2015 has been a remarkable year. Popular culture in the United States is evolving and I believe that socio-anthropologists are well equipped to address these evolutions. The first issue that anthropology is particularly well-equipped to address is gender related topics. Whether comparing and contrasting the roles of men and women, women in the west to women in the east, the emergence of metro-sexual and lumber-sexual as re-definitions of masculinity, the promotion and acceptance of trans-gendered persons or any number of other issues, I believe that anthropology has the potential to speak into these topics and guide Americans in what it means to be human. After all according to Texas Tech's website, "The discipline of anthropology is uniquely positioned to both educate and engage students about the human condition."
The second issue that I believe anthropology is particularly well equipped to address is the issue of race and racism in America. Many people will emphatically disagree with me, since the standard approach in anthropology is to deny that race even exists. While I completely agree that there is no biological markers that allow for scientific segregation, as anthropologists we cannot allow scientific data to blind us from the very real cultural phenomena that take place on a daily basis. Many will argue that acts of racism are not really about race, but about politics, economics, education levels, etc. While that may be true, I envision a world where anthropologists are using their unbiased approach to studying a variety of cultures which begins to create conversation points for the culture at large. It is no longer okay, in my humble opinion, to allow the voice of anthropologists to be locked away in academic castles, but we must use our collective voice to go beyond "do no harm" and begin to "do good".
No comments:
Post a Comment