I will be posting a number of items relating to the symposium I participated in last week at the AAPA meetings in Knoxville, TN. The symposium was aimed at identifying the future direction of biological anthropology as a field.
One of the issues that came up is the complicated relationship between biological anthropologists and our larger discipline, much of which is involved in methodological approaches divergent from much of biological anthropology. Lance Gravlee gave a wonderful talk on the “one-drop rule of anthropology,” by which he meant the tendency to classify anyone who dabbles at all into the biological end of anthropology as a biological anthropologist. Lance’s own research, examining the relationship between social constructions of race and hypertension, is a perfect example of true biocultural anthropology. The nature of his work has ended up earning Lance the title of biological anthropologist, despite never really identifying as such (much to my surprise, highlighting his point).
Several members of the audience also touched on this issue. One audience member told of the situation in her department, in which it was agreed to advertise a biological anthropology position, but only if the candidates research did not in any way involve genetics, owing to some (misguided) concern about admitting genetic determinists into the mix. Another audience member expressed frustration at the difficulty in getting viewed by the larger field as a self-identifying anthropologist first and foremost, and not a anthropological geneticist.
My suggestion was to consider going to the AAA meetings. The AAA meetings are expensive (compared to the AAPAs). The AAA meetings often offer a limited selection of talks for biological anthropologists. But if you want the broader field of anthropology to understand your work, at a certain point, you need to talk to them directly. The AAAs may not be the perfect place to do so, but you stand a far better chance of connecting across sub-fields at the AAAs than at the AAPA meetings.
This year’s upcoming AAA meetings will be in Chicago. The deadline for submitting abstracts has been extended to tomorrow (Tuesday, 4/16). Chicago has lots of cheap accommodation options. Chicago is a cheaper place (than many) to get airfare. Chicago is within driving distance of many places in the Greater Midwest. As a member of the Biological Anthropology Section executive committee…consider submitting an abstract.
