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Diversity Is Our Business
Author(s) -
Hannerz Ulf
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01274.x
Subject(s) - foregrounding , diversity (politics) , ethnography , sociology , politics , anthropology , discipline , sociocultural anthropology , aesthetics , epistemology , social science , political science , linguistics , law , philosophy
Anthropologists have tended to portray their discipline as in crisis and ask whether “the end of anthropology” is near. I offer indicators to suggest that the discipline is alive and well as far as its internal activities are concerned. I then turn to the more worrying question of its external image, understandings and stereotypes more or less common among a wider public: the anthropologist as antiquarian and insensitive, slightly lost in real life. Anthropologists have been ineffective in offering a simple, coherent view of what the discipline is and what holds it together. I propose that a consistent emphasis on “diversity” as what anthropology is about best matches our combined interests and practices. To have a strong “brand” is essential under present‐day cultural and political conditions, in and out of academic life. The foregrounding of “diversity” goes with the anthropological concern with ethnography, comparison, and cultural critique.