Is anthropology useful? This question usually happens right before a person admits they know next to nothing about the science in question. (Which, I should say, leaves us with a far deeper and more concerning question, to whit – are we in fact unable to consider things we know little about as useful? Is that why we are so likely to hold on to those we do know, even if they are providing us with imperfect solutions to the problems we meet?)
As anthropology was ranked as the “least useful career” by Kiplinger and Forbes of late (link), it might be useful (no pun intended, although fitting) for me to discuss this a little.
Was I surprised?
No, I was not. In my career so far, during which I am proud to have been useful many times (and this will undoubtedly continue in the coming years during which I plan to continue with this usefulness, across many disciplines and aiding many businesses), I have frequently met with lack of knowledge concerning anthropology – and therefore with dismissal of it, as the two mostly walk hand in hand – from the word go. It’s not the first time I am mentioning this in any way; I can also add, here, that any humanist science (so science that deals with human-related issues, which are probably of some importance given that we are, you know…human) is generally considered with scorn by default. Psychologists, psychiatrist are not “real” doctors; sociologists, archaeologists, historians and anthropologists are useless kooks who are just studying the “soft” option (this can often include gender prejudices). The “real” studies and sciences are the ones involving long strings of numbers, often outside of human context, in strongly controlled or even theoretical spaces, or the hardcore widely recognised ones – law and business.
In reality, no discipline can exist in a vacuum. The very existence of humanity, and the philosophy of the Greeks, has given us the mathematics we know today in their infancy; it has progressed through history into physics and astrophysics and chemistry, and so much technology that is or is about to become a part of our everyday life. Business studies the client, the customer, to understand how to play the market; law exists to explore and sometimes regulate human behaviours and their consequences. We are thinking of creating space colonies – the very next thought after the technological and medical considerations should and will be social and societal ones. Technology and innovation revolve constantly around humanity in multiple ways, not least in trying to comprehend how an innovation or a piece of technology could be used and abused. For this, understanding human behaviour – which involves the psys..psychology and psychiatry as well as anthropology and sociology – is crucial.
Anthropology is widely useful across a variety of business platforms. It can help you create a good, diverse environment in which people from different cultures work and understand each other, or at least get along well enough to avoid trouble. It can help with supply chains – one of the most frequent cross-border supply issues is actually the total lack of consideration for different social schedules (think different holidays and the havoc they can create when people don’t think about them). It can be a part of preparations for intercultural situations that may be unpleasant or even dangerous (think women’s and lgbt+ members rights in certain countries). It can be useful in crime and heritage spheres; it can help history and archaeology better connect with both communities and the target populace of museum collections, which have to be engaging; it can help activism be better, more efficient and above all intelligent and realistic. It can help tech firms and futurists with a million tasks, because ultimately, all their work involves and centres around humans. It can do more still…but this is a shortlist, as no one probably wants to sit with this article till midnight hour (if you actually do, let’s have a cup of tea and a chat about anthropology sometime).
And of course, rankings of “least” and “best” careers are misleading and questionable in the first place.
Zoom, for instance, as well as Instacart are innovations that would have never developed as well as they have had it not been for the covid-19 pandemic. Someone’s capability, or a freak situation, can always change what is most needed and most admired at any one point, and this is something that such rankings and projections consistently fail to consider. Without the pandemic, which changed how we live and work unexpectedly, you wouldn’t say you’re Zooming someone. You wouldn’t be shopping for the best mask. This may change in the (hopefully near) future, but it cannot completely undo the shifts we have seen in our social behaviour – like the fact that telecommuting is becoming a norm that a vast number of people in employment is hoping to be able to continue with. (It’s also a pleasant change from being considered lazy weirdos by others for those of us who did it before it was cool.)
Even the shifts we are seeing, both in perceptions and in everything business, are a part of this change, and they are something more…they are that human behaviour that anthropology studies but is apparently useless.
The ranking did not insult me in the least. Instead, I feel it prompts a more open, diverse, and above all clear debate on two things – what is anthropology in general and why we feel that rankings are at all important, especially since even the nearest, latest historic events (yep, that’s the pandemic) teach us that change is inevitable, unpredictable and influential. Perhaps both are really about anthropology, as there are many completely human reasons for us to make rankings happen – ranging from insecurity and competitiveness and trying to assert dominance by one’s own importance, which has to have an Other to compare with, and to simply looking for the best tactic that can help us not merely survive but thrive. Whatever the reason (and I would suggest there are many), a wider debate is needed, especially an introductory one. That much is certain.
