Abstract

Contemporary anthropology is done in a world where social and digital media are playing an increasingly significant role, where anthropological and arts practices are often intertwined in museum and public intervention contexts, and where anthropologists are encouraged to engage with mass media. Because anthropologists are often expected and inspired to ensure their work engages with public issues, these opportunities to disseminate work in new ways and to new publics simultaneously create challenges as anthropologists move their practice into unfamiliar collaborative domains and expose their research to new forms of scrutiny. In this volume, contributors question whether a fresh public anthropology is emerging through these new practices.

“The importance of public anthropology has been growing around the world making this a timely edition which, ‘mark[s] a line in the sand about where we are today’  [This volume] provides a place to begin to discuss the different ways in which people are currently engaging in public anthropology, including their methods, types of media used, topics researched and blogs such as ‘Savage Minds.’ It has the potential to be a valuable resource in instigating discussions around what anthropology can do, should do and has the potential to communicate through being public.” · SITES – A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies

“I am delighted that we have here a volume on ‘our’ frustrations, experiences, and hopes regarding media. If we are to better engage publics we need to keep all the balls identified in the introduction (public, anthropology, media, and engagement) in the air at the same time, which will continue to be a challenging endeavor. As suggested by the contributions in this volume, layers of frustrations are in need of serious consideration and deconstruction; this book is welcome as a step in that direction.” · Journal of Anthropological Research

“For many reasons made clear in the volume, anthropologists are still not very good at, and reticent about, participating in the public sphere, but the contributors here are showing how it can be done, and others will hopefully join in their tentative steps.” · Anthropology Review Database

“This volume explores the opportunities and obstacles that face anthropologists reaching out to wider publics through engagement with media industries, art, performance, blogging, social media, and open, cooperative sharing of material. Through a breadth of case studies, the authors offer a cautiously optimistic vision of the challenges and opportunities for public anthropological scholarship in the twenty-first century.”  ·  Mark Allen Peterson, Miami University

“A timely collection of chapters probing the heart of contemporary anthropology and engaging with the position of anthropologists in a global society where non-scientific ‘experts’ dominate the public sphere. These fascinating case studies from all over the world offer reflections on what ‘public anthropology’ can mean.”  ·  Katrien Pype, KU Leuven University and University of Birmingham

Sarah Pink is Distinguished Professor in the School of Media and Communication at RMIT University.

Simone Abram is Reader at the University of Durham and at Leeds Beckett University.