To All the Research Projects I’ve Loved Before

As I leave anthropology and academia, the one thing that I regret is that the research projects I’ve worked on over the last 17 years will never be completed.

One of the (many) weird things about this discipline is that the projects we work on take not just years, but in some cases decades to come to fruition.

So it’s normal to start planning a project, knowing that you might not get to do the fieldwork, or start writing it up, for a while. But Ive sometimes wondered if it’s ethically problematic to start a research project, if you’re not sure you’re going to be able to finish it.

When I graduated from my PhD program in 2014, I was very concerned about this. I knew it might be a while before I got a ‘real’ academic job with an institutional base from which to apply for grants, and time in the summer to do fieldwork/write.

So I focused on crafting second projects that could be done despite the restrictions of a 9-5, no-vacation, office-based day job, and put everything else on hold until I (hopefully, eventually) got that golden ticket.

Of course, that never happened.

And along the way, I watched as projects I’d thought I was putting temporarily on the shelf got dusty, and more fragile, and eventually started to crumble.

Now I know with that I will never complete that work. Despite all the love, work, and planning that went into them. No matter how awesome they may have been. Those research projects are dead.

If I hadn’t stumbled across the historian Erin Bantum’s beautiful and bitter essay, The Sublimated Grief of the Left Behind, I might not have dared call this a kind of grieving. But that’s what it is.

So here is an obituary for some of them. It’s dedicated to all the research projects I’ve loved before.

I’ll miss you guys!

Academia Can Be Fixed, But It Will Be Painful

This is the first of a series of posts I plan to share, on the abuse of power inherent to academia as a profession, and what we could do to reimagine and rebuild a more just, anti-racist university. Read part two, “Fuck Genius”, here.

The Harvard Anthropology sexual abuse scandal doesn’t stands apart from the disrespect, harassment, and violence perpetuated against Black academics everyday, as described in the testimonials posted under the #BlackInTheIvory twitter threads that were inspired by Joy Melody Wood.

Academics Are Workers Too. Use Your Damn Sick Leave

There’s a couple of documents circulating, whereby academics can sign up to guest lecture for colleagues during this crisis. The idea is that, if you are too sick to teach your college-level class or are taking care of sick dependents, you can find and arrange for someone else to do it.

I get that this is a lovely sentiment. But Jesus H Christ people.

Can we stand back and acknowledge what this means?

If we were talking about another industry, especially low paid ones, we would be up in arms at the idea employees had to find their own subs before they could take sick leave. (In California at least, it’s illegal.)

Academics: you are also employees. Take your damn sick leave. Cancel that f*ing class.

Divorcing Anthropology

I have an announcement to make. Me and Anthropology are breaking up.

I know, I know… Some of you saw this coming years ago. Because honestly, we’ve been having problems for some time now. I’m not gonna lie.

It’s hard to sustain the magic in a 17 year long relationship.

You may not be an academic, but that doesn’t mean you’re stupid

The day I got my BA degree results, one of my close friends told me something that has stuck with me ever since.

We were at the end of three long years.

Thanks to Cambridge’s weirdness, we found out we’d passed by reading a notice posted to the wall of the Senate House.

As we stood there in the summer sun, my friend turned to me with a big, shiny smile and said ‘Do you realize, we’ve now got a certificate that says we are not stupid. No one can ever call us stupid again!’