Women's Career Pathways in Academia: From Leaky Pipeline to Rube Goldberg Machine

In 2016, Aileen Fyfe, Ineke De Moortel and Sharon Ashbrook of St. Andrew's College in Scotland wrote Academic Women Now: experiences of mid-career academic women in Scotland.

In this and more recently in an opinion article for Times Higher Education magazine, author Fyfe addresses her and her colleague's recent efforts to understand women's careers in academia. They argue that the leaky pipeline - understood as a metaphor to describe the dwindling proportion of women in higher levels of seniority - is an incomplete analogy to understand these women's experiences.

Their population included women with children as well as child-free women; some are in long-term relationships, and some are not; some are maintaining long-distance relationships, and some have suffered the breakdown of their relationships; some are in their thirties and others are nearing retirement; some have had serious health problems; some have had careers outside academia; and a significant minority are currently working part time (in a surprising variety of ways).

The authors found that these women's [c]areers [did] not all flow along a single pipeline, or at the same pace. Women (and men) do not drift along, transported automatically from point A to point B by some force outside themselves: they work, they struggle, they get creative, and they improvise. And far from a single pipeline, there are clearly many different paths through academia.

As for the kinds of challenges that feature in their participants lives, the authors identified caring responsibilities, about impostor syndrome, about work-life balance and about promotion. We also noticed that “balancing” is not just a matter of “work” and “life”: our women refer to the challenges of dealing with the competing aspects of academic life, and with increasing responsibilities as the nature of the job changes over time and with seniority. 

In light of Fyfe's findings, perhaps the Rube Goldberg Machine is a better analogy to understand women's experiences within academia than those pipelines of the past.

Collaboration between Academics and Industry: Canhoto and Quinton

Are you an academic looking for ways to collaborate with industry stakeholders (or vice versa)? Check out a (relatively...) recent blog post on LSE Impact Blog detailing Ana Isabel Canhoto and Sarah Quinton's research which provides five practical principles to make collaboration 'work'.

Why is collaboration important?
Research collaboration is deemed to accelerate the transfer of knowledge between experts and the translation of world-class research into practical applications, which has important commercial, economic and social benefits. Collaboration between academics and practitioners can also produce new knowledge, by bringing together researchers with complementary perspectives, interests, skills and knowledge bases.

Together with Dr. Paul Jackson and Sally Dibb, Canhoto and Quinton investigated the experiences of academic academic researchers and industry practitioners who had participated in successful R&D collaborative projects in the digital arena, to identify the factors that support or hinder research collaboration.

To find out more about their project, follow the link in our Quick Links section.

Quick Links:

• Research collaboration between universities and industry: Five practical principles to make it work, LSE Impact Blog (Aug 15, 2016) 
• The co-production of value in digital, university–industry R&D collaborative project, Industrial Marketing Management (July 2016) Ana Isabel Canhoto, Sarah Quinton, Paul Jackson, Sally Dibb

Innovative Like Me: Best Practices for Writing Unbiased Job Ads

Below is a post @anthrolens blogger @JennLong3 wrote on LinkedIn. In this post, I write about diversity and bias in Canadian job ads.

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While drinking coffee this morning, I came across a job ad for an internship at a Toronto-based subsidiary of a FP500 Corporation.

In addition to one’s resume, cover letter, and copy of transcripts, the employer asked for:

1. An overview of projects the applicant had worked on in the past - be they work or school-related or a personal project;
2. Two in-depth case studies about any of these projects which highlight the process, insights or design principles, the output generated, challenged encountered; and,
3. A list of the top three books or articles with the biggest influence on their practice and a description of why they’re important to the applicant.

For such a tall order, the employer explained their wishes:

They wanted to understand ‘how the applicant worked’ because ‘the documentation process was just as important to the final product’. They also requested that applicants provide specific details about their methods and frameworks because they were interested in understanding the why and the how of their process.

As a Communications instructor for the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice and Technology – I saw myself mic drop and walk away from this glorious display of the importance of communication in technical fields. This sophisticated call for applicants helped prove the importance of many topics covered in my class including: project documentation, reading widely in one’s field, the importance of discipline-specific vocabulary, putting theory into practice, self-reflection during project work, tailoring documents to specific audiences…I could go on.

In the end however, the ad stated ‘feel free to use whatever format or length…’ to showcase the applicants work. That’s where I stopped.

I teach my students that there are prescribed methods of communication in Canadian workplaces; that is, whether they know it or not, workplace correspondence and documentation follows long-standing formats of technical and professional communication. To do otherwise slows down progress, creates confusion, and has the potential to ruin work relationships. In class, we learn about direct and indirect writing styles, best practices of professional communication, and more. I tell my students that in following these best practices, they will get more done and make a better career for themselves.

The brief overview request aside, how should we teach students to write case studies and describe their favorite book without returning to the genre of essay writing or book reports that they left behind in primary or secondary school? Do the employers think their applicants will have sufficient expertise to write a business case study? If so, what are the implications of sharing such intellectual property during a job search process?

Perhaps this open-ended request is a symptom of the creative industry, that is, that they want to see what applicants can come up with; yet, there remain standards for communication in all workplaces that the intern will have to follow. Will they end up with a creative soul who can't interact professionally with a client? In a more practical sense, do they want to read thousands of book reports? (Obvious answer: No, you don't) As someone who has faced stacks of essays and literature reviews, it was those well organized, efficiently written (length requirements be damned) submissions which caught my eye and won out.

As a social science scholar teaching in STEM, I’m often struck by the ‘isms’ of Canadian workplace culture that bubble to the surface in everyday practice. In this case, I imagine that such a job ad would locate an applicant whose creative expression matched the recruiter's and whose well-loved book list matched their own. It begs the question: Is this the best way to source an applicant? In a word, no. Innovation – a word sprinkled throughout the ad – does not come from sycophantic following but productive conflict, i.e. difference in thought, in life experience, in world view. Written as such, this ad reflects the implicit bias found in the Canadian hiring process (see Ottawa Citizen, the Star) where employers hire similar and like-minded employees - and so the inequitable hiring and promotion cycle continues.

If you want an applicant who knows about the design process – why not have a quiz to test their individual knowledge? If you want to see creativity in practice, why not have a second stage where culled applicants respond to a past company project filled with real world issues. This would allow them to respond to situations from the brainstorming to production phase. Along the way, ask them to reflect on why they made the decisions they did, and how they would deploy their methods. Otherwise, include a template of a case study to level the playing field (and limit the page count). If you want different thinking, why limit creative knowledge to books and articles – a genre biased toward a particular readership? Instead, suggest potential interns submit a photo and write 250 words as to how this photo inspires their perspective on innovation or design practice.

In the end, I advocate the same thing to employers as I do to my students. Write reflectively, in a manner that considers the audience’s needs and which follows best practices of workplace communication. To do less, creates unproductive communication and has the potential to stymie innovative work processes.

What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour

According to a recent article (August 3, 2017) in the Financial Post, Martin Birt discusses the work of Johanna Faigelman, CEO and founding partner of Human Branding.

In answer to a few questions including how deep is your understanding of the needs and behaviours of your customers or employees? Faigelman responds that traditional market analysis is too superficial. It relies on 'consumers as experts' and simply reports on what 'consumers know they know.' This is a risky approach given the scope and potential exposure of many business investments.

In speaking of how to launch a new product successfully or 'innovate', Faigelman identifies three importance aspects, that is, understanding (1) human-centric insights, (2) business needs and realities, and (3) socio-cultural factors. To accomplish this, a business — with appropriate support — should do a deep dive into societal trends, gain an understanding of unmet human needs, and the dynamics of the business category. Layered onto this complexity are cultural and generational differences.

Birt goes on to write that [e]very business is under pressure to grow and to anticipate market and competing trends. Even before a new product is developed, for example, anthropological research and insight can help a business decode socio-cultural factors that set the context for what people are saying … and what they are not saying. This can help a business think in a way that is future forward. They’ll be able to identify latent (and therefore unmet) needs, define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour.

It's important to acknowledge how the write-up by a non-anthropologist (although this is not confirmed), the editing process, or the need to grab views might influence how the practice of anthropology is worded. However, describing anthropological methods as a means to define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour  would likely be seen as problematic. Earlier in the piece, Birt describes Faigelman's methods as involving “naturalistic unobtrusive observation” (being the fly on the wall), in-depth respondent-driven interviewing, and participation. 

This flies in the face of postmodern critiques of the method, that is:

1. What role does the ethnographer play as an 'expert' in describing the culture (behaviours? thoughts and perceptions?) of others?
2. Where does the role of the ethnographer (as a research tool) come into play in - in this case - market research?

Here on Anthro Everywhere!, we've written about the packaging of anthropological knowledge (see quick links) and asked a number of questions including: What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?

We also made a note in our first post about packing anthropological knowledge...a caveat

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Are anthropologists everywhere okay with having their method described as:

1. Eavesdropping
2. Unobtrusive observer (from fly-on-the-wall)
3. The ability to predict behaviour

Let us know what you think on twitter @anthrolens

Quick Links:

• Why you should use cultural anthropology as a business tool, Martin Birt, Financial Post (August 3, 2017)
• Anthropologists visualizing data: The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge Part Three, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 03 2017)
• The Packaging Anthropological Knowledge Part Two, Anthro Everywhere! (July 31 2017)
• The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts. Anthro Everywhere! (June 29 2017)

Anthropologists everywhere! Alternative Anthro Careers

There have been quite a few posts on this blog where we discuss not-so-run-of-the-mill jobs that anthropologists find themselves in (click on our label 'what can anthro do?', our page on Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university, and see quick links below). This is also the case for Christine Moellenberndt who is an Anthropologist & Community Manager at Reddit.

In their post entitled Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management Mx. Moellenberndt describes what the discipline of anthropology is 'good' at doing...and (drum roll) it turns out to be quite a lot.

Mx. Moellenberndt works in a field that is populated largely by those with marketing and business backgrounds and yet, the author finds that their anthropological training sets them up to ask questions that drive the very work that they do: While all of those fields can provide the bulk of the skills needed to be good community managers, it is anthropology that holds a key in tying all of these threads together for effective community management.

Mx. Moellenberndt argues that While this may not be “fieldwork” in the traditional sense of going into a foreign culture and living in it for long periods of time, it is still fieldwork and the work that comes out of it can be ethnography (basically, this is kind of the end result of fieldwork; the write-up of what was observed and concluded). Without good, grounded ideas as to who your community is, what they want, and how they function, you can’t be an effective community manager.

Read more about Mx. Moellenberndt's work at Reddit and the role of anthropology from our quick links.

Quick Links:

• Applying an anthropological perspective in health Anthro Everywhere! (April 27 2017) 
• #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms Anthro Everywhere! (June 05 2017) 
• Anthropology in a Tag Line Anthro Everywhere! (July 20 2017) 
• Argonauts of the Internet: Anthropology and Community Management, Christine Moellenberndt Reddit Blog (May 16 2017) 
• To PhD or not to PhD... Anthro Everywhere! (July 13 2017) 
• Undergrad & MAs career paths Anthro Everywhere! (May 22 2017)
• Our page featuring many interesting career paths anthropologists are pursuing: Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university

Anthropology in a Tag Line

Anthros...tell me if you've heard this one before:

Question: Oh, you're an Anthropologist? So, you dig up bones, right?

Answer: Well, some anthropologists excavate bones and others work with material culture, but I look at aspects of culture...

Follow up question: So wait...are you like Indiana Jones?

Answer: Erm...Well, I think the film 'tomb raider' is an apt depiction of his real job title... 

This conversation happens with non-scientists and scientists alike and reminds us of the important question: How do you define Anthropology for those who are less familiar with what the discipline does? 

This is not a discussion of Anthropology's "PR problem" (for more on this see Matejowsky and Reyes-Foster's  Guest column: Anthropologists should do a better job of promoting their field from 2013 and Anthrodendum (then Savage Mind's) response entitled Anthropology: It’s not just a "promotion" problem from the same year). 

While Public Relations may be a factor of this conversation, it is also important to think about how anthropologists describe and define what Anthropology is to others because this happens everyday. To make this even more challenging, can we summarize what anthropology does in a 'tag line'?

Enter Andi Simon. Who is Andi Simon? She is a Corporate Anthropologist who helps executives see their companies with more observant eyes, achieve “aha!” moments, and discover new and profitable opportunities. By applying the concepts, methods, and tools of anthropology to business environments, she turns observation into innovation and revitalizes businesses seeking growth.

Simon's tag line for her business is Observation into Innovation. 

In a synopsis of her book On the Brink (2016), Simon defines anthropology as: ... anthropology – the science of observing humans to understand how they live – corporate anthropology encourages business leaders to step outside their day-to-day processes to observe not only how their enterprises operate, but where unmet needs truly exist.

Is Anthropology so easily definable? I hear a rally cry of NO! and yet, one might argue that the dedication to observation and as we see below, situated observation with an eye to context and holism, do speak to many of the hallmarks of an anthropological toolkit. 

Simon was recently featured in an article by Adam C. Uzialko entitled Adapt or Die: How Cultural Anthropology Can Inform Business Strategy

In this interview, Simon describes anthropology's real value as the ability: to help people pause, step out and look at the way they have always done things in new ways – and then make them happen. Simon continues on to state Anthropology is a vital part of the business toolkit today for those who want to understand their business and how to keep it active and agile in fast-changing times. 

Simon is not the only anthropologist crafting usable and consumable definitions of the discipline. Such interpretations of the discipline surely drive curiosity of non-anthropologists about who we are and what it is we can do. 

Quick Links: 

• Who is Andi Simon? Andi Simon (2017)
• Adapt or Die: How Cultural Anthropology Can Inform Business Strategy at Business News Daily by Adam C. Uzialko (June 25, 2017).
• Anthropology: It’s not just a "promotion" problem on blog Savage Minds now Anthrodendum by Ryan (June 19, 2017)
• Guest column: Anthropologists should do a better job of promoting their field in the Orlando Sentinel by Ty Matejowsky and Beatriz M. Reyes-Foster (April 24, 2013)
• Why I wrote on the Brink on andisimon.com
• Synopsis of On the Brink on andisimon.com

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts

In a Harvard Business Review article To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist authors Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld (August 16, 2016) advocate that marketing managers must begin 'social listening'

There is something marketing managers seem to forget about the internet: it was made for people, not for companies and brands. As such, it offers managers a source of insight they never had — social listening. The authors go on to argue that social listening competency will be critical to competitive advantage in the digital age*.

In continuation of our posts about social media these past two weeks, it is interesting to explore the growing business of anthropological techniques in market research. As discussed in a past post from Anthro Everywhere! anthropologists are playing a bigger role in this applied market which is a growing alternative career for anthropology graduates (see for example, #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms).

Yet, how do non-anthropologists describe the anthropological approach and its merits?

The authors of To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist article argue that

Social media data is inherently qualitative and while it can and should be quantified for manageability, at some stage in the analysis it must be treated and represented as qualitative. In order to “appreciate the qualitative” and extract meaning from it, managers have to think like anthropologists and jettison many of the scientific principles that underlie traditional hard science research.

In this article, the authors ask those interested in analyzing public posts across various social media platforms as market research in order to critically reflect on 'issues' related to social media research (but qualitative research in general). These issues include:

1. Adequate sample size 
2. Finding so-called representative samples 

In response, Fournier, Quelch, and Rietveld argue that: "social listening in its purest form does not presuppose anything and this unsolicited quality creates an opportunity to answer questions that managers do not even know they should ask." They go on to advocate that "managers (need to) drill into the data to ask questions, not confirm or reject hypotheses." And by "moving beyond the science of data management to the art of interpretation," managers looking for consumer insights need to "embrace the context offered in qualitative commentaries."

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge is something blogger Jennifer Long is increasingly interested in. Questions for further study include: 

1. Who has the 'right' to speak about (with authority?) on the methods and practices of anthropologists? 
2. How can anthropologists 'package' our knowledge in consumable and accessible ways to have the most impact? 
3. What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?  

Your comments, as always, are welcomed on twitter @anthrolens or @JennLong3

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Quick Links:

• Anthro Everywhere! #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms (June 5, 2017)
• Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist (August 16, 2016)

Academics and their Social Media Presence

Thao Nelson from Indiana University wrote an article for Maclean's entitled Dear students, what you post can wreck your life. In this article, Nelson argues that students should think twice about posting any comment on social media that references (1) illegal drugs, sexual posts; (2) incriminating or embarrassing photos or videos; (3) profanity, defamatory or racist comments; (4) politically charged attacks; (5) spelling and grammar issues; or (6) complaining or bad-mouthing. Nelson admonishes:
Would you want a future boss, admissions officer, or blind date to read or see it? If not, don’t post it. If you already have, delete it because social media becomes part of a person’s brand—a brand that can help you or hurt you. If we ask this of our students, what should we be asking ourselves as anthropologists?

Nelson's set of guidelines follow our recent post about The Relationship between Social Justice & Anthropology that included the following sub-texts: (1) What is the connection between anthropology, social justice, and activism? (2) What is the role of anthropologists in the current context of terror and terrorism as it may affect our interlocuters and field sites?

Arguably the most common outlet for activism is social media which raises the next question: What is the role and where are the boundaries for academics who engage as public intellectuals or, are recognized as academics (working for specific institutions that may receive blow back or which are associated with 'said' academic's opinions) in the public sphere?

In Frank Donoghue's article for The Chronicle for Higher Education: #WatchWhatYouSay, after detailing a few high profile cases of academics losing their jobs on account of their posts on social media, Donoghue argues that:

The originators of the concept of academic freedom could not have imagined Facebook, Twitter, or personal blogs. Yet clearly the time has come to recognize the impact of social media on academic freedom — and the bottom line seems to be that it has created an environment in which it is increasingly difficult to differentiate private communication from public speech and to parse how that increasingly blurred line affects a professor’s protection under academic freedom. Those cases, which are far from simple, underscore the fact that professors’ audiences now extend far beyond those who attend lectures and read scholarly articles.

In 2015, Elizabeth Raymer wrote an article 'Faculty in Canada may not need rules for using social media, observers say' for University Affairs which argued that Canada's social media context is different from academics in the U.S.. Raymer interviewed academics SFU’s School of Communication including Peter Chow-White who argued that,

"But social media guidelines are more about public behaviour", (...) adding that an assumed part of professional practice is not saying things that are inappropriate. “I’ve heard of social media guidelines for athletes at universities,” said Dr. Chow-White, "but when you’re in the business of ideas, the way we are, that’s your currency. The benefit you can bring to society is an open exchange of ideas."

Returning to the growing support for AltMetrics, are academics prepared? Has there been a shift since Raymer's 2015 article where Chow-White was also quoted as saying: (I'm) not sure professors necessarily need guidelines. We publish on a regular basis; if we can write articles and books … we probably don’t need to be told how to write a 140-character tweet.

We want to hear from you (on social media):

1. Are you comfortable tweeting, blogging, and/or vlogging in the absence of a peer review process (that would accompany the articles and books that Chow-White describes)?
2. Do you think Canadian academics require social media guidelines? Note: some Canadian universities or departments within universities have already adopted such guidelines.
3. In 2017, is there a distinction between personal and professional social media presence?  

Tweet us @anthrolens

Quick Links: 

• Altmetrics 2017 http://altmetrics.org/
• Anthro Everywhere! The Relationship between Social Justice & Anthropology (19 June 2017)
• Anthro Everywhere! Students as Public Intellectuals - Another Push toward Altmetrics? (22 September 2016)
• Elizabeth Raymer Faculty in Canada may not need rules for using social media, observers say (27 April 2015)
• Thao Nelson Dear students, what you post can wreck your life (15 June 2017)
• Frank Donoghue #WatchWhatYouSay (28 September 2015)

2017: An Ethnographic Renaissance?

I recently read an interview between Smithsonian's Steven Beschloss and sociologist Matthew Desmond. This article detailed Desmond's fieldwork in a trailer park and a rooming house in Milwaukee between 2008 and 2009. There, he conducted fieldwork with eight families and two landlords and, in the words of Beschloss, "captur[ed] how the toxic mix of extreme poverty and economic exploitation can leave individuals unable to keep a roof over their heads."

This article is a series of questions and answers by Desmond whose new book Evicted is recently published. In one question particular to ethnography, Beschloss asks:

What about [...] ethnographies [that provide] not only insights but were part of a progressive tradition to influence social problems?

Desmond responds (this is a selection here):

"If I get down onto the ground with this problem, try and see it as closely as I could and write about it with complexity and humanity, maybe that would make a difference in and of itself.  I am heartened by the fact that we have this wonderful tradition of ethnography and in-depth journalism that’s focused on these moral questions and made a difference."

How accessible is the 'wonderful tradition of ethnography' AND in-depth journalism? Are these supposed to be read as one in the same? Something of a very similar tradition? Is this too traditionalist of a perspective (asking oneself...but is your method informed by ethnographic theory?!?!)?

Deepa S. Reddy, Ph.D. wrote about Ethnography (is) Everywhere! in 2013. Four years ago, Reddy wrote that "ethnography seem[ed] to have acquired a new cachet in the last decade."

She goes on to pose a problem that was originally behind Desmond's answer:

"The trouble is that ethnography has also become industry jargon, used to describe quite a range of qualitative consumer research approaches, often diluting ethnography to simply another way to generate a “real-world understanding” of consumers. The other trouble is that ethnography, classically conceived and thoroughly executed, requires some fairly intensive field studies. Its focus is on studying people and practices in their native contexts. But does this mean that those who cannot immediately commence extensive field studies are stuck at the shallow end of research? Not necessarily."

Reddy then goes on to list a number of ways in which we can draw from ethnographic approaches in a deep (as opposed to shallow) way. Follow the link below to see Reddy's list.

Quick links and further reading:

• Experts Have Been Studying Income Inequality for Decades. Has Anything Changed, (May 25, 2017, Smithsonian.com)
• Ethnography is Everywhere, (July 2013, Deepa Reddy)
• Our previous post on Teaching Ethnography (26 January 2017) inspired by student complaints about the "tyranny" of ethnographic texts like Desmonds.
• Our Teaching Ethnography resources on our Reading Lists, Syllabi, & Teaching Resources page

#AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms

Paul Heartly, a Toronto native and anthropologist, gave unique insight into his hiring PhDs for an 'alternative' career.

In a 2015 interview for Alt-Ac Advisor, Heartly stated: it is interesting how many post-ac/alt-ac job seekers I talk to have struggled just getting the courage up to inquire about the job. The willingness to try may be the single most important characteristic of a successful post-ac/alt-ac job search.

Idea Couture is an international experience design firm. Idea Couture may be unique among other market and experience research organizations for its focus on hiring anthropology PhD graduates as market researchers.

Having worked as a contractor for this firm in the past, one of the most interesting outcomes was to see how applied anthropologist used and packaged anthropological knowledge, theory, methods, and their approach into the field of market and experiential research. It was also insightful to learn how we as anthropologists worked to gain deep understanding of situations, people, and the greater context despite our truncated time in 'the field'. I think I was most shocked to see anthropological and ethnographic concepts that I learned long ago weave their way into client documents.

Does the existence of Idea Couture, and research firms like it, signal an ever growing awareness of anthropologists practical skills? What's stopping you from stepping out into Alt-Ac territory?

Quick links and further reading:

• Undergrad & MA careers (May 22 2017, anthro everywhere!)
• VPhD career finder (December 5, 2016, anthro everywhere!)
• What I look for when I hire Alt-Ac PhDs, Alt Ac Advisor Blog, September 28, 2015
• Idea Couture website
• Other links on where anthropology PhDs are working, including in Marketing, Brand & Product Development
• Our Advice for Grad Students page, which includes resources on Job Market: Realities & Opportunities and Professional Development Strategies

Teaching Resource: Social Inequality and Teaching in the Academy

As anthropologists, we frequently teach about power dynamics and social inequality in our classrooms. Especially in the context of efforts to decolonize anthropology, many of us reflect on these relationships within our classrooms, within the university, in our relationships with our students, and the course content/ materials we teach.

In this vein, we offer this five-part series (2017) in which sociologist Elaine Coburn explores "Social Inequality and Teaching in the Academy." Coburn writes that "We live in an unequal world; these inequalities do not stop at the university classroom door." In this series, she considers "some ways unjust inequalities are (re)produced in the classroom" and through our relationship with our students.

Part I: Pedagogy is Not (Just) About Technique
Part II: The Problems with the Conscientious Pedagogue
Part III: The Practical Challenges of Broadening the Scholarly Canon
Part IV: As Professors, We are Not All Equal Before Our Students
Part V: “Imagine Otherwise” – Ways Forward

How might Coburn's reflections and suggestions be useful for how you plan your next class?

Additional resources:

• Paige West's Teaching Decolonizing Methodologies (Savage Minds, 2016) from their 20-part Decolonizing Anthropology series.
• Our post on Reading Lists for Decolonizing Anthropology & Beyond (15 December 2016) and our page including these resources and more: Reading Lists, Syllabi, & Teaching Resources

Undergrad & MAs career paths

If you're familiar with anthro everywhere! you might know that we have a special page addressing where and how people are Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university. Most of these links profile folks with PhDs in (sociocultural) anthropology making careers outside of the academy in "alt-ac" or applied careers.

Anthropology Major Fox

In my department, most anthropology majors or Masters students also follow career paths that take them outside of the university. A growing number of anthropology departments do offer some information on where their grads find jobs (e.g. University of British Columbia, York University, University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University). Yet, it can still be difficult to find these examples and other hard data to share with our students -- or prospective students who aren't quite sure how a background in anthropology will serve them well after they graduate. There isn't a clear career path from anthropology major to anthropology job! It's with this in mind that this post offers a few links directed specifically toward undergraduate and MA-level anthropologists and their career choices and possibilities.

In 2016, the AAA Blog published this post to answer the question, What exactly are Anthropology MAs doing with their anthropology? You might also want to check out the (2010) report “Changing Face of Anthropology” from the AAA’s Committee on Practicing, Applied, and Public Interest Anthropology (CoPAPIA), which provides some data regarding length of time to employment, types of jobs and tasks, the role of anthropology in respondents' workplaces/ work, and skills training.

For undergraduates who don't plan to pursue graduate studies, there are still many ways in which your anthropological training and perspective matter. Jason Antrosio's post Anthropology Major Jobs: Advice for Undergraduate Majors (Living Anthropologically, 2015) is a good place to start (re)thinking what majoring in anthropology might mean for your career prospects. Professional anthropologists offer a lot of great advice in the comments on this post, and on the FaceBook post for undergrads. You might also want to check out the AAA page Antrosio links to providing some more data on the kinds of careers (American) anthropology majors pursue.

More resources:

• Our ability to conduct qualitative research -- including interviewing -- is an important part of the anthropologist's toolkit. So, it only makes sense that students use these skills in gathering information about potential future careers! One way to do this is through "informational interviewing," which we wrote about earlier this year. Informational interviewing is also a good way to begin networking with professionals working in fields that you might be interested in working in after graduation.
• It's also important to learn how to think and talk about your anthropological training in a way that makes sense to people who might never have heard of anthropology. Have a look at our post on Articulating the Anthropological Toolkit to Non-Anthropologists for some tips on how to do this -- and also how to rethink what it is that you learn as an anthropology major or MA.
• Our Advice for Grad Students page covers a lot of ground, but you might want to check out the "Professional Development Strategies" section for tips on how to start thinking about and preparing for life after university.
• Check out this post (reviewing Field notes: A Guided Journal for Doing Anthropology) for a discussion of some of the insights that ethnographic methods training and experiences in the field allow anthropologists to develop.
• Although a resource created by VersatilePhD, this Career Finder contains a lot of really useful information about careers in different sectors for Social Sciences & Humanities grads. Click on the "General information" tab to read a summary of what careers in a wide range of fields are like, including Business, Finance, Government, Institutional Research, K-12 Education, Law, Marketing, Nonprofits, Policy, Publishing, Technology and more.

Quick Links:

•  Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university (anthro everywhere! page)
• Selected career advice pages from Canadian universities: 
• University of British Columbia
• York University
• University of Toronto
• Simon Fraser University
• What are Anthropology jobs? (anthro everywhere! 23 February 2017)
• What exactly are Anthropology MAs doing with their anthropology? (AAA Blog, 2016)
• Changing Face of Anthropology (2010, AAA’s Committee on Practicing, Applied, and Public Interest Anthropology)
• Anthropology Major Jobs: Advice for Undergraduate Majors (Living Anthropologically, 2015; and the related FaceBook post)
• What are the job prospects for anthropologists? (AAA)

Scholarly paths that lead beyond the university

I'll admit, my love of cardigan sweaters was what first caught my attention and prompted me to read this article about professional development and careers beyond academia: Life After Academe: My Blazer Is a Cardigan (CHE, 2013).

But, even if you're not as passionate about button-down sweaters as I am, author Jocelyn Dawson nonetheless offers some sage advice for graduate students thinking about their future career paths -- and how theirs might (and probably will) take them away from the university sector. Yet, as Dawson notes, the "choice of a nonacademic career does not mean forsaking the reasons you chose a scholarly path in the first place."

If this sounds like you (or your students!), Dawson's article is a good place to start thinking about the possibilities after graduation. Then, you can head over to our Advice for Grad Students page for tips and strategies that you can use to help prepare you to think more broadly about what that scholarly path might look like further down the road. You can also peruse the links we've gathered for where some anthropologists are working beyond the ivory tower. Don't forget your cardigan...

Professional Development: the Informational Interview

I recently gave a workshop for anthropology graduate students in my department on strategies for professional development. One of the most interesting things for me about this workshop was talking to these students about Informational Interviewing. Although no one around the table was familiar with the term, we all understood the concept. After all, anthropologists are trained to talk to people, to conduct interviews -- we just aren't trained to think about applying our research expertise to our own lives and careers in the same ways.

As Robin Mazumder writes, the Informational Interview is basically "when you interview someone who has a career that you might be interested in. You can find out first-hand what the job really entails, or about the path required to obtain that job" (2017, Gradventure, University of Waterloo).

Check out Mazumder's piece or these for more information about how and why to arrange an Informational Interview, and the kinds of questions you might want to ask:

• Robin Mazumder, "Exploring Your Options: A Primer on Informational Interviews" (2017, Gradventure, University of Waterloo)
• Katie Shives, "The Informational Interview" (2014, GradHacker)
• From University Affairs:
• Jennifer Polk, "Don’t shy away from informational interviews" (2014)
• Jo VanEvery, "Informational interviews aren’t just for non-academic careers" (2011)
• Liz Koblyk, "Getting the dirt on non-academic careers" (2011) and "Landing the (information) interview" (2011)
• Scroll through some transcripts of informational interviews,"Transition Q & As" with PhDs in non-academic careers (From PhD to Life)
• Check out more Advice for Grad Students here at anthro everywhere!

What does knitting sweaters for kittens or filming fetish porn in your basement have in common? An Activity for second semester student introductions

What are you we doing in the classroom besides trying to make one another think about things? Or think about things in a new way or create new ways of thinking? As teachers in the classroom, we'd like this 'thinking' thing to happen for all 3 hours per week that we have students but breaking through barriers of distraction, boredom, and perhaps hunger is sometimes really, really difficult to do.

That's why I like pieces like Mark Manson's 7 Strange Questions that Help You Find your Life Purpose. Perhaps the subject matter doesn't appeal to you but at the very least, his no bullshit-cut-to-the-chase writing style does appeal to me and I'm sure, many of my students. 

As an instructor teaching the second semester of what is essentially a full-year course, I'm not looking for ways in which my students can be introduced to one another for the first time. Instead, I want them to discover more and go deeper. So for a next-level introductory activity to the group work that I've assigned this semester, I'm going to have them answer Manson's insightful questions that I've paraphrased below as a way to get to know one another better (and perhaps again):

1. What struggle or sacrifice are you willing to put up with?

2. What is true about yourself today that would make your 8-year-old-self cry?

3. What makes you forget to eat and poop, i.e. what kind of activities enthrall you and what are the cognitive principles behind them?

4. What unconventional and unique thing are you avoiding right now due to its potential embarrassment?

5. How are you going to save the world?

6. If you were absolutely forced to leave the house everyday, all day, where would you go?

7. If you were going to die in one year from today, what would you do and how would you like to be remembered? 

Getting those wheels turning in the classroom can open up avenues to one's content, to the larger life questions/purposes of a discipline), among many others. 

Manson began this post with a discussion about the difficulty in defining one's life purpose (whether knitting for kittens or filming in one's basement...); He argues that this question is daunting and almost impossible to answer. Instead, asking these questions of oneself and others might help students reflect on where they are and where they want to be - importantly, in a no-bullshit-cut-to-the-chase kind of way.

Articulating the Anthropological Toolkit to Non-Anthropologists

As a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology, I am currently teaching Communications to Engineering and Technology students. I am surprised almost everyday at the various ways I use my anthropological and ethnographic training in my department. I've been brought onto projects in my short 9 months of tenure because, according to some, 'I think differently'.

The uniqueness of the anthropological training was articulated in a relatively recent article Why Tech Companies need to hire Software Developers with Ethnographic Skills by Astrid Countee, In this article, Countee describes how her anthropology degree and ethnographic skills afforded her a unique perspective in the world of software development.

Countee's article is chalk full of gems about the nexus of anthropology and the software engineering world. Below are a few excerpts from her article. I've highlighted what I think could be useful terms to define the unique attributes of an anthropological training to non-anthropologists:

I know the value of holism, of seeing how one piece affects another. It is an obvious thing that often gets ignored when building technical systems. (...) There are people who are writing the software. The human footprint can be found everywhere you turn. So, it makes sense that humanistic thinking in software is revolutionary.

How am I a better software engineer because of anthropology? For starters, I am insanely curious. (...) As an anthropologist, I am interested in every possible solution. (...) I think of code as a tool for solving the problem, not the only way to solve a problem.

Being an anthropologist forces me to be a good communicator. (...) Understanding what a client really needs is half of the battle. Even the process of gathering requirements, which seems pretty straightforward, can be fraught with minefields if you don’t fully communicate with others. I take the time to learn about the people that I am building software for. It helps me to have empathy for their needs and to better understand when to reach out for guidance.

As an anthropologist, I think about representation and power. I am aware that there are systems of power at play that affect what people are willing to say and what they are not. (...) Making technology should be about solving problems within a functioning system, but there are people in high positions that may try to skew your project into technology that makes them look good. 

A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists

Rhiannon and I are currently completing an article that looks at ethnography at this moment in time. One thread in this discussion is the way in which ethnography is used by non-anthropologists or anthropologists working outside academia.

One of my recent favorites has been Dr. Linda Hill's work on Creativity and Management.

In Dr. Hill's talk about How to Manage for Collective Creativity, she states:
I'm an ethnographer. I use the methods of anthropology to understand the questions in which I'm interested. So along with three co-conspirators, I spent nearly a decade observing up close and personal exceptional leaders of innovation. We studied 16 men and women, located in seven countries across the globe, working in 12 different industries. In total, we spent hundreds of hours on the ground, on-site, watching these leaders in action. We ended up with pages and pages and pages of field notes that we analyzed and looked for patterns in what our leaders did. The bottom line? If we want to build organizations that can innovate time and again, we must unlearn our conventional notions of leadership.

By looking at the various ways ethnographic methods are used by anthropological practitioners and non-anthropologists alike, it is instructive to revisit the question of what defines 'ethnographic methods' apart from other qualitative and quantitative research methods?

We'll check back in to this question once our article is closer to its release date.

Does your Business need an Anthropologist? Why yes I believe it does...

Lisa Earle McLeod, Creator of Noble Purpose in business concept, addressed the question, "Does your Business need an Anthropologist?" in her post in HuffPo today. 

McLeod's post is a nice and easy introduction as to how anthropology can work for businesses, namely, at the juncture of where organizations and their business (of all kinds) meets up human beings. 

She notes:

Naming and sharing your story enables you to drive your culture and the behaviors of your team.

Humans are hard-wired to make meaning. Our stories tell us who were are, and what our existence means. If you want to create a successful organization, find your story and share it.

This accessible and short article is just the kind that you might share with a non-anthropologist today.

Sunderland & Denny: "We Are All Anthropologists Now"

In a recent AAA Blog post, Sunderland & Denny argue that 'if anthropology is good for business' (something they discuss in depth in the post), then business must be good for anthropology.

They go on to ask:

Who else will point to the memes that organize institutional actions or inspire (or constrain) anthropological thinking and practices? Who else can contest and transform and bring anthropology in from within?

An interesting read from the AAA blog post