Today is Anthropology Day – a day for anthropologists to celebrate our discipline while sharing it with the world around us – so I figured it was a great time to do a bit of sharing about my practice of optimistic anthropology. Especially since it’s a term that I made up – so neither my fellow anthropologists nor anyone else quite knows what to make of it!
Sometimes when I tell someone I’ve just met that I’m an anthropologist, they’ll ask the totally fair question – “what is that?” I like the way that the American Anthropological Association describes the practice of anthropology:
Anthropology is the study of what makes us human. Anthropologists take a broad approach to understanding the many different aspects of the human experience, which we call holism…Many anthropologists work in their own societies looking at economics, health, education, law, and policy (to name just a few topics). When trying to understand these complex issues, they keep in mind what they know about biology, culture, types of communication, and how humans lived in the past.
As a student, I was drawn to anthropology because it allowed me to be a polymath – I could study human evolution and genetics AND media and art and culture and food! And it taught me to be curious and see everything around me as a reflection of a group of human’s values and beliefs, history, circumstances, and adaptations.
Once I got out of school, though, I realized that the classroom was not for me. I wanted to be part of organizations and communities that were trying to solve social and economic problems. Which is how I ended up working in nonprofits, cross-sector collaborations, philanthropy and government. And throughout, I found that the discipline of inquiry and curiosity that I learned through anthropology was invaluable. It allowed me to work on a wide range of issues (from health care to the future of a region’s economy) and in a wide range of communities across the U.S. because I could use the practice of inquiry and deep listening and observation to understand the context in which those issues and communities evolved. It also had taught me to see systems, recognize the importance of context, and embrace the ever changing nature and complexity of the world.
Over the last 2.5 years, I’ve worked with teams taking on issues as varied as health equity and climate change, community engagement and entrepreneurial ecosystems; I’ve worked with organizations as diverse as a large medical school on the west coast, to a national sports foundation, and a statewide credit union.
All of this work – at its core – has been helping teams build their anthropological mindsets! And I’ve been fortunate to get to do that with people in lots of different ways – while helping them develop program strategies, or figuring out how to share their processes and approaches so others can adapt them for other communities; or evaluating what is working (and isn’t) in service of improving and getting closer to solving big problems.
For me, optimistic anthropology is a practice that reflects the values of joy, humanity, rigor, and curiosity and – at its core – works to advance the goal of shaping a more positive and equitable future for all people by:
Identifying the core learning question(s) that need to be answered in service of the positive and equitable change a group is seeking to create in the world.
Conducting “field work” by gathering insight and ideas from actors involved or impacted by that work through qualitative research like surveys, interviews, and focus groups.
Shaping the heartsets, mindsets, and skillsets of key actors to be able to interpret the data collected during field work and generate ideas about making it actionable.
Facilitating processes for actors to socialize the data collected, generate multiple interpretations of it, and create and prioritize hypotheses about what they do next. This is different than traditional anthropology where the anthropologist does the interpretation. Because we recognize that optimistic anthropologists are no issue experts, or experts on the lived experiences of those working on or impacted by issues or contexts in which we are working. So, instead we center the voices and ideas of those who are the experts!
Support actors in “testing out” their hypotheses and “learning into” better solutions. We do this by supporting them in understanding their plausible theories, assumptions, and what might indicate success, as well how they can be collecting information on an ongoing basis to see if their hypotheses are on the right track.
I’m a big believer that we all can be optimistic anthropologists! We all have lived experiences and knowledge to bring to different issues and the capacity to share our interpretations of data and come up with better ways of doing things! So, to all my fellow anthropologists – those who use the term, and those who don’t (yet), I wish you a happy #AnthroDay!
Hopefully that makes sense! But, let me know what you think about the practice of optimistic anthropology or ask a million questions in the comments below or by saying hello. FYI - optimistic anthropologists LOVE questions!
