Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 2d

“You don’t get rewarded for reaching out to the public.” UC Berkeley’s Dean Raka Ray names the academic paradox: We produce relevant research, then structure careers to keep it invisible. Her solution?

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 3d

Early data suggests the correlation between traditional prestige markers and actual knowledge circulation is weaker than we might assume.
Full methodology and results: metrics.publicanthropology.org

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 3d

The findings complicate our assumptions about which institutions produce publicly consequential scholarship.

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 3d

The Public #Anthropology Metrics Project offers one empirical approach: tracking which anthropological research penetrates national and international media discourse beyond academic citation networks.

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 3d

The Knowledge Circulation Problem:
If we define knowledge as socially circulating insight rather than privately held information, how do we measure whether our research actually constitutes knowledge, or merely publication?

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 7d

Anthropologists cite ‘privacy concerns’ to justify anonymizing collaborators. But Borofsky asked his informants what they actually wanted: public recognition, legacy, intellectual credit. We’ve built an entire ethics apparatus around assumptions we never bothered to verify.

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 8d

Your research ‘subjects’ have names, expertise, and intellectual contributions that deserve recognition.
Yet most ethnographic work still follows the colonial playbook, extract insights, publish under sole authorship, move on to the next community. #publicanthropology

1 3

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 10d

Borofsky argues the solution isn’t more data, it’s radical transparency about our limitations and honest attribution of whose knowledge we’re really presenting.
open.spotify.com/episode/1Jop...

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 10d

The anthropological paradox: Our data is both overwhelming (12,000+ pages) and insufficient (always incomplete).

Metrics Project – Center for a Public Anthropology

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 14d

The post-colonial perspective demands more than good intentions, it requires sharing intellectual authority.

www.publicanthropology.org/metrics-proj...

www.publicanthropology.org

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 14d

What if anthropologists credited the communities who make their research possible? What if ethnographic 'subjects' became recognized collaborators? What if we moved beyond performative decolonization tweets to actual structural change?

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 16d

The discipline that claims to study human diversity couldn’t tolerate intellectual diversity within its own ranks. #publicanthropology

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 16d

His papers on indigenous knowledge systems were rejected with requests for “significant revisions to better align them with current anthropological understandings.” Translation: Your findings challenge our theoretical frameworks, so change your conclusions to fit our preconceptions.

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 16d

Dr. Robert Borofsky’s publishing saga reveals academic gatekeeping at its most insidious.
“I thought others would be interested in the fluid, dynamic, diverse nature of Pukapukan knowledge. Nope.”

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 19d

Dr. Borofsky: “I had over 12,000 pages of field notes that raised important questions about how we understand the people we study.”
From career advancement to public service, one anthropologist’s radical shift from publishing for personal gain to serving the broader good.
#PublicAnthropology

The Akatawa Paradox: How One Anthropologist's 41-Month Study Shattered Everything We Know About Cultural 'Truth

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 22d

The uncomfortable questions this raises: Who has the right to determine what constitutes “authentic” tradition? Can something be culturally real even if it’s historically recent? What happens when lived memory conflicts with documented history?

open.spotify.com/episode/1Jop...

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 23d

Who controls cultural truth?
Watch full episode: open.spotify.com/episode/1Jop...

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 23d

"History is a mysterious and malleable thing" - Ken Burns
Anthropologist Rob Borofsky's 41-month study revealed Pukapuka's "traditional" Akatawa organization never existed before 1976, yet elders insisted they'd lived through it.

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 25d

What if disciplines that must constantly justify themselves to non-experts are actually MORE intellectually rigorous than those that only answer to academic gatekeepers?

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 25d

Arts & humanities MUST engage publics to survive. Theater needs audiences. Languages need speakers.
But what about fields that CAN thrive in total isolation?
What if we've been measuring academic value completely backwards?

Beyond the Ivory Tower: How Hawaii's Arts Dean Makes Academia a 'Front Door' to Community (With Dr. Peter Arnade)

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 27d

“We’ve never been insulated within the university… our disciplines are often very outward looking.” - Dean Peter Arnade (UH Manoa)
When disciplinary DNA includes public engagement, isolation becomes impossible.
Geography as intellectual methodology?

open.spotify.com/episode/6TFI...

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · 28d

Most universities study communities. Hawaii studies with them.
Dr. Arnade’s insight: when scholarship has no local application, what are we actually producing, and for whom?
Geography forced Hawaii to choose: intellectual isolation or community integration.

open.spotify.com/episode/6TFI...

Beyond the Ivory Tower: How Hawaii's Arts Dean Makes Academia a 'Front Door' to Community (With Dr. Peter Arnade)

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · Sep 8

“It’s part of our academic DNA to be not just writers and teachers, but public communicators.”
Dean Peter Arnade (UH Manoa) on how their Pacific & Philippine Studies centers actively serve Hawaii’s communities—not just study them. Watch full episode:

open.spotify.com/episode/6TFI...

publicanthropology.bsky.social @publicanthropology.bsky.social · Sep 8

The most radical act in anthropology might be admitting when a community doesn’t need us to study them. But that doesn’t build CVs, does it?