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Wednesday, June 22, 2005
That's dinosaurs, right?
There's an interesting discussion going on at Savage Minds about the "Indiana Jones Syndrome" in anthropology. Rex writes:
When I tell most people that I am an anthropologist, the most common response is “ah… dinosaur bones. Fascinating.” But, as Kerim points out many focus on the Indiana Jones thing as well. This isn’t surprising. As a kid I loved Indiana Jones flicks as much as anyone else, but I never went into anthropology because of them (how that happened is a longer story!). But truth be told, I am genuinely shocked at how many anthropologists I know got into the business as a result of Indiana Jones—and if people were willing to admit it, the numbers would rise even higher.
I commented here that I was not immune from the Indiana Jones syndrome.
Very rarely does an archaeologist need to replace an artifact with a bag of sand to avoid death.
I have heard the dinosaur comment a few times since I started taking anthropology classes. The best one was when one of the managers at a cafeteria I used to work at thought anthropology was the study of bugs. Many times, those of us in the field loose sight of the fact that anthropology really is a minority discipline at most American universities and that there are only a few thousand professional archaeologists in the entire country. As a result, the majority of non-anthropology geeks have false impressions or no impression at all. For such an important field, I hope that this changes over time.
American anthropology has always sort of been one of those disciplines that people view as either exotic and exciting or completely dull and unimportant. Both extremes are the result of ignorance and it is up to the field alone to correct these false impressions. As I am relatively new to the field I can't give an expert opinion but it seems to me that the key is dialogue. By engaging the general public on a regular basis we clarify what we're all about as well as the importance of what we do.
Posted by Will at June 22, 2005 04:14 PM in Academia | Anthropology
Comments
At least you archies have an iconic figure against which you can identify yourself or distance yourself ... as a cultural anthropologist isn't always so easy!
Other other day a grocery store clerk was helping my wife load groceries into our car. The car was a little muddy and the clerk commented on that -- saying he hoped they weren't heading to the 'dirty car' in the parking lot.
My wife likes the car to be clean too ... I'd prefer not to wash it ... and in an effort to explain the mud she told the clerk that her husband was an archaeologist, to which the clerk nodded, apparently with a knowing look. My wife felt it would have been impossible to get him to understand if she had said I was an anthropologist ... afterall, if you know anything about cultural anthropology, you know that we never get dirty. ;)
Posted by: Tad McIlwraith at June 22, 2005 08:09 PM
You need some of this stuff: http://www.sprayonmud.com/
Posted by: Will at June 23, 2005 09:30 AM
You're kidding! I'll get some for my wife for her birthday ...
Posted by: Tad McIlwraith at June 23, 2005 01:02 PM