Comments for anthro{dendum}

Comment on What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a more enabling anthropology by JO

JO — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:49:40 +0000

Wow, this is a defensive and egregious reply. Interesting too that you choose to focus on an individual situation and potentially “out” that person. Is this possibly retaliatory? What do you hope to gain here? The authors of the original post clearly stated that they were crowd-sourcing anonymous responses. How do you even know who said what? Indeed, with replies like yours, it seems all the more clear why people might wish to stay anonymous. Just wow.

Comment on What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a more enabling anthropology by zoë

zoë — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:13:36 +0000

Jeff: The issue pointed out about qualified signed language interpreters is a general one, not in reference to a particular case. That’s kind of the point. We’re offering you evidence of a systemic problem, and your response is to deflect onto one instance and blame the person who was asking for accommodations? Yikes.

That you would publicly post the details of one person’s accommodation request flirts with the unethical. By referring to this person as “she,” your comment has the unfortunate (and I’m sure unintended) effect of dismissing a complaint about accommodation by evoking the tired trope of the disorganized and emotional woman.

Also, “The AAA goes to great lengths to ensure we apply an attitude of acceptance, collegiality, and respect toward disabled persons.” This sentence recapitulates so many of the ableist attitudes this post is trying to work against. It suggests disabled scholars are a burden to the AAAs, that the AAA is doing some great and burdensome task by extending basic features of intellectual and professional decency to disabled scholars, and also that disabled scholars are some kind of rare species that require special handling. FYI, 37% of academics have a mental health disorder, 20% of Americans are disabled, 1 in 6 Americans takes a psychiatric medications, and nearly 70% of Americans take a prescription drug of some kind. The issues and experiences we raise here are hardly rare.

Finally, I’m glad to hear the AAA is committed to exceeding the ADA. It would be great if it could also be committed to disability justice. And as for recommendations, don’t worry, the DIRG will continue to make them. If the AAA would like to be a better ally, I’d recommend buying copies of the Sins Invalid disability justice primer Skin, Tooth, Bone for everyone in the office and on the executive committee. Here is a review with instructions: https://tinyurl.com/ydgzlck3

Comment on What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a more enabling anthropology by Devva Kasnitz

Devva Kasnitz — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 21:49:51 +0000

Jeff,
Whoa!! I warned the AAA Executive Director, Ed Liebow that people were unhappy. We are in a collegial conversation. I just had not yet had time to send him our post. Jeff, NOTHING about your hyper defensive post furthers that conversation. It just makes it obvious why we are upset.
1) Your post outs an anonymous poster. There are so few Deaf people in AAA who attend; we now know the author just as well as we know the comment about speech impairment is mine because I am unique. Our stories are not yours to tell.
2) Had the Deaf poster’s experience been unique, you stress “one,” we would not be here now. AAA’s intention is not at issue, I wrote the line about AAA wants to “exceed all of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).” I don’t need it quoted back to me. I need it implemented.
3) The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL-a group I belong to and respect) recommended “expert” you hired was a BIG MISTAKE and I said so AT THE TIME after doing some research about him — and I was not heard. He doesn’t know anthropology, our meeting structure, or any of the complex cross-impairment communication and other issues that are the big problems.
4) It was also insulting to the disabled AAA long-term members, like me, who have been begging for the opportunity to do his kind of work with AAA for DECADES and would do it for free or expenses. This is up there with AAA using Public Health meetings access process as a model. Wrong models, and we said so.
5) AAA misunderstandings about the hours of coverage and when coverage is indeed are legend. You are a new name attached to an old problem and your post disqualifies you from doing this work in the future. Our stories are not yours to tell. We keep hoping AAA will have a process that allows disabled members the same SPONTANEITY as everyone else has. We have ways of doing that without breaking the bank, but we now need a measure of administrative CONTROL over the Societies’ accommodation process to believe that change is possible. We feel “managed” and may take that to the general membership.
6) Accommodation to disability is NOT easy, straight forward, formulaic, nor an individual issue and in our increasingly diverse world it is a skill set about I INTERDEPENDENCE. It is no longer about individual independence. Many disabled people have a whole repertoire of possible accommodations that can work for them. In order to best accommodate at a group event, we choose from the repertoire according to the fiscal, temporal, AND human context. AAA does not supply enough context nor does it encourage exchanges of who needs what when. Some basic accommodations are directly incompatible. Solving that problem takes communication and group trust.
Unfortunately, AAA has lost the TRUST of its disabled members and the growing number of disability scholars and allies we have in the membership, those that are still members. Our stories are not yours to tell. “Nothing about us without us.”
Devva Kasnitz, PhD
Executive Director
Society for Disability Studies

Comment on What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a more enabling anthropology by Jeff Martin

Jeff Martin — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 17:40:47 +0000

We’re sorry to hear that one of our Annual Meeting attendees was disappointed in the accommodations provided. The AAA goes to great lengths to ensure we apply an attitude of acceptance, collegiality, and respect toward disabled persons. Unfortunately, this observer has mis-characterized the qualifications of the experts with whom we consulted, and our willingness to accommodate all reasonable requests. In this case, AAA asked in advance for, and was provided, an ASL interpreter during the session she requested. However, she then waited until the night before the session to amend her request to have an interpreter for the entire meeting. We again managed to accommodate this last minute request with the best available professionals.

AAA consults with experts from the National Council on Independent Living to continuously improve its capacity to provide reasonable accommodations. We are always open to suggestions on how we can enhance our services. AAA is committed to ensuring that our Annual Meeting is inclusive and accessible for all attendees and will continue to not only meet, but exceed all of the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Comment on What I Wish I Knew about Anthropology and Disability: Notes toward a more enabling anthropology by Emily

Emily — Fri, 12 Jan 2018 09:27:06 +0000

Fantastic piece. Thanks so much for writing this. I have just graduated from an undergrad anthropology program and the thought of going to grad school as a disabled student terrifies me. Our field so desperately needs to change its paradigm regarding disability. We need more anthropologists like you!

Comment on Highly Accurate Pictures of Anthropologists: A new Tumblr by Teri Brewer

Teri Brewer — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 11:28:34 +0000

A very good idea,particularly to include the less well known who are harder to find. Will spread the word.

Comment on Highly Accurate Pictures of Anthropologists: A new Tumblr by Anna

Anna — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 09:34:33 +0000

Love the idea!

Comment on Three Styles in the History of Anthropology by Leif Jonsson

Leif Jonsson — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 02:51:50 +0000

It seems to me that the best histories are plural and diverse. Kuklick (ed. 2008) A New History of Anthropology is really interesting, as is Barth, Gingrich, Parkin, and Silverman (2005) One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American Anthropology. In a number of ways they offer histories quite different from those you mention (Kuper, Harris, Stocking). The books seem to do okay for undergrads, too.

Comment on Start an Anthropology Career in 2018 by TruthTeller

TruthTeller — Sat, 06 Jan 2018 09:59:22 +0000

“Fortunately, if you do everything listed here and still don’t end up with a tenure track job at a research university, you’ll have some really great life-skills under your belt that are valued by many employers.” I can’t believe anthropologists are peddling are still peddling this BS to students. If you don’t get an academic position with your PhD. the vast majority of employers will either see you as overqualified for any job (and thus likely to leave).

You essentially have 3 options with a PhD. in anthropology:
1. Becoming an academic.
2. Working for a “prestige” marketing firm that hire anthropologists (which means you better have an ivy league degree or personal connections at the firm).
3. Working for overseas NGO’s (which again means you better have a “prestigious” to the general public degree or personal connections).

Your advisors will be unable to help you get jobs outside of academia because they’ve been in the academic bubble for so long. ll there connections are with other academics (or people the subjects of their research). With the decreasing number of tenure track anthroplogy positions available (due to the adjunctification of colleges and universities), you’ll probably end up at a low paying job where your anthro skills are not valuable. Of course, many anthropologists will tell you that everything is fine and not to worry because anthropology is as strong as it ever was but they’re only deluding themselves.

Comment on My History of Anthropology Syllabus by Rex

Rex — Thu, 04 Jan 2018 20:21:40 +0000

Harry: In general anthropology has been around so briefly that I don’t think there are chronological periods in its thought which can be deconstructed the way ‘the medieval period’ or ‘the enlightenment’ can be. Mostly I tried to contextualize the discipline in the history of the 20th century. I think one thing about the 20th century is that with the wars etc. it falls into some pretty clearly definable periods. I guess I didn’t really question those, though.

DS: That’s a good question — what are the foundations of the discipline? I’d be interested in hearing what you think. One thing I did in this class was to define anthropology very strictly in terms of its institutionalization as an academic discipline. This involves paying attention to anthropology’s interlocutors in the field (that’s why I included Hunt), as well as the role that unis in the empire played — Khartoum, Sydney, S. Africa. I ultimately didn’t cover people like Manuel Gamio or Fei Xiaotong, unfortunately. But I tried to focus on a history of anthropology as a discipline with a specific intellectual thrust and political economy, not a general impulse in human history to think about humanity.