Homework: Toward a critical ethnography of the university

Abstract

Toward a critical ethnography of the university AES presidential address, 2017 A B S T R A C TAnthropologists have not systematically studied universities, and ethnographies of the university focus too much on student life. The literature on the Cold War university, broadly concerned with the relationship between power and knowledge, could serve as a model for a critical anthropology of the neoliberal university. Such an anthropology would investigate various important issues-including the changing character of public and private universities, the rise of casual labor and corporate employment practices on campus, the student-debt crisis, the university's role in increasing socioeconomic inequality and class immobility, and the relationship that such disciplines as economics and political science maintain with the state and capital. [university, neoliberalism, Cold War, class, debt, adjunct, United States] Los antropólogos no han estudiado la universidad sistemáticamente, y las etnografías de la universidad se enfocan demasiado en la vida estudiantil. La literatura sobre la universidad durante la Guerra Fría, generalmente centrada en la relación entre el poder y el conocimiento, puede servir de modelo para una antropología crítica de la universidad neoliberal. Tal antropología investigaría diferentes temas importantes -incluyendo la transformación de las universidades públicas y privadas, el aumento del trabajo temporal y de las prácticas corporativas de empleo en el campus universitario, la crisis de endeudamiento estudiantil, el rol de la universidad en el agravamiento de la desigualdad social y económica y la relación que mantienen disciplinas como la economía y la ciencia política con el estado y el capital-.

Why Don't Anthropologists Care about Learning (or Education or School)? An Immodest Proposal for an Integrative Anthropology of Learning Whose Time Has Finally Come

“…Analysis of our own situations may be threatening to anthropologists as teachers, employees, and even parents; many work in schools and many have children in schools. Our fieldwork and funding often rely on sponsoring academic institutions and colleagues; perhaps we fear public scrutiny and embarrassment (Gusterson , 436). Gusterson (, 435; quoting Strathern ) attributes the lack of attention to the study of universities and higher education to a potential “avoidance relationship”—even in Anthropology & Education Quarterly , which focuses largely on K–12 schools.…”

“…Some of the linguistic anthropology of education (e.g., Wortham ) details how race, gender, class, sexuality, national origin, and (dis‐)ability play out in everyday classroom interactions. Gusterson's () argument for increased attention to higher education lies largely within this center, as well.…”

“…Continuing the thread, Varenne (, 1565) lamented “the scarcity of conversations within the discipline about education as a fundamental human activity.” Just two years ago, Gusterson () urged us to do our “homework,” noting in American Ethnologist the lack of systematic study of universities.…”

“…So, inspired by three articles (Gusterson ; Hirschfeld ; Levinson ), informed by other synthetic pieces (Delamont ; Pelissier ; Wortham ; Yon ) and the long line of frustrated anthropologists arguing, for half a century, for its importance (Erikson ; Spindler and Spindler ; Varenne ; Wolcott , ), and modeled somewhat on Scheper‐Hughes and Lock's () piece, I ask, “Why Don't Anthropologists Care about Learning (or Education or Schools)?”…”

Bureaucracy

“…In recent years, the neoliberal assault on higher education has produced some interesting studies of the university as a bureaucratic organization situated within and possibilities of greater anthropological creativity. The call was renewed by the 2017 American Ethnological Society presidential address that, too, laments the absence of enough critical ethnographic 'homework' into their own bureaucratic university settings by anthropologists (Gusterson 2017).…”