Anthropology Resource Center: Public Interest Anthropology — Beyond the Bureaucratic Ethos

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader's observations are particularly relevant to the present dilemma of applied anthropology. Although one might argue that applied anthropologists are "near" the problems of contemporary society, they have neither approached them with the "intellectual ferment" of a truly critical discipline nor proposed solutions that have generated public debate and civic action. This failure is due largely to the compromises that applied social researchers have made in serving only the needs of government bureaucrats and corporate managers. There is a certain "liberal practicality" among American social scientists, as C. Wright Mills pointed out, that limits the vision of the applied researcher to the demands of the modern corporation and state.