Chapter One Orientations to an Anthropology of Policy and Practice

 Applied Anthropology is the use of anthropological theory and social science research methods to solve real world problems.  Almost always works outside of academia  Clients expect practical solutions not theories  Influences the selection of policy or delivery of services  Ethical Issues and Normative Assumptions  Often conducted by full-time non-academics or professors consulting outside of the institution

 Anthropologist who are engaged in fulltime outside of academia who use their skills to practical problems  They are different then Applied Anthropologists in that they often design, implement, and deliver services or policies— They Do The Work!  Needs Assessments  Program Evaluation  Social Impact Assessment

 International Development  Community Development  Advocacy Groups  Resource Management  Planning  Consulting  Around half of all Ph.D. anthropologists will be practicing anthropologists  Almost all Bachelors and Masters level students are practicing anthropologists

 The link of theory and practice in anthropology is different than other disciplines  Theories often make normative assumptions or produce information that can be exploited by outsiders over locals  The history of anthropology has lead to a distinct separation of academic theory from practice

 Structural Functionalism  Functionalism  understands society and culture to be like living organisms  Parts of a culture can only be studied adequately as they function within the whole  Structuralism  Structuralist approaches in anthropology explore the variety of ways that culture and society are structured, and how such structures are related to human development and identity

 Cultural Evolution  presumes that over time, cultural change occurs as a result of humans adapting to things like climate change or population growth  Materialism  Understands human culture to be the product of the "material conditions" in which a given community of people finds itself.

 Political Economy  The study of the means of production, law, customs and the government that support livelihood strategies  Interpretive Anthropology  Culture is used to understand the deep structures and basic assumption that create a shared reality of a place  Human Ecology  How humans relate to their environment and settle space

 Has grown separately as a discipline that focuses on answering important questions and solving important issues  Not concerned with relationship to theory  Focus on problem solving not conforming to the production of knowledge to test theories  Clients often have little interest in abstractions such as theory

 Theory that policy has a unique culture  The powerful and their perspectives  Issues and communities and individuals  Distribution of goods and services  All pretty much left unexamined

 Methodology that is ethical and emancipatory  How to empower people to make planned change