AnthroNotes Volume 29 No. 2 Fall 2008OBAMA AND ANTHROPOLOGY:Anthropology in an Increasingly Global WorldbyJames Peacock
[Editors' Note: In 1997 xht AnthroNotes editors invitedJames Peacock, then President of the American Anthro-pological Association, to contribute the lead article forAnthroNotes 20th Anniversary Issue. The article, "Anthro-pology and the Issues ofour Day," appeared Spring 1998.In anticipation oiAnthroNotes 30th anniversary, we returnedto Professor Peacock and asked if he would once againgive us his observations on anthropology in this time ofsuch enormous change— in anthropology, society and. ourworld.]A decade ago, I wrote an essay for AnthroNotesbased on a speech I had given as then-presidentof the American Anthropological Association.Now I am invited to reflect on that essay in light of thecurrent time. I will briefly revisit that essay, recount some
activities I and other anthropologists have been doing thatfollow up on the admonitions I offered in that first essay,and finally conclude with some of the challenges and op-portunities that face us in the era ofObama.
The Nineties: "Public or Perish"This slogan, which I appropriated from museum anthro-pologists, summarizes the message of my speech that Igave to my fellow anthropologists in 1997. I called foranthropologists to address more effectively issues of thewider society, that is, the public. AnthroNotes cleverly sum-marized my message of three possible futures for anthro-pology with a cartoon by the late Robert Humphrey show-ing "Anthro-man," flying like Superman to rescue society.The speech/essay helped stimulate the creation of a sub-field sometimes termed "public anthropology." A websiteand book series edited by Rob Borofsky, as well as a pro-gram in "public interest anthropology" led by Peggy Sanday
at the University ofPennsylvania, exemplify this direction.Coincidentally, this was the Clinton era—a time of pros-perity in the USA and the rise of globalization.
Early 21st Century: Efforts to Walk the Walk andTalk the TalkFollowing my call to "go public," I found an opportunityto act in my own locale. Back in 1993, the University ofNorth Carolina (UNC) had celebrated its bicentennial. UNCwas the first state university and Bill Clinton spoke at itsbicentennial, signifying its movement from a state and re-gional to a national focus. However, UNC was not veryglobal in its identity at that time, even though it had wel-
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corned its first international student (fi-om Japan) in 1893.However, in 1993 Craig Calhoun, now President of theSocial Science Research Council (SSRC), had created aUniversity Center for International Studies (UCIS), which
I directed from 1996 to 2003. Fortunately, this small cen-ter, which received little funding from the University, be-came an engine to internationalize the university, state, andeven region while reaching out globally. (These regional/global efforts are recounted in my book, Grounded Globalism.)
I defined nine steps to internationalize UNC, in-cluding three key ones: defining international work as a toppriority and identity ofthe institution, appointing a centraladministration official to support this work, and building aspace in which to work. During my seven years as direc-tor, our center accomplished all nine steps. Both the six-teen-campus system and the Chapel Hill campus agreedon international work as one of six priorities, an AssociateProvost for international affairs was appointed, and an82,000 square foot building was erected (financed by astate-wide bond) to accommodate rapidly growing activi-ties, which were then housed in nooks and crannies. Fol-lowing is a brief description of one activity: World View.World View ProgramWorld View (www.unc.edu/world ) was established ten yearsago by lawyer Robert Phay to help schools and collegesprepare students to succeed in an interconnected world.The Program's mission is to help educators internationalizeschools and integrate a global perspective into every sub-ject area ofthe curriculum and at every grade level, helpingeducators respond to rapid ethnic and cultural changes andpromoting foreign language training and international travel.Phay remains director while I chair the board. During theseyears we have worked with almost 13,000 K- 12 and com-munity college teachers and administrators in 95 ofNorthCarolina's 100 counties. Our main work, however, is con-ducting workshops with teachers and administrators ofK- 1 2 schools and community colleges. These culminate inaction-plans that help guide the numerous school and col-lege programs throughout the state.World View exemplifies a kind ofwork that edu-cators, including some (but not nearly enough) anthropolo-gists, have been doing in the past decade. These globally-oriented educational activities have flourished in responseto the rise of global forces, positive and negative, and theneed to address them in K-12 education. It is important
that this work continue and evolve—a challenge—givencurrent economic pressures that, among other things, leadlegislators and K-12 administrators to cut out "non-essen-tials." Courageous and wise legislators and administra-tors see, however, that global education is increasingly im-portant as our own society grows increasingly global. Forthis reason, our state legislature has provided an appro-priation for World View, enabling school administratorsand teachers to attend our workshops. Unfortunately aca-demic departments, including anthropology, have not beenparticularly interested in or supportive ofsuch "outreach"
activity. This reflects the academic reward system that pri-marily rewards research—an artifact of the graduateschool/research model imported from Germany in thelate nineteenth century that is gradually shifiiing, perhaps, toa twenty-first century synergy between research, teaching,and "engagement" or application.What is the relation of these activities to publicanthropology? The work of World View certainly con-nects to public issues, whether those include the impact ofimmigration on schools (our state has one ofour country'shighest percentage of increase of Latino immigrants)orthe need to grasp global issues as part of education. An-thropology is one ofmany disciplines involved; in this ef-fort, a broad interdisciplinary paradigm has proven moreeffective than any single discipline, but certainly anthropo-logical concepts are pertinent.
Looking Toward the Obama EraUnfortunately, as we anticipate the inauguration ofa newPresident, our era looms as one of a terrible mess threat-ening awful suffering by many while also promising a vi-sion for a new world led by a visionary. Wall Street is de-stroying main street and vast lands beyond by irrespon-sible practices reflected in the illusory profits rewarded byexcessive bonuses. The USA and global economies arespinning down and out of control. Nations—from Zim-babwe to the Congo—are destroying themselves by tyr-anny and violence. Iraq is only one of an estimated fortyconflict zones. Famine and obesity vie with AIDS and stroke
as killers of epidemic proportions.Calmly poised as a visionary New Deal rescuer isBarack Obama. Prior to his inauguration he has alreadyappointed his cabinet—working deliberately but veryquickly to bring on board highly capable, largely centrist
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experts—in economics, health care, labor, environment, andinternational affairs. Not surprisingly, these cabinet appoin-tees come from fields outside anthropology; several are,however, distinguished academics—in economics, phys-ics, and biology, for example. Obama himself is presum-ably influenced in some way by anthropology inasmuch ashis mother was an anthropologist, working on microcreditorganizations in Indonesia and elsewhere. Certainly, he isinfluenced by his global experience, living in Indonesia whileattending elementary school. However, his training is in lawand his experience is in U.S. government and politics.Shotild anthropology shape the Obama adminis-tration in any way, that shaping must come from outsidethe central government—trickle up, so to speak, from thegrass roots/communities/academies/schools where we doour work. What situation might we as anthropologists ad-dress? Our forte, traditionally, has been a holistic view andperspective. Ifwe take a holistic look at our society's situ-ation right now, what do we see?
QuaJititative over QualitativeThe importance ofthe quantitative over the qualitative (i.e.the quality of life) is one pervasive theme today. We can-not, of course, ignore or negate numbers: populationgrowth, destruction of rain forests, immigration demo-graphics, and economic downturns—all important indi-
ces. However, we must go beyond measurements and tryto put them together with other evidence in order to takea more holistic picture. Anthropologists tend to favor andsee balances and systematic interplay among economics,politics, religion, and social forces. Our writings and re-search plot interrelations among such forces as fundamen-talism and terrorism; relations to poverty, diversity, oppres-sion; and the complex connections to environment, ecol-ogy, and identity (as in gender identity and sexual orienta-tion, among many which also include regional, ethnic, class,and religiotis or political identities, all grounded in broadersocial and ctiltural contexts (Peacock 2007a.). The generallesson ofseeing how pieces fit together in a way missed byspecialists is pertinent when imagining how anthropolo-gists might contribute understanding of broader contoursof the USA and world societies.Turning to specific issues and the ways to addressthem, consider the specialties represented in the more thanthirty sections of the American Anthropological Associa-tion. Human rights, environment, gender, diversity, eco-
nomics, law, politics, culture, psychology, education, biol-ogy, archaeology are among the specialty groups in AAA,and many of these have applied and activist as well as aca-demic foci. The human rights committee, for example,directly treats human rights issues that arise as part of thework ofanthropologists, and anthropologists work in everycorner of the world at grass roots and community levelshardly visible to UN officials or others who associate pri-marily with heads of state and official bodies.What we know and what we do are crucially rel-evant to policies and practices up and down the hierarchiesofthe state department. Similarly, theAAA committee onrelations between anthropology and the military or intelli-gence communities is in dialogue with anthropologists ac-tually working with such communities.Another example of where anthropology mightprove helpful is Obama's proposal to convene Muslimsof the world to discuss terrorism and other issues. Lam-basted by some Islamic scholars as artificially separatingMuslims from everyone else, such a proposal can usefullybe evaluated by anthropologists of religion (another sec-tion of AAA) who are accustomed to seeing religion incontext. Beyond AAA, thousands of anthropologists doapplied work within the contexts ofmany institutions andorganizations, for example, the Society of Applied An-thropology; WAPA, the Washington Association of Prac-ticing Anthropologists; and the Center for Integrating Re-search and Action, an effort at UNC to coordinate aca-
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m.sm ant\^^opolo(^^
demies and communities in such projects as nutrition. I
believe that much of this work can inform efforts at re-
shaping our society in the age of Obama.
Let us all draw on anthropology together with
other wisdoms to enrich the work of this era. We can do
this in our teaching, in our communities, and perhaps, by
"trickle up" means, helping to shape the policies and prac-
tices of our government and the wider society.
Further Reading
Sanday, Peggy R. 1 976. Anthropology and the Public Interest:
Fieldwork and Theory. Academic Press.
Borofsky, Robert, and Naomi Schneider. Public Anthropol-
ogy Series. University of California Press 200 1-. http://
www.publicanthropology.org/Bookseries/Ucseries.htm
Peacock, James, Patricia Thornton, and Patrick Inman.
2007a. Identity Matters: EthnicandSectarian Conflict. Berghahn
Press.
Peacock, James. 2007b. Grounded Globalism: How the U.S.
South Embraces the World. (The New Southern Studies).
University of Georgia Press.
James Peacock is the Kenan Professor ofAnthropology, Uni-
versity ofNorth Carolina-Chapel Hill andpast President
oftheAmerican AnthropologicalAssociation.
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