Why Anthropology?

Photo Opt: Irma (C) with Dr. Yolanda Moses, first Black President of The American Anthropology Association, (R) and originator of the Race exhibit idea, and Dr. Arlene Torres (L), at 1500sf RACE: Are We So Different exhibit on Capital Hill for the Black Congressional Caucus. Circa 2010

Thirteen years ago, I posted the following:

“A friend asked me how being an African American woman is like being an anthropologist? I had not thought the two bore any resemblance to each other, but upon reflection, I see connections. Anthropologists have the task of inserting themselves into communities where they do not fit automatically. In this respect, I have spent the vast majority of my life adapting to and intruding myself upon places where unwelcome signs abounded. As anthropologists often do, I have had to learn other languages (both real and symbolic). My own consisted of the symbols and gestures of race, gender, and class.”

The above is an excerpt from an unpublished 1993 essay entitled “Through One’s Own Life Lens.”

Since that question was posed, I first answered it myself in 2010:

Since then, as part of my archivist agenda, having founded the Irma McClaurin Black Feminist Archive in collaboration with the Robert S. Cox Special Collections and University Archives Research Center (SCUA) at the University of Masschusetts Amherst, I have collected and posted over 30 “Why Anthropology?” interviews with Black anthropologists whose work cuts across most of anthropology’s subdisciplines.

For a Black child to want to become an anthropologist — a discipline with a colonialist history, but also a tradition of self-reflection and cultural critique — because all western intellectual disciplines have been complicit in the marginalization of nonwhites — then they must see folk who resemble them doing that work.

Today, Black anthropologists are everywhere and include cultural anthropologists, applied anthropologists, archaeologists, marine archaeologists, practicing anthropologists, museum anthropologists, biological/physical/forensic anthropologists, and linguistic anthropologists.

We Black anthropologists are everywhere! Find out why by visiting my YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/DrIrmaYouTube.

Dr. Irma explains her “Why Anthropology?” series:

©2023 Irma McClaurin