Path: uuneo.neosoft.com!Starbase.NeoSoft.COM!not-for-mail From: claird@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM (Cameron Laird) Newsgroups: sci.anthropology,soc.culture.scientists Subject: [PRO] Improving the academic process [LONG] Followup-To: sci.anthropology Date: 6 Sep 1994 17:13:17 -0500 Organization: NeoSoft Internet Services +1 713 684 5969 Lines: 87 Message-ID: <34ipht$2bd@Starbase.NeoSoft.COM> NNTP-Posting-Host: starbase.neosoft.com Xref: uuneo.neosoft.com sci.anthropology:7964 soc.culture.scientists:7167 What follows is the body of an article I've been trying unsuccess- fully to submit to ANTHRO-L for a couple of weeks. I assume there's some technical problem with ANTHRO-L. In any case, perhaps 'twill interest the sci.anthropology readership to consider my proposal. ____________________________________________________________________ . . . From: Cecilia Maria B Sardenberg Subject: Moving to Boston Area X-To: ANTOWNER@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU To: Multiple recipients of list ANTHRO-L Dear anthro-listers: I am thrilled to announce to the list that the Brazilian Ministry of Education has granted me a fellowship to go back to Boston to finish and defend my Ph.D. dissertation at Boston University. I plan to make my move in mid-December/94 and stay until July/August/95 (the grant is for 12 mos., but I am hoping to be back before that). . . . I want to exploit Professor Sardenberg's cheerful announcement as a point to which to tie a number of threads that have passed through ANTHRO-L this summer. Notice that, though her "... grant is for 12 months," she is "hoping to be back before that". It's quite common in anthro- pology, from what I've seen, for award recipients to *over*spend their time budgets; an ethnographer receives monies for eighteen months in the field, but stays there three-and-a-half years, and so on. In fact, this is part of the machismo of anthropology; many (some? all?) anthropologists regard themselves as different from molecular biologists or particle physicists, better able to scrimp and scientize successfully on the meager funds available in our discipline. I accepted this ideology for many years, with little reflection. Now I think we should explicitly congratulate Professor Sardenberg for her goal. Yes, part of the richness of anthropology has come from the seren- dipitous discoveries in the field, after individual outstanding ethnographers and archaeologists have been reduced to subsistence. Sometimes insight comes only after abandoning the impedimenta-- hypotheses, survey instruments, research plans, ...--of scientific method. I think this has been overdone, though. What I want to see is more anthropologists asking for and receiving adequate budgets, and then marshalling their creativity and imagination to concentrate on goals in ways that bring them home *ahead* of schedule. Then one focuses one's intensity on using that reserve of time to start the process--writing, grant-getting, and so on-- over again, with more mature polish and wisdom. The alternative I see too often is a miserly embrace of one existing support agency, eschewing the grant cycle with false nobility by trying to milk an existing commitment to its last drop. It's time we recognize that as a characteristic "peasant mentality" (about which, see Danny Yee's interesting recent review of *Weapons of the Weak*), with the predictable consequences. Suppose you agree with me that it's time for anthropologists to focus their goal-orientation. One conclusion is that we can turn the dismal job market into an opportunity. Here's my suggestion: those individuals who have grants need to think about their work in a business-like way. Consider particularly what you can effi- ciently subcontract. If you have a one-year fellowship to research the family dynamics of alcoholism in Western Canada, say, find some good junior workers (students, underemployed graduates, ...), send part of your living allowance through their hands, and achieve a multiplier on the library research, collating, coding, or other mundane segments of your work. Over a year's time, you'll accom- plish more than otherwise, have demonstrated to your funding agency that investment in you pays off, and have served the discipline in the best possible way, by acting as a leader to the next generation. I understand the attractions of the heroic, one-researcher-acting- alone, traditional academic life styles. We need to broaden our horizons, though, particularly when the communications technologies of email and beyond so encourage effective teamwork. Good luck to Cecilia Maria. -- Cameron Laird ftp://ftp.neosoft.com/pub/users/claird/home.html claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net) +1 713 267 7966 claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net) +1 713 996 8546