Why do I write anthropology? Why do you? A manifesto for prioritizing passion and poetry as we scale up for social justice

Alma Gottlieb

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

What role do passion and poetry play in our research-based quest to promote social justice? In this piece—a manifesto of sorts—I make a case for prioritizing both passion and poetry in our ethnographic writing. Such a commitment will allow our insights to be learned, our interlocutors’ and our own voices to be heard, and our policy recommendations to be heeded. But writing poetically from a place of passion is just the first step. User-friendly, public writing deserves a sociologically friendly platform. Hence, in the second part of this manifesto, I outline a series of steps that I recommend our discipline take in order to radically scale up our commitment to practice an engaged anthropology. Such tactics will allow us to more realistically promote our knowledge as we advocate for social justice.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)96-103
Number of pages8
JournalAmerican Ethnologist
Volume51
Issue number1
DOIs
StateE-pub ahead of print - Dec 28 2023

Keywords

  • engaged anthropology
  • ethnographic writing
  • passion
  • poetry
  • public writing
  • social justice

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Anthropology

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