Avoiding scratchy toilet paper
My friend Mark gave a presentation, that he’ll soon publish for SfAA, on 5 steps for activist organizing. I plan to cite the first four when describing at the AAAs how to work for policy change. However, as I told him, I will have to change his number 5 and add a 6th.
5. In contrast to social activism, in working to change government our doctorates are seldom helpful and often impediments. It’s more like the field of art in that if you earn your living doing the work, then you are a professional (I was a studio art undergrad, by the way). That means you have to compete for air space with anyone regardless of credentials.
6. Policy change has to be at the level of legislation, but also at that of funding, implementation, and enforcement or it’s nothing more than scratchy toilet paper; that means you’re addressing everyone with your message from senators to day care workers, from the president to police officers, and from cabinet appointees to members of chambers of commerce. In essence, you’re changing your larger community whether or not you identify with it that way.
That last one is what I think sometimes makes it hardest for anthropologists and others who see themselves (however dubiously) as one with the downtrodden, fighting the powers that be. We have to find compassion and empathy for a senator, or the Secretary of Defense.
I also think it’s the one that connects most to what anthropologist Janice Harper has said following her abusive treatment by those with whom she formerly worked at UT-Knoxville, that we’re part of the process in all of our activities including those that seem antithetical to activism and application: as colleagues, as co-workers, and as fellow citizens (of the planet). We have to see ourselves as feminists concerned with social justice even when we give reviews, grades, and staff meeting memos.
