Decolonizing US anthropology

After Ferguson, Standing Rock, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the crisis of refugees at the US southern border, there have been renewed calls for a racial reckoning in US anthropology. Dissatisfaction on the domestic front runs parallel to an unease over US anthropology's failure to adequately address militarism, imperialism, and predatory capitalism abroad. Finally, there is the fraught question of US anthropology's oversized influence within world anthropologies. We propose that a reassessment of US anthropology might fruitfully begin with some counterfactual history. How would US anthropology been different had the founding generations conceptualized the discipline as a decolonizing project? What topics or themes might have become central to US anthropology? How might our methods have been different? To make anthropology departments more diverse, inclusive, and equitable, we need to do more than add faculty and students of color. Despite being a field whose central concept is culture, we have paid far too little attention to the culture of anthropology departments. Do unexamined practices of white-norming that shape the everyday lives of faculty and students in anthropology departments persistently Other-marginalize and alienate-people of color?

Automated summary

The article highlights a series of events in the US, such as Ferguson and Standing Rock, and criticizes the shortcomings of US anthropology. It also questions the oversized influence of US anthropology worldwide. The article suggests a reassessment of US anthropology and raises important questions about its founding principles and the need for diversity and inclusivity in anthropology departments.