good majority of the vocal anthropologists on the site and they were certainly active in joining both sides of the ensuing debate. Some participants agreed that the white actor was ignorant for daring to study the subject at all since anthropology itself was built upon white privilege. Others came to his defense only to then receive vicarious assaults against their ignorance, whiteness or complicity with privileged whites. More readers and contributors matter-of-factly acknowledged anthropology's own racist past as justification for labeling white anthropologists "assholes" without hesitation.

Why ruminate about a Disney kid and the social psychology of Tumblr? As academics write at length for solutions to better understanding race, anthropology's public image is anything but in line with our own contemporary studies. Our cumulative body of knowledge and recent works in this area are strong, but there is a noticeable gap between the science and its popular perception that - whether we like it or not - falls on us to rectify. At the same time, anthropology students are up against increased pressures to make what they learn in class fit with what they experience in life.

Militant social activism is somewhat of a proud tradition in the Tumblr community, and to their credit participants in this public drama did, in fact, display an understanding of race that moves beyond skin tone to address deeply embedded social, economic and political inequalities. But what struck me when scrolling through bloggers' responses was the number of times check-your-privilege advocates began sentences with "you're white, so what you say/think about race (or insert any other topic here) doesn't count". Rather than enabling a productive recognition of privilege, this type of assertion just as easily stifles debate, learning and progress by instilling fear and forcing people onto opposed sides of a renewed and self-perpetuating battle of skin tones.

Finally, one particularly troubling avowal of support for the actor-student was this comment from an exasperated user (italics added): "dear lord. please don't even try to bring race into anthropology. ANTHROPOLOGISTS BELIEVE RACE TO BE A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, NOT FACT." And we're right back where we started.

Communicating race

While anthropology's role as broker in race and racial politics remains more or less secure, what needs critical attention is how we communicate race and the new and old baggage that it carries. How do we affect the national (US) and global conversation on race without explaining it away and likewise without enabling the co-opting of anthropological truths for justifying blind hatred? At the same time, it is essential not to take American experiences of race for granted as universal. Commentators from the US are quick to dismiss the reality of lives elsewhere or even cling to their own ignorance of what it is like in other places, thereby feeding into the muddled confusion that arises when forcing others to conform to a specifically American historical paradigm.

Socio-cultural anthropologists should not let the opportunity to correct public perceptions of race slip through our disciplinary fingers and expect the biologists and geneticists among us to take up the slack. A fumbling stance on race that is out of touch with reality or in itself inherently racist will simply feed into vicious cycles of blame, not to mention cause mystification when people turn to anthropology to make sense of it all. Worse still, if we cannot correct our negative image, they may not turn to us at all.

Francine Barone

Research Associate, University of Kent

Notes

1. The entire archive of posts can be found here.

2. The repetition of "not" exists in original text, but is probably a typo.

References

Edgar, H. J. H. & K. L. Hunley 2009. "Race reconciled?: How biological anthropologists view human variation". American Journal of Physical Anthropology 139: 1-4.

Fear and loathing in academia

In November 2012, I unexpectedly provoked an avalanche of online discussion with a blog post reflecting on the state of academia. I began with a few words on the increasingly hot topic of adjuncts and academic un(der)employment. Talk to someone who is, or has been an adjunct, a part-time faculty member, or a “teaching assistant” and they will regale you with tales of a wondrous existence: full-time schedules for insulting pay, piles of marking, long hours of preparation, no office space, no desk, not even an inbox or parking permit, no privacy and no respect. This is just the tip of the iceberg on adjuncting: "It's drudgery and adjuncts carry about the same status as a Wal-mart greeter or grocery bagger, and the pay is about the same". But if that is just the tip of the iceberg on adjuncts, then adjuncts are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that is academia.

The adjunct issue is symptomatic of the unfortunate culture of formal academia today. What I chose to write about academia was not just about dire employment prospects and less-than-transparent hiring practices, although these are extremely important issues. Instead, I shared a series of real examples of maltreatment and incompetence: disrespectful hiring practices by lazy, unprofessional recruiters; thoughtless colleagues and distant collaborators; uncaring, abrupt administrators; an out-of-touch department head, and so on. It was not a pretty story, but it was a necessary one.

In sum, my open thoughts on academia (two of the most popular posts on my blog to date), were not simply a rant about joblessness, but a treatise on respect. There are problems with the way academics treat each other; especially, but not exclusively, how they treat powerless adjuncts, part-time and junior staff, or - the lowest of the low - students and job-seekers. Such problems within academia are reparable if enough people demand it. The power-holders can start by adjusting their own behavior. I’m not convinced that they even realize that they’re behaving incorrectly, but they should, which is why I spoke up. This affects us all, including tenured professors, all the way down to newly qualifying grad students peering through the glass and wondering how to get in or why they even want to.

Since my first post got picked up by Ryan at Savage Minds, related discussions on the subjects of academia, anthropology and disciplinary discontent have been taking place around the anthropology web. There are a few competing perspectives, but mostly everyone is on the same page: A lot of things suck in our professional lives and we should really figure out a way to do something about it.

I have also received commiserating messages with admittances of abuses of power and maltreatment from within departments. Some of what I have read has been inspirational while much has been disheartening. Some people offered explanations for our failed system (like the bureaucratization and corporatization of academia), while others put forward deeper concerns (over dominance, power and lack of agency in departments) and a small minority even attempt to offer long- or short-term practical advice to slowly piece together solutions. Most remarks suggest that changes in the university system, bureaucracy, funding and corporate mindset are responsible for a breakdown in communication within institutions. I certainly agree with this, even though it is not the entire story. David Graeber’s comment on Savage Minds addresses this issue:

The invasion of corporate, managerial principles in the university probably served as much political ends as economic ones. I went to an OWS seminar over the summer with Gayatri Spivak and she made one point that really stuck in my head: "even thirty years ago, when we said ‘the university,’ we meant, ‘the faculty.’ Now, when we say ‘the university’, we mean ‘the administration.’"

Thinking back to my time as a student, even as far back as my undergraduate years, almost all the teachers I had were fairly open about their discontent with the way the UK university system had changed over the past 20 or so years.

I had a lecturer who regularly got appreciative standing ovations from audiences of first-year students. This was no small feat. His manner was meticulous, his classes were tough and he left thoughtful feedback on my work. I signed up for everything he taught. His disdain for academia, a palpable mix of exasperation and sadness masked by black humor, was on permanent display. By the time I started my PhD, he had left university life entirely, which was sad for me because he was a really great lecturer and teacher. Asking around, I put together that (at least part of the story) he was fed up with the mess that had become of academia. What a loss to the profession, driven out by bureaucratic nonsense. His absence, which I had originally assumed was because he had simply moved to another job, lingered in my mind and got me thinking for the first time about the conditions that would cause someone to leave an academic career entirely.

The fact that academic departments and central admin talk past each other is nothing new. But there is no doubt that the administrative changes which have been most difficult to stomach have been at the departmental level. We can't shift the blame for these quite so easily.

Between my mostly enjoyable time as an undergrad and returning from my PhD fieldwork, things in my department had changed dramatically. Power was, and continues to be, increasingly concentrated in the hands of newly appointed administrative staff. Traits of the business model in academia that can be put down to the “corporatization” of universities irreversibly altered the dynamic of departmental relations in a matter of months. The environment became toxic to the extent that I hardly wanted to spend any time in my own building during office hours. I wasn’t the only one.

I luckily had the support of advisors who had known me for years and who were able to intervene in desperate times against the draconian admins. I pity newcomers with less of a support system in place. It is easy to overlook that research students before submission feel vulnerable and we were each, on various occasions, made to feel worthless by an administrator who appeared to be controlling an excessive proportion of departmental life. Eventually, I openly announced to other department members that I no longer wanted to have to personally deal with this person. To my surprise, even the other admin staff members were relieved to hear someone else say it. Yet, as far as I’m aware, nothing was ever done about it.

The easiest solution offered in response to complaints of intimidation is for those who feel abused at work to simply go up the hierarchy detailed in their handbooks and complain about the abuser to someone in a position of authority. This seems obvious, but there are a number of reasons why most students and junior faculty do not see this as an option.

1. They believe that it will affect their progress/status as a student or member of staff, from passing their PhD viva/defense to achieving tenure or keeping their job at all.

2. They would have to go on working or studying in a department where they have reset their loyalties and those of others, after which point they fear being outcast as "weak" or seen as a troublemaker to be openly or passive-aggressively excluded.

 3. They think that no one will listen.

4. It takes more time and energy than one has, given the workloads heaved on the bottom-feeders of a department like adjuncts and grad students, to take complaints fully up the ranks all the way to Chancellors or Presidents, putting their dedication to their work in jeopardy along the way.

5. In the end, no one actually listens.

In short, many academics, especially students, adjuncts and part-timers, find that it is easier to be bullied than it is to stop it, especially when it is not uncommon for complaints to higher-ups to be summarily ignored or brushed under the carpet. The fight is exhausting. Living with fear and anxiety in the workplace takes its toll, pace Forbes’ proclamation that academic life is a picnic. Conversely, it only takes something as simple as genuinely caring and interested colleagues aware of the potential hardships and challenges facing others in their immediate vicinity to lighten the daily grind of academic life and to expose or halt problems before they become endemic.

Because academia relies on such a hierarchical system, people are affected in different ways, separated by static categories and self-interest. Too often we suffer alone, hiding behind office doors churning out publications, cursing the process that we mindlessly reproduce. By the time I finished my doctorate, almost all of the senior staff that had openly expressed dismay at indiscriminate administrative changes or had otherwise been generally supportive and compassionate people in the department had retired or left. Those somewhere in between benefited from the system, kept quiet to avoid making waves, or perhaps even remain blissfully ignorant amidst their own career trajectories of how difficult it is for other members of the department.

How can anthropologists, of all people, remain so out of touch and disinterested in other peoples' hardships outside of the field? Do our own lessons on the global human experience offer us no input into life in the academy? I find this hard to believe. Making change from within the system is not nearly as difficult as we make it out to be. And it is really not that hard to be respectful, engaged, open and honest, which would prove an adequate starting point towards curing what ails us.

Francine Barone

Research Associate, University of Kent.

This essay is a modified version of content originally posted on Analog/Digital.