Thanks for your post OftenBen. I wasn't aware of the field of Actvist Anthropology, so I looked a tiny bit into it. The University of Texas in Austin has a program in that field with a description of what it is. The description ends with this note: Here's a bit I found fascinating: The article raises four of the main problems with that research methodology, as does this short blog post. So if anyone wants to read further on OftenBen's issues, go to those items. I'd also like to learn more about it.I tried, over the months of this course to take something of practical, moral or ethical value away, and I cannot honestly say I succeeded.
Activist anthropology is an option, an emphasis within our graduate program. It is not for everyone. Yet it does promise to offer critical perspectives on issues central to our discipline, issues that no anthropologist can afford to ignore.
Clearly it isn't for everyone. The website contained a link to an article that answered the title question "What is Activist Anthropology?" (PDF, 762K)The goal is to carry out the research such that a specified group of people can actively participate, thereby learning research skills themselves, contributing to the data collection, taking an active role in the process of knowledge creation.