Tag: anthropology

Working as a practicing anthropologist meant following threads in people's lives and their community. I worked for about a decade in one community that a historian friend of mine friend described as a "three-generation community." At least three generations of many of the families lived there.

This time of year always takes me back to my first professional job after grad school. I worked in a city near Boston known for its intellectual, cultural, and ethnic diversity. The city library system was enlightened enough to have an anthropologist on staff, me.

Although I was an anthropologist, few of the people I met knew what I did once I left the university. If I mentioned that I studied culture, I'd get a knowing wink and this reply, "Yes. But with a big C or a little c?"

In the field, an anthropologists notebook is a friend. Yes, you may have a recorder and a camera. But there is still something about notes written in a quiet corner that cements your observations.

Suave, elegant, cultured; that's never been me, but thanks for implying it.