In Both Our Possibilities: Anthropology on the Margins

There is benefit to be gained from viewing anthropology and its applications as choices and inventions, rather than as strict disciplinary codes and imperatives. The choices we make concerning our profession have expanded with the growth of practice outside academia. By the same token, we are shaped as much by the uses that others have for us and by the human environments in which we find ourselves as we are by our own preferences. Collaboration has become a hallmark of many approaches to practice, and the kinds of collaborations being constructed are different from those usually associated with applied anthropology. In its actions, anthropology is both a science (seeking distance) and an art (seeking engagement).