Anthropology and Activism: New Contexts, New Conversations 0367514257, 9780367514259

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ANTHROPOLOGY AND ACTIVISM

This book offers a comprehensive and current look at the complex relationship between anthropology and activism. Activism has become a vibrant research topic within anthropology. Many scholars now embrace their own roles as engaged social actors, which has compelled reflexive attention to the anthropology/activism intersection and its implications. With contributions by emerging scholars as well as leading activist anthropologists, this volume illuminates the diverse ways in which the anthropology/activism relationship is being navigated. Chapters touch on key areas including environment and extraction, food sustainability and security, migration and human rights, health disparities and healthcare access, class and gender identities and empowerment, and the defense of democracy. Case studies (drawn mainly from North America) encourage readers to think through their own experiences and expectations and will serve as durable documentation of how movements develop and change. This timely survey of the activist anthropological landscape is valuable reading in an era of widely perceived ecological and political crisis, where disinterested data collection increasingly appears to be a luxury that neither the discipline nor the world can afford. Anna J. Willow is a Professor of Anthropology at the Ohio State University, USA. Her recent books include ExtrACTION: Impacts, Engagements, and Alternative Futures (2017, co-edited with Kirk Jalbert, David Casagrande, and Stephanie Paladino) and Understanding ExtrACTIVISM: Culture and Power in Natural Resource Disputes (2018). Kelly A. Yotebieng completed her PhD in the Ohio State University’s Department of Anthropology. She currently consults full-time with the World Bank and various UN agencies.

ANTHROPOLOGY AND ACTIVISM New Contexts, New Conversations

Edited by Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng; individual chapters, the contributors The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Willow, Anna J., editor. | Yotebieng, Kelly A., editor. Title: Anthropology and activism : new contexts, new conversations / edited by Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng. Description: New York : Routledge, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020010083 (print) | LCCN 2020010084 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367514259 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367464097 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003028598 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Applied anthropology. | Political activists. | Social action. Classification: LCC GN397.5 .A566 2020 (print) | LCC GN397.5 (ebook) | DDC 301--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010083 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010084 ISBN: 978-0-367-51425-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-46409-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-02859-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

For anthropologists (and others) who stand up for what is right.

CONTENTS

List of Figures Foreword: Activism as Service Jeanne Simonelli Acknowledgements List of Contributors Introduction: Doing Good Anthropology Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng

x xi xv xvi 1

PART I

Anthropology OF Activism

19

1 Environmental Justice in White Working Class Communities: A Chemosocial Perspective Richard Bargielski

21

2 GMO-Free Activism in Rural Southern Oregon: Motivations, Ideologies, and Values Rebecka Daye

35

3 Social Justice, Trauma-Informed Care, and “Liberation Acupuncture”: Exploring the Activism of the Peoples Organization of Community Acupuncture Suzanne Morrissey and Olivia Hagmann

50

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4 Engaged Ethnography in a Resident-Activist Environmental Justice Community Michael Still Comments on Anthropology OF Activism Dana E. Powell

65 79

PART II

Anthropology AS Activism 5 All I Can Do: Why Activists (and Anthropologists) Act Anna J. Willow

83 85

6 In Our Own Backyard: Navigating Research and Activism in Southeast Florida Eileen Smith-Cavros and Patricia Widener

98

7 “I’d Never Thought about This Before”: Anthropology of Cross-Disability Activism as Activism Sarah Elizabeth Morrow, Elizabeth A. Winter and Jodi A. Allison

114

8 “You Must Tell Our Stories!”: Moving Toward Applied Anthropology and Beyond in the Groningen Gas Field Elisabeth N. Moolenaar

128

Comments on Anthropology AS Activism Barbara Rose Johnston

143

PART III

Anthropology AND Activism 9 We Are Tired of Telling Our Stories: Finding Our “Situated Usefulness” Through Activism in Anthropology Kelly A. Yotebieng

147 149

10 Anthropology and Conflict Transformation: Promises and Dilemmas of Worldview Translation Brenda Fitzpatrick

160

11 Challenges of “Communiversity” Organizing in Trumplandia Mark Schuller

175

Contents ix

12 Academic and Activist Collaboration in Turbulent Times: Responding to Immigrant Policing in Central Florida Nolan Kline, Mary Vickers, Jeannie Economos and Chris Furino

190

Comments on Anthropology AND Activism Shirley J. Fiske

205

Afterword Stephen L. Schensul

210

Index

215

FIGURES

1.1 Fields Brook near its confluence with the Ashtabula River. Railroads, seen above the brook, were a major source of pollution 2.1 A tractor demonstration and rally in 2014, Medford, Oregon (Our Family Farms 2017) 3.1 Photo taken at The Turning Point: Frederick’s Community Acupuncture 4.1 GreenRoots supporters gather along Chelsea Creek to enjoy their annual celebration, reflecting on recent successes and challenges and sharing their vision for the coming year 5.1 Visual summary of factors that lead activists to act in three North American extraction zones. Factors commonly associated with non-action are listed outside of the Venn diagram 6.1 The co-authors photographed thousands of protesters’ signs, props, and artistic expressions of resistance at events throughout southeast Florida from November 2016 through December 2019 10.1 The Peace River at Site C

28 41 56

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107 164

FOREWORD Activism as Service Jeanne Simonelli

A foreword sets the stage for what is to come; what you will learn. As the chapters in this book illustrate, taking the necessary steps to become active in the world that surrounds us means moving forward both consciously and instinctively. Becoming active is a journey into a realm of impassioned and often contradictory values, knowledge informed by research and impulse, changing as you make a long-term commitment to lives that merge with your own. It also means looking behind, highlighting the cycle of events that create environmental, social, and political injustice. It is a long and irrevocable journey from research to activism. Activism, as this volume’s diverse contributions illustrate, is qualitatively different from both academic anthropology and practice. In her chapter, Anna Willow notes that “we become activists as soon as we cross the permeable boundary that separates generating knowledge from using it…identifying a core set of characteristics shared by individuals engaged in diverse struggles—passion, concern for others, long-term vision, perception of injustice, and empowerment/capacity.” Even when you understand the difference between the two undertakings, at the outset you move from the rigid agenda typified by Institutional Review Boards (IRB) to a muddy and sometimes arduous climb to the level of the people with whom you work. I remember explaining IRBs to Martín, then head of a large Zapatista municipality in Chiapas. IRBs, I told him, seek informed consent, asking individuals to sign a paper that attests to understanding the ramifications of participating in a “study.” At that point, a wide smile spread across his face. “Do you know the implications of working with us?” he asked. “I give you informed permission.” For academics, there is a clear difference between research and activism. Many social scientists try to move back and forth, but unless the IRB that you deal with is enlightened, you can use up a lot of valuable passion explaining what you plan to do to the University. Ultimately, the tenure/promotion requirement of producing refereed articles or a book can get ambushed by the active part of activism. Even non-academic

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practitioners, whose output is frequently a project-related report for the agency paying the salary, often find that there is just not enough time to both act and write. Over the course of three decades as an activist anthropologist, I learned—as have the authors of the narratives that follow—that the communities we work with are not the benign recipients of anthropological scrutiny. We have been asked to give up part of the control of the “research” endeavor, to learn and document together, and to return to our partners with what we write, if there is time to write it. For some anthropologists, this loss of power has not been accepted easily. Do we study others or learn from them? Who sets the research agenda? Do others consent to be part of our research or are we given permission to remain in their villages or urban settings? How do we know what it is that they need from us at a particular point in time, now and in the years to come? Where does activism happen? This volume takes readers to more than 20 different locations around the world, although the bulk of experiences occur in familiar North American or European settings. At times, as when the fledgling anthropologist is completing a degree, the journey begins with a set direction—a plan. After all, you have got to get the grant! But in the final analysis, it is never so simple. We stand where we are and act where we stand. There are moments when activism takes us to other places and countries, and times, like now, when it often tells us to stay home. Seventy years ago, in the Action Anthropology of the 1950s, the object was to help those with less developed economies and social systems to change. Most notable were the activities of Sol Tax, for whom the Society for Applied Anthropology’s (SfAA) service award is named. Tax and his students worked with the Fox Indians to convert communities to more secure and productive lifestyles. He used a technique that combined research and application in an early notion of Praxis (Wulff and Fiske, 1987: xi). General social science inquiry took place, but practical help was directed toward resolving a group’s day-to-day problems. These ends took place as “coordinate goals.” The object was to learn and help in equal measure. The Fox Project sought information about social and cultural dynamics and about social organization at the same time as it tried to work out daily problems of Indian-Anglo interaction (Tax, 1958: 17–19). Tax saw this blend as the ultimate direction of anthropology, but instead of being applauded, he was dismissed as a failure by the discipline of his era. Still, Tax maintained that action anthropologists were theoretical anthropologists, and that practical settings were essential to the elaboration of theory—the testing ground of knowledge, which is more or less useful. Tax sent his students at the University of Chicago out into the field to learn and help. In the United States, he had a reasonable sense of the conditions they would encounter, given the era in which he worked. But some of his PhD students wound up in Central America during turbulent times. The late June Nash (1927–2019) tells the story of being in a small Guatemalan village in 1956, at the time of the CIA-supported coup to oust liberal President Arbenz. Uninformed and unprepared, she was hustled by her Guatemalan compadres into a distant house to hide, as the villagers feared for their lives and the lives of the anthropologists whom they had been willing to host. For Nash, this was the point at which she made the initial transition from studying to learning; from talking to listening; from research to activism, as I did in Chiapas more than 45 years later.

Foreword xiii

Indeed, months after the incident in Guatemala, when she and her then-husband Manning Nash returned to Chicago, there was a knock on the door. Two men, wearing blue suits and black shoes, asked to see the man of the house. What, they wondered, had gone on in Guatemala? June, of course, was invisible. She was female, and it was the ‘50s. But even Manning, a consummate academic, had his own activist moment. “If you give me your address, I’ll send you an advanced copy of my dissertation,” he told the CIA (personal communication, 2018). June Nash went on to train cadres of graduate students in activism and anthropology. Her own writings became classics. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us (1993) documents conditions in Bolivia. Asked to leave the country before her work was finished, she snuck back into Bolivia in order to complete it. Similarly, I first met June when Kate O’Donnell and I were “invited to abandon Mexico” during the height of the Zapatista conflict. While many of the stodgier anthropologists of the Harvard era were appalled by our activism, June simply asked if there was anything that we needed (Earle and Simonelli, 2005: 63–74). The Sol Tax Award is a lovely inscribed rocking chair that recognizes service to the SfAA. At this juncture, there is no award recognizing activism. But activism is, in the final analysis, service. For those who call themselves activists, can they separate out the part that is service, the impetus for the action? Do we act in a way that places our needs, wants, and ambitions out of sight, and do only what we are asked to do? Or is there a part that satisfies an individual ego while providing aid to a community? Working in Chiapas, activism meant creating a partnership and bringing to it those skills that each of us had, while staying attuned to community concerns surrounding how and when information should be shared. Activism meant being able to acompanar obediciendo—to accompany while moving in the direction that the community needed to go. Whether you bring financial resources, information, or programmatic materials, it means being able to make a smooth change from your Plan A to their Plan B. The Maya call it walking the heart path. It is a true service. In understanding activism, we can sometimes get bogged down in linguistics. Referring to those whom we are with as social actors allows the mind to think of life as a play; something unreal. Even the use of stakeholders takes the humanity away from those with whom we work. I can remember someone telling me this specifically: “I’m not a stakeholder, I’m a Navajo; a Diné.” A number of the pieces that follow have had to create words to describe their activities. These include situated usefulness, collaborative activist ethnographic research, and chemo-ethnography. In the final analysis, we must go beyond words and tease out our ethical obligations. It is easiest, of course, to align oneself with those who think and are entrenched in situations that you believe in. But as Richard Bargielski notes (in this volume), “if we desire to affect meaningful change…it is first necessary for us to go into the weeds and conduct ethnographies of people with whom we may not necessarily agree—or even like.” Indeed, the more you think through your own experiences and expectations, the more treacherous the landscape becomes. But when you are aware of the dangers and the implications in the cycle of activism, the more honest and righteous your navigation becomes, growing into a service motivated by empathy and altruism.

xiv Foreword

References Earle, Duncan and Jeanne Simonelli. 2005. Uprising of Hope: Sharing the Zapatista Journey to Alternative Development. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Nash, June. 1993. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia University Press. Tax, Sol. 1958. “The Fox Project,” Human Organization 17(1): 17–19. Wulff, Robert M. and Shirley J. Fiske (eds). 1987. Anthropological Praxis: Translating Knowledge Into Action. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As editors and authors, we are profoundly indebted to our research participants and to the activists whose work is highlighted in this volume. It is their work that makes our own work possible. We would also like to thank the Society for Applied Anthropology for providing a welcoming forum for anthropologists who seek to use social science to make the world a better place. The editors are grateful for the hard work of all of this volume’s contributors and the editors at Routledge Press (especially Katherine Ong and Stewart Beale).

CONTRIBUTORS

Jodi A. Allison is a first-year medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School. She received her BSc in Biochemistry and Global Health from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2017. She completed an AmeriCorps service year with the National Health Corps in Pittsburgh, serving at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. Her interests include working towards health equity through advocacy, community engagement, and using a collaborative and individualized approach to healthcare. Richard Bargielski is a faculty member in the Judy Genschaft Honors College at the University of South Florida. He received a PhD in Applied Anthropology in 2020 from the University of South Florida and an MA in Anthropology in 2016 from The Ohio State University. His research investigates the relationships between race, class, and environmental toxicity in his hometown of Ashtabula, Ohio. He grew up less than one mile from the facility where contaminated soils from Fields Brook Superfund Site were incinerated and buried. His own lived experiences with factory contamination in rural Ashtabula were the impetus for his present research on the Superfund Site. Rebecka Daye has a PhD in Applied Anthropology from Oregon State University. Her research interests include socioeconomic anthropology (morality and economics), social ecology, the political economy, local/global agrifood systems, Latin American studies, and sociolinguistics. Dr. Daye has conducted ethnographic field research in Ecuador and Oregon. Her research has focused on various aspects of alternative agrifood systems including food sovereignty, social ecology, farming practices, GMO-free activism, environmental ethics, and well-being. She has also been an active volunteer for local and sustainable food systems in her community. Dr. Daye currently works at Portland Community College as an anthropology instructor.

Contributors xvii

Jeannie Economos is an activist and pesticide safety specialist at the Farmworker Association of Florida. At the association, she engages in a number of projects, including advancing health equity for African-American former farmworkers and current Latinx migrant farmworkers. She conducts a number of education and health promotion events and works to advance farmworker rights. Shirley J. Fiske is a Research Professor with the Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland. She is an environmental anthropologist with over 25 years of experience in executive and legislative branches of government in climate change, natural resources, environmental justice, and policy and governance. Most recently, she co-edited The Carbon Fix: Forest Carbon, Social Justice, and Environmental Governance (Routledge, 2017), which addresses social equity concerns of global carbon offset policies. She chaired the American Anthropological Association (AAA) task force on global climate change (which produced Changing the Atmosphere, a report on anthropology and climate change) and was a 2017 UN Observer at the 2017 UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany. Fiske was awarded the AAA’s Solon T. Kimball Award in 2016 for her contributions to applied and policy anthropology. Brenda Fitzpatrick is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of British Columbia and recipient of a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She holds a Master’s degree in International Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Notre Dame, which was partially funded by a Mackenzie King Travelling Scholarship. Her doctoral research, an ethnography of the conflict over a hydroelectric dam in northeastern British Columbia, investigates the intersections between anthropology and conflict transformation. Prior to beginning her PhD, she worked in international relief, development, and peacebuilding in Kenya, South Sudan, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Christopher Furino is an organizer with Central Florida Jobs with Justice, which works to build a coalition of community, labor, faith, and student groups. Furino and his group have organized in farmworking and immigrant communities through Hope CommUnity Center. Experiences that brought their studies together with community service and advocacy led them to work in social justice. Their values of anti-racist, anti-patriarchal, and anti-capitalist organizing, as well as collective action, have helped them work toward social and economic justice. They believe strongly in bridging scholarship with practices of social and economic justice as tools for making their values real in the world. Olivia Hagmann has a BA in Anthropology and Film and Media Studies from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. While at Whitman, she focused on documentary film making and medical anthropology. As a student researcher on two health related projects, one at the Community Acupuncture Project in West Seattle and the other with the Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Project, Hagmann collected ethnographic data and produced video shorts to be used in program evaluation and

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website design. For her senior thesis work, Olivia organized the Walla Walla Acupuncture Project—a free, two-day community acupuncture pop-up clinic that served 115 people. Barbara Rose Johnston is the Center for Political Ecology Senior Research Fellow (Santa Cruz, California) and Michigan State University Adjunct Professor of Anthropology. A public-interest anthropologist whose work examines the linkages between environmental crisis and human rights abuse in case specific and global contexts, her ultimate aim is to demonstrably secure the rights to a healthy environment, environmental equity, reparation, and meaningful remedy. Her publications define and refine the fields of political ecology, environmental anthropology, and environmental justice, and have helped expand rights-protective public policy in international, national, and local government contexts. Her award-winning action-research illustrates the power of a science and human rights approach. Nolan Kline is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rollins College. His book, Pathogenic Policing: Immigration Enforcement and Health in the US South (Rutgers University Press, 2019), is the result of activist anthropological fieldwork with immigrant rights organizations in Atlanta, Georgia. It describes the multiple, hidden, health-related consequences of immigration enforcement policies and police practices. Kline has authored several articles and chapters on immigrant policing in the US and has worked collaboratively with immigrant rights organizations in Georgia and Florida. As an applied, medical anthropologist, his work overlaps with public health, law, and policy. Elisabeth N. Moolenaar is a Term Professor at Regis University in the Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice department. Her diverse research is broadly centered on identity, belonging, and processes of identification and subjectivation, and the sociocultural context of energy production and natural resource extraction. Her most recent project focuses on the impacts of conventional natural gas extraction on rural communities in the Netherlands. While her doctorate is in Cultural Anthropology (Brandeis University) she also holds a Master’s degree in Political Science (University of Amsterdam) and a graduate certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies (Brandeis University). Suzanne Morrissey earned her PhD in Anthropology from Syracuse University. She is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Morrissey is a medical anthropologist who focuses her research on health disparities and integrative medicine. She has coproduced the ethnographic film From Our Strength: Birth and Indigenous Politics in Cañar, Ecuador (2011). Together with her undergraduate students, Morrissey has been working with the Peoples Organization of Community Acupuncture in Portland, Oregon since 2013.

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Sarah Elizabeth Morrow (University of Alabama) is a practicing medical anthropologist dedicated to working with underserved populations, particularly those with unequal access to necessary resources for positive health outcomes. She holds an MA with a focus on medical anthropology from the University of Alabama and is a current PhD student at the same institution. Her research has explored experiences of food insecurity, disability, community, medicine, and human development through an intersectional, anthropological lens. Her dissertation work looks at the integration of social determinants of health in pediatric clinical settings through her role as Pediatric Clinical Coordinator for Medicaid at the UPMC Health Plan. Dana E. Powell is a cultural environmental anthropologist working on the lived experiences of extractive industry in Native North America and in the Navajo Nation, in particular. Powell is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Appalachian State University, where she directs the department’s degree program in Social Practice and Sustainability. Powell has received grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren, the American Council of Learned Societies, and Cornell’s Society for the Humanities. In Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation (Duke University Press, 2018) she explores energy and environmental justice activism in relation to a proposed coal-fired power plant and the resulting tensions among diverse interpretations of sovereignty, expertise, and development. Powell’s recent and new projects focus on resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota, and the social life of water and climate change in the Navajo Nation. Stephen L. Schensul is Professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Connecticut, School of Medicine, where he has taught and mentored medical, public health, and anthropology students from 1976 to the present. His first three decades after his PhD focused on health and mental health issues among underserved African American and Hispanic communities in Chicago, Illinois; Miami, Florida; and Hartford, Connecticut. His next two decades focused on prevention of HIV/STI, reduction of sexual risk, and treatment of HIV in global underserved communities in Peru, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Mumbai with funding from USAID, the National Institute for Mental Health, and the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. He is the recipient of the Career Award (2010) from the Society for Medical Anthropology and the University of Connecticut Provost’s Faculty Award for Excellence in Public Engagement (2008) and he shares the Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology (1990) with Professor Jean J. Schensul. Mark Schuller is an activist anthropologist and Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University. Supported by the National Science Foundation Senior and CAREER Grant, Bellagio Center, and others, Schuller has over three dozen peer-reviewed publications, and even more public media. He published two monographs, including Humanitarian Aftershocks in Haiti (Rutgers University Press, 2016) and co-edited five

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volumes, including Tectonic Shifts: Haiti since the Earthquake (Kumarian Press, 2012). He is co-director/co-producer of the documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009). Recipient of the Margaret Mead Award and the Anthropology in Media Award, he is active in several solidarity efforts. Jeanne Simonelli is an applied cultural anthropologist, writer, and weaver. Among her books are Uprising of Hope: Sharing the Zapatista Journey to Autonomous Development (with Duncan Earle, 2005, Altamira) and Artisans and Advocacy in the Global Market: Walking the Heart Path (co-edited with Katherine O’Donnell and June Nash, 2015, School of American Research Press). A Wake Forest University Professor Emeritus, Simonelli now spends summers working as an interpretive Park Ranger at Bandelier National Monument and doing development projects with a rebel organization in southern Mexico. She is proud to be among the “radical activists” cited by the current regime for work opposing the now cancelled Constitution Pipeline in New York. Eileen Smith-Cavros is an Associate Professor at Nova Southeastern University where she teaches sociology and anthropology classes. She has published articles and a book chapter on African-American churchgoers, activism, and the environment. Eileen was founding Director of the Zion Canyon Field Institute in Zion National Park, where, using community-based research, she authored Pioneer Voices of Zion Canyon (Zion Natural History Association, 2006). In addition, she has published on Mexican campesinos who once hunted manatees, as documented in her film Laguna Manati: Ayer y Hoy (2013). Her recent fieldwork in Ghana examined interactions between spirituality and healthcare access among rural elders in the village of Agate. Michael Still graduated from Boston University School of Medicine in May 2016 with a Master's degree in Science in Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice. He has a background in environmental health research, literacy education, and community organizing. He holds keen interests in the areas of culture-centered approaches to research and environmental health policy. Mary Vickers is an honors student at Rollins College studying International Relations, Spanish, and Cultural Anthropology. She has used research funding from her institution to investigate the impact of recent policies and politics on the Latinx immigrant community of Apopka, Florida. She is passionate about using activist anthropology to analyze the impacts of immigration policy and advocate for social change. She is a 2018 Millennium Fellow and a Gilman Scholarship alumna. After her graduation in 2020, she intends to pursue a Master’s degree and PhD in Applied Anthropology. Patricia Widener is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Florida Atlantic University. She studies environmental, climate, and marine justice social movements, as well as the political economy of petroleum and the environment. Her current

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research examines how community advocates, environmentalists, and climate activists mobilized against oil and gas exploration in Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is the author of Oil Injustice: Resisting and Conceding a Pipeline in Ecuador (Rowman and Littlefield, 2011) and has published journal articles and/or book chapters on community responses to climate change, offshore oil exploration, hydraulic or acid fracturing, oil spills, and/or pipelines in Alaska, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Ecuador, Florida, and the Philippines. Anna J. Willow is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Ohio State University. An environmental anthropologist who studies how individuals and communities experience and respond to externally imposed resource extractive development, she is the author of Strong Hearts, Native Lands: The Cultural and Political Landscape of Anishinaabe Anti-Clearcutting Activism (State University of New York Press, 2012) and Understanding ExtrACTIVISM: Culture and Power in Natural Resource Disputes (Routledge, 2018). Willow received her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as an MSc in Natural Resources and Environment from the University of Michigan. Elizabeth A. Winter graduated from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health with an MPH in Behavioral and Community Health Sciences and a Certificate in Evaluation of Public Health Programs. Previously, she obtained a BS in Psychology from The Ohio State University, with Research Distinction in Neuroscience. She combines passions for advocacy, health education, and health communication with a background in academic research, and her experience spans academic, medical, nonprofit, and county and federal government settings. Much of her work has focused on topics surrounding disability and chronic illness, particularly among adolescents. Kelly A. Yotebieng completed her PhD at the Ohio State University’s Department of Anthropology. Her work has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including a United States Institute of Peace Randolph Jennings Peace Scholar award and a Fulbright research award. She is the author of Hope on the Brinks: Dreams and Nightmares Crossing Borders (Austin Macauley, 2018). Her research focuses on the intersections of hope, risk, gender-based violence, and health disparities globally. She holds a Master's degree in Public Health from Tulane University’s School of Public Health. Yotebieng is fluent in French, and since 2004 she has lived and worked in Central Africa, focusing on humanitarian issues. She currently consults full-time with the World Bank and various UN agencies.

INTRODUCTION Doing Good Anthropology Anna J. Willow and Kelly A. Yotebieng

“So, would you say you are an anthropologist or an activist?” This question was raised in several ways during the three organized panels that brought this volume’s contributors together in Portland, Oregon for the 2019 Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting. Even in sessions attended by dozens of scholars who participated in some type of social action, it was apparent that most of us were still struggling for answers. On that day, we realized that framing our work in this either/or manner is both limiting and outdated. As social scientists who study a multitude of pressing global issues, we do not have the luxury of choosing one identity over the other. For us, anthropology and activism are not mutually exclusive, but rather necessarily entwined. In today’s world, darkness is on display in every direction. News reports, social media posts, and conversations too often generate grief, anger, and fear. Occasionally, we ourselves bear witness to overt discrimination, violence, or wholesale destruction. More commonly, inequities constructed around gender, income, race, or citizenship (among other divisions) manifest as the health disparities, educational gaps, political disenfranchisement, food insecurity, environmental injustice, and similarly systemic forms of discrimination that we document. The young people who enter today’s classrooms will undoubtedly face the intergenerational injustice of climate change and its accompanying (un)natural disasters and global security crises. Thus, while not all of us possess personal stories of injustice, the vast majority of anthropologists interact closely and conscientiously with people who do. Because our research regularly acquaints us with people who endeavor to build a better world for themselves or for others, we inevitably confront queries about where we stand. When we are asked if we are anthropologists or activists, it is often implied that being more of one detracts from our ability to be both. Yet exceedingly few adherents to a discipline that has become deeply cognizant of the politics of cultural life would dare to claim that observed injustices should go uncontested.

2 Anthropology and Activism

Many anthropologists now avow that allowing an unjust status quo to go unchallenged is tantamount to complicity (Juris and Khasnabish, 2013b). We agree that we have a moral imperative to do something, but considerable debate surrounds what that something should be. Yet we also cannot ignore the serious repercussions that engaging in activism can have for some anthropologists, not only for their careers but also at times for their lives and freedom. One poignant example of the potential consequences is demonstrated by the case of Ugandan activist-anthropologist Stella Nyanzi, who in 2019 was sentenced to 18 months in a Ugandan prison for her outspoken and research-based critique of the government (Fredlund and Fiaveh, 2019). While it is a recent example, Nyanzi’s case is not unique. Attention to the anthropology/activism relationship therefore also necessitates frank discussions of ethics and consequences so as to avoid (on the one hand) whitewashing the relationship or (on the other) advocating a retreat to armchair activism. Far from justifying inaction, we suggest that the tensions and uncertainties surrounding the anthropology/activism relationship offer a chance to reconsider the contributions that anthropology can make to global struggles, as well as an opportunity to rethink the fundamental question of “what anthropology is and does” (Merry, 2005: 241). The forms and methods of activism that anthropologists engage in are as diverse as the discipline itself. Anthropologists who work inside and outside the academy are increasingly involved in social change campaigns. We recognize that many of today’s students enter the field with a burning desire to change the world and approach anthropology as a tool for addressing issues of profound personal import. It is precisely this anthropology—the one that validates our intersecting identities as anthropologists, activists, and citizens—that is drawing students to our departments. Taking the interests and insights of the next generation of anthropologists to heart, we contend that it is an opportune time to reflect on the history, the current state, and the future of anthropology’s relationship with activism. As teachers, mentors, and students, we must prepare ourselves to participate in essential discussions about the relationship between anthropology and activism in the context of complex contemporary issues. This volume is a conversation about what we, as trained social scientists, can offer others who seek social transformation. Conversely, it considers what our engagement in activism might bring to anthropology as a field of academic study. In our view, activism is not merely a way to ensure anthropology’s future relevance to public discourse, but also—and more importantly—a strategy for using social scientific scholarship to build a more sustainable and more equitable world. The association of anthropology and activism is both enduring and intimate. Since the discipline’s inception, many of the field’s most prominent figures have used anthropological ideas and evidence to support public positions on crucial (and often controversial) issues. With a foundational goal of comprehending how diverse people understand their worlds and make their places within them (Malinowski, 2013 [1922]), anthropology is inherently empathetic. Because its topics of interest have customarily included the world’s peripheral, colonized, and/or internally colonized populations—groups that have historically faced and continue to confront economic marginalization, political inequity, and environmental degradation—anthropological

Introduction 3

fieldwork often requires researchers to come to terms with suffering and injustice endured by people they come to know personally. Anthropologists become the hybrid sum of life experiences that integrate not only their (often relatively privileged) upbringings and identities, but also the life-changing revelations catalyzed by their fieldwork encounters (Routledge, 2013). In a discipline that encourages critical reflection on roles and responsibilities (Warren, 2006), anthropologists often emerge profoundly sensitized to the power differentials that set their own daily realities apart from the lives of the “others” upon which they build their careers. Anthropology’s intrinsic reflexivity positions its practitioners to overcome many of the ethical quandaries associated with research in today’s most challenging contexts. This reflexivity also allows for more nuanced and productive understandings of different sides of issues in which activists engage. Each chapter in this book is based on self-reporting by an anthropologist—and in most cases by one who simultaneously considers him/herself an activist. While autobiographical accounts influence scholarship in many disciplines, anthropology has been especially eager to embrace selfreflection as a means of generating scholarly insight. This volume’s chapters thus demonstrate how reflexivity promotes activism (and vice versa) and how this interrelationship plays out in anthropologists’ choice of research topics, methodologies, and patterns of knowledge dissemination. We hope that the reflections shared here can serve as a road map to guide students and junior scholars (along with experienced anthropologists new to activist engagement) through the thought processes that go into selecting a project, conducting activist research, and reporting findings. While the matters of concern and the manners of engagement have evolved over time, the desire to “make our knowledge count” (Milton, 1993: 13) remains central to the anthropological endeavor. Indeed, anthropology’s relativistic approach to human diversity and its methodological mandate to interact with others ensures that “anthropologist” and “activist” are significantly overlapping ways of being in the world. Numerous anthropologists, including some of the authors in this volume, now deliberately choose careers outside of the academy that allow them to merge these identities. And those within the academy increasingly recognize that their determination to make a difference energizes the contemporary discipline. Most of us now agree that it is not enough to merely “do no harm” (as our professional code of ethics mandates—American Anthropological Association, 2012) and instead regard activism as a “logical extension of the commitment to reciprocity that underlines the practice of anthropology” (Kirsch 2002: 178; see also Wilkinson and Kleinman, 2015). A vast body of literature has emphasized the pervasive nature of social suffering globally (e.g., Kleinman, Das, and Lock, 1997), with Wilkinson and Kleinman (2015) arguing that anthropologists must go beyond their documentation of suffering to ensure that their knowledge is used to catalyze change. In this way, anthropologists’ activism is ethically affirmed as “the right thing” to do. Furthermore, as the effects of a neoliberal world order and social suffering have been well documented by anthropology, a focus on activism allows for a shift of perspective towards the different models of resistance that spring up in their wake.

4 Anthropology and Activism

Yet even as engaged, public, and activist interventions have become accepted aspects of anthropological practice, those who undertake such work continue to describe the process of combining scholarship and activism as “fraught” or “treacherous” terrain (Checker, Davis, and Schuller, 2014). The ultimate aim of this volume is to blaze trails that render the activist anthropological landscape less perilous and more inviting for those who follow in our footsteps. What, we ask, have we learned about activism as a cultural phenomenon? What happens when anthropologists become activists? How do anthropological methods and theory contribute to activist efforts and vice versa? What role do our personal and professional agendas play in shaping the research that we do and how we do it? What unique and changing roles do anthropologists play in the world beyond the academy? What are the potential consequences to our careers and lives when we engage in both anthropology and activism? And what are the ethical obligations that delineate whether, when, and how we engage? Contributors to this volume address these questions by reflecting on research in the timely areas of environment and extraction, food sustainability and security, migration and human rights, health disparities and healthcare access, class and gender identities and empowerment, and the defense of democracy. In anthropology as in the wider world, much is in flux. Anthropology and Activism: New Contexts, New Conversations considers how and why activism has come to play such an imperative role in anthropology and why—now more than ever—we cannot afford to underestimate its importance to our disciplinary project and approach. Not only have the barriers between field, home, and academy progressively collapsed, but interactions among researchers, research participants, and social movements have also become increasingly unpredictable (Casas-Cortés, Osterweil, and Powell, 2013). We have little to lose and much to gain through activist engagement.

A (Very) Brief History of Anthropology and Activism Activism has long been an integral part of anthropology, even if it has not always been explicitly acknowledged or openly embraced. The relativistic perspective that many of us celebrate as the quintessential heart of the modern anthropological outlook has its origins in Franz Boas’s response to racism and anti-Semitism. Such views were widespread in his day, and the “father of American anthropology” vehemently condemned both. From his alliance with W.E.B. Du Bois and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (Baker, 1994) to his vocal critiques of Nazism and fascism in Europe (Lewis, 2001), Boas taught a generation of anthropologists to stand strong in defense of their beliefs. Boas’s most famous student, Margaret Mead, is remembered as much for her feminist politics and her belief in the power of citizen action as for the anthropology that she brought into thousands of American homes. Yet activism has often carried significant personal and professional costs. During the Second World War, the majority of civic-minded anthropologists participated in the war effort (Price, 2008), which left little time for other forms of engagement. The war was quickly followed by the McCarthy era—a time when artists and academics who

Introduction 5

worked for racial, gender, and economic equality risked accusation as communist sympathizers. In the early years of the Cold War, numerous scholars were targeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and subjected to “loyalty” hearings. Gene Weltfish, for example, was called to testify before the Senate Committee on Governmental Operations in 1953. Shortly thereafter, she was abruptly dismissed from her position at Columbia University. Fear of facing similar persecution rippled through the discipline and “was somewhat successful in driving attention to inequality, power, and activism underground” (Mullings, 2015: 7). A historian of anthropology, David H. Price (2004) argues that mid-century suppression and self-censorship in effect stifled the development of activist anthropology and had a lasting effect on the field. As demonstrated by Nyanzi’s experience, the struggles and dangers of engaging in activism as anthropologists are far from being a relic of the past. Price also issues a stern warning about the potential reemergence of “well-funded and well-organized attacks on activists fighting for a better world” (2004: xiv)—a prospect that is both chilling and imaginable in today’s political climate. By the 1960s and 1970s anthropology began to recover its voice. With US involvement in the Vietnam War becoming increasingly unpopular, the anthropologists Marshall Sahlins and Eric Wolf were among the organizers of the first antiwar “teach-in” protests at the University of Michigan in 1965. Similar events soon electrified campuses across the country. As the countercultural movement took hold, activism regained its dignity both in national popular discourse and in the field of anthropology. Then as now, anthropologists found themselves in a period of political turmoil. By the 1970s Sol Tax (of the University of Chicago) was promoting an action anthropology that acknowledged solving social problems, advancing knowledge, and generating theory as inseparable projects. “Action anthropology,” claimed Tax, “is all of these together” (1975: 517). Dell Hymes and his colleagues also set out to rethink the discipline and its potential. In Reinventing Anthropology, Hymes argued for an anthropology focused on “confronting the powerful and seeking to transform the structure of power” (1972: 52) and worried that anthropology would wane into irrelevance if it remained confined to the academy. In the same volume, prominent anthropologists suggested taking responsibility for our actions and concerning ourselves with “planning for the world” (Anderson, 1972: 276), “studying up” in our own society in order to better understand how power is exercised and legitimated (Nader, 1972: 284), and developing a truly self-reflective and critical approach (Scholte, 1972). The rise of feminist scholarship in the 1970s also pushed anthropology and allied fields toward increasing engagement with communities and their struggles (Desai, 2013). Subsequent decades saw a steady increase in engaged work, driven by the observation of inequities and the desire to expose them. For instance, as the field of medical anthropology grew, many practitioners became increasingly uncomfortable with the field’s tendency to study and document health problems as “natural” phenomena. Critical medical anthropology emerged in the 1980s as a reaction to the fact that political, economic, and social determinants of health conditions and disparities were often entirely left out of the equation (Singer and Baer, 1995).

6 Anthropology and Activism

Political economic approaches were adopted and adapted in order to shed light on the power inequalities that drove and exacerbated health disparities, underlining that these observations were anything but the natural phenomena that previous research pitted them to be. At one end of the spectrum, then, critical medical anthropologist Nancy Scheper-Hughes called for an uncompromising “militant anthropology” undertaken by a cadre of “barefoot anthropologist[s]” who were both “alarmists and shock troopers” (1995: 417). As Scheper-Hughes saw it, “anthropology, if it is to be worth anything at all, must be ethically grounded” (1995: 410). Accordingly, she railed against anthropologists who used cultural relativism as “an excuse for political and moral dalliance” and urged those accustomed to watchful waiting from outside the political fray to take action (Scheper-Hughes, 1995: 414). However, both within medical anthropology and other areas of anthropological study, those who took engaged positions faced criticism from their peers. Scholars at the other end of the spectrum insisted that anthropology should remain a scientific—meaning neutral and non-engaged—field of study. Roy D’Andrade argued determinedly in defense of an anthropology rooted in an objective (as opposed to a moral) model of the world (1995). Similarly, Kirsten Hastrup and Peter Elsass asserted that advocacy is “incompatible with anthropology as a distinct kind of scholarship” (1990: 301). These debates played out not only in the pages of peer-reviewed journals, but also in university departments, dissertation committees, and difficult personal decisions. On all sides, positions were—and are—rarely monolithic or static. Among those who embrace anthropology as a tool for justice and liberation, the types and degrees of engagement vary widely, taking forms ranging from moral support, information sharing, social critique, and advocacy to active campaigning for social and political change (Low et al., 2010). It is this latter option that captures the collective attention of this volume’s editors and contributors. Activist anthropology is typically categorized as a subdivision occupying the same broad territory as engaged, applied, and practicing anthropology; all imply that anthropological theories and methods are brought to bear on immediate problems “with the goal of further understanding the human experience and with the aim of seeking some sort of meaningful resolution or remedial outcome” (Johnston, 2008: 172). While fretting over whether we call our work engaged, applied, or activist makes little sense, activist anthropology is set apart by the deep commitment of anthropologists as citizens to ameliorating the injustices and suffering experienced by others (Low and Merry, 2010: S211, emphasis in original). Recognizing “objectivity” as at best illusory and at worst a tool for dismissing those with diverse backgrounds and perspectives (Greenwood, 2008), activist anthropology is founded on dialogue, collaboration, and alliance with people struggling to improve their lives (Hale, 2008). While the forms that activism takes are diverse, we see activism as an explicit attempt to bring about systemic change, where activists take action often at “significant costs and act to achieve their goals” (Oliver and Marwell, 1992: 252).

Introduction 7

Over the past decade, significant discussion surrounding the meanings and implications of activist anthropological research has been catalyzed by Charles Hale’s distinction between activist research and cultural critique. Hale refuses to allow his contribution to remain at the level of cultural critique, which he defines as “an approach to research and writing in which political alignment is manifested through the content of the knowledge produced, not through the relationship established with an organized group of people in struggle” (2006: 98). Even though it takes impetus from researchers’ desires to support marginalized peoples and deconstruct powerful entities, Hale sees cultural critique as deeply problematic because it neither demands that we deviate from conventional patterns of research nor offers any real means for achieving its espoused ambitions. What Hale proposes instead is activist research, which he describes as “a method through which we affirm a political alignment with an organized group of people in struggle and allow dialogue with them to shape each phase of the process, from conception of the research topic to data collection to verification and dissemination of the results” (2006: 97). In this view, cultural critique and activist research remain separate projects, distinguished by different strategies for negotiating loyalties and different commitments to the world beyond the academy. In response to Hale’s conclusion that activist research inherently obliges practitioners “to straddle two disparate intellectual worlds” (2006: 115), numerous anthropologists have emphatically argued that the contradictions he identifies are not fixed and need not define our work. Shannon Speed proposes the phrase critically engaged activist research to indicate “that the two can be productively practiced together, as part of one undertaking” (2006: 71). Similarly, Sharad Chari and Henrike Donner view the concurrent existence of cultural critique and activist research as an opportunity rather than a contradiction and propose that we think of critical ethnography and activism as “parallel, related and potentially supportive endeavours” (2010: 76–77). More recently, Maribel Casas-Cortés, Michal Osterweil, and Dana E. Powell point out that while Hale’s distinction between proponents of cultural critique and proponents of activism is deeply entrenched within anthropology (and other) departments, such a bifurcated frame limits those who wish to move “ethnographic work toward more politically and intellectually effective interventions” (2013: 205). What we need is not a new way of conceptualizing the division between academics and engagement, but rather a new set of epistemological and methodological assumptions. We agree with this assessment, and, as we enter the third decade of the new millennium, we are optimistic about the prospects for an anthropology of the future that bridges this chasm. As demonstrated by the diverse approaches revealed in the following chapters, there is no one simple path connecting anthropology and activism; nor can activism be understood in the singular. The plurality of activist anthropological experiences and the diversity of individuals’ journeys to activism are among this volume’s collective key messages. Our work is bound together by our reflexive ethnographic approach and our ability to use ethnography to illuminate and clearly translate research participants’ perspectives to broader audiences (including the

8 Anthropology and Activism

policymakers and other empowered actors who most need to understand them). At the same time, our use of anthropological theory to understand social movements contributes not only to our understanding of activist campaigns, but also to their real-world efficacy. Whether we operate as strategically positioned allies able to offer valuable skills and resources or overtly involve ourselves in direct action and community organizing, we become activists “when we situate ourselves within a particular network or struggle” and, in so doing, become “a constitutive part of rather than an outside supporter of that struggle” (Juris and Khasnabish, 2013a: 24).

Closing (and Minding) the Gap In recent years, anthropologists have constructed multiple bridges to connect the academy to the world beyond (see Schuller in this volume). Calls for the decolonization of the discipline have come from non-Western and minority anthropologists who demand not only that the voices of diverse scholars and interlocuters be heard, but also that these perspectives be recognized as both generative of rigorous research and essential to the future growth of the field (Harrison, 2010; see also Smith, 2013). In response to such calls, collaborative ethnography seeks to collapse the distinction between researcher and researched. It “deliberately and explicitly emphasizes collaboration at every point in the ethnographic process, without veiling it—from project conceptualization, to fieldwork, and, especially, through the writing process” (Lassiter, 2005: 16; emphasis in original). Participatory action research similarly demands the involvement of research participants in all stages of the research process and is underlain by concern for equity at levels ranging from global socioeconomic structures to intimate research encounters (Hemment, 2007). Both of these genres acknowledge the simple truth that academia does not own research; not only is research an essential component of social transformation, but research of some sort is always already underway within social movements. Recognizing this reality, scholars can endeavor to “arrive not simply as outside observers, but as critical, reflexive agents who work in solidarity with movements to build their capacity for resilient and transformative struggle” (Khasnabish and Haiven, 2014). David Graeber (to cite one well known scholar-activist who was controversially dismissed from his position at Yale in 2005, quite possibly because of his political convictions (Arenson, 2005)) makes no claim of objectivity in his study of the contemporary anti-globalization/anarchist movement. Involved in the movement first and a scholar of it only later, Graeber unabashedly states, “even when I’m critical of the movement, I’m critical as an insider, someone whose ultimate purpose is to further its goals” (2009: 12). Others offer similar models for merging scholarship and radical activism. In her work on the alterglobalization movement, Marianne Maeckelbergh (2009) unabashedly plays a dual role as both a researcher and a creator of the movement. Also already an activist when her research commenced, Maeckelbergh gained access to movement actors by participating in their campaigns and sharing her activist skill set. Nicholas Apoifis (2017) takes inspiration from Jeffrey Juris’s notion of “militant ethnography” in his study of anti-authoritarian activists in

Introduction 9

Athens, Greece. Juris explains that doing militant ethnography requires one to become an active participant in order to grasp why activists do what they do (2008: 20). By facilitating self-reflection and critical analysis of the world beyond the movement, he suggests that “militant ethnography can provide tools for activist (self-) reflection and decision making while remaining pertinent for broader academic audiences” (2008: 22). Like Juris, Apoifis (2017) deliberately blurs the line between research and activism, as do several contributors to this volume (see Cavros-Smith and Widener; Kline et al.). While broader than the field of anthropology, several additional edited collections explore the potential of radical and militant ethnographic research conducted by activists with the explicit intent of furthering their respective movements (e.g., Shukaitis and Graeber 2007; Team Colors Collective, 2010). While the gap between academic and applied anthropology still exists, we thus find it to be a much narrower chasm than it once was. Increasingly, our research participants also insist that our work lead to some sort of change; as Yotebieng (in this volume) elaborates, individuals in many researched groups have grown “tired of telling their stories” without seeing results (see also Karooma, 2019). But more than anything, we contend that the gap is closing because we are closing it. This is true both because of the ethical imperative we feel to act and because the next generation of anthropologists demands it. In recent decades, this incremental closure has been evidenced by the increasingly positive reception of activist anthropologists within mainstream programs and by the inclusion of engaged methods, theories, and topics in conventional anthropological training. With anthropologists stationed in academic departments insisting (and demonstrating) that sites of resistance and activism are simultaneously “important spaces for generating anthropological theory” (Mullings, 2015: 4; see also Bargielski, in this volume), engagement is now being recognized as serious scholarly work. At the same time, practicing anthropologists who earn their livings outside of the academy are publishing and validating their findings as academic contributions. In both cases, we are reminded that “engaged anthropology has the capacity to yield findings of general significance” and that the “high-low” distinction between academic and engaged anthropology is no longer useful (Kirsch, 2018: 226; see also Ginsburg, 2004). In 2004 Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman identified the trend of which we speak: “Although it is possible to identify a legacy of explicitly committed American scholarship that dates back to an earlier period of American intellectual life,” they concurred, “only recently has it become imaginable that publicly engaging with political issues could be integral to American academic practice in the future” (2004: 8). We are excited to partake in a future that is here today. This does not imply that any codified formula for navigating anthropology’s relationship with activism has been (or ever should be) set. The diversity of this volume’s contributions confirms that activism takes numerous forms that are contoured by particular combinations of constraint and opportunity as well as by creative rejoinders to specific struggles and tasks at hand. Just as there are many activisms and many ways to be an activist, there are many ways to be—and become—an activist anthropologist.

10 Anthropology and Activism

While anthropology’s signature ethnographic methods are critical to understanding activism from the inside and breaking down etic misconceptions, the applications and implications of this understanding vary as much as the specific tools we choose to use. As the chapters in this volume attest, the methodological toolbox that equips anthropologists to understand and inform activism is incredibly rich, with options ranging from participant observation and interviews to surveys, photovoice, and much more. Roles and goals shift over time to align with projects’ various expectations and possibilities and with individuals’ differing desires and limitations, career stages and strategies, funding sources and institutions, and personal and political anxieties. We may find ourselves undertaking miscellaneous tasks that include writing, expert witnessing, media engagement, completing grant applications, community organizing, mediating, networking, and much more (see Johnston, 2010). By assembling the following chapters, we hope to shine a light on a multitude of pathways forward and present inspiring possibilities to aid those who seek to chart their own anthropology/activism course. As noted above, even celebrated scholars have come across pitfalls on their journeys through activist anthropology’s “treacherous” terrain. The challenges range from practical to profound. Engaged anthropologists working in academic settings step into deeply entrenched systems of differential rewards, with publications in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals (which are usually read only by other social scientists) seen as somehow more valuable than publications in publicly accessible (and more widely read) formats (Mullings, 2015) and with grant funding opportunities far more attainable for those whose work is seen as “scientific” or “theoretical” than for those whose projects are deemed “humanistic” or “applied.” These disparities not only influence intangible incentives like respect and status, but often also govern promotion and tenure outcomes; for junior scholars who hope to keep their hard-won jobs, such institutional norms constitute very real barriers to engagement (Low and Merry, 2010). The institutional focus on such deliverables can lead anthropologists studying activism to inadvertently feed into neoliberal models wherein privileged individuals study and attempt to understand the “other” and propose “solutions” without any true means of engagement. Anthropologies of activism that remain divorced from activism in their conceptual formulation and informational dissemination face the risk of perpetuating the very inequities they seek to dissolve. While less common than subtle systemic denigration, institutional suppression of professors’ activist and advocacy work on controversial topics is not unheard of (see Arenson, 2005; Wylie, 2018: 269). Difficult decisions obliged by differential rewards are complicated by the finite nature of our time and energy. Because engaged research so often goes unrewarded within the academy and because we have been trained to think of activism as an activity distinct from scholarly research, many activist anthropologists report feeling that such work is “extra” or “overtime” (Kirsch, 2018: 8). Teaching and service requirements make the temporal commitments required of fully engaged activist work all but impossible and force academics to work on institutional schedules rather than those of the activists with whom they collaborate and support (Greenwood,

Introduction 11

2008). Even (and perhaps especially) in circles that have embraced anthropological engagement, these parameters have given rise to a troubling new phenomenon that Checker calls the “myth of the super-anthro”—the anthropologist who is able to remain publicly engaged while simultaneously publishing in scholarly journals, teaching, administering, and serving on committees. For most of us, the doubleduty, super-anthro model is not only impossible to sustain, but ultimately constrains our ability to create the changes we seek (Checker, 2014: 418). Simultaneously, anthropologists working on more explicitly applied or activist work often find that publications are a lower priority for their employers. As a result, they publish less. While there could and should be enormous synergy between anthropologists who work inside and outside of the academy, the differential reward dynamic encourages sustained separation. Even if we successfully balance diverse demands and duties in our own lives, communicating to audiences with disparate discourses, expectations, and information outlets poses numerous challenges for those hoping to fortify bridges between activist and anthropological worlds. Similar contrasts surround temporality and intention; do we value longue durée or urgency, indirect long-term implications or immediate attention, contemplation or reaction, speaking carefully to experts or rushing to tell the world (Merry, 2005; Davis, 2006; Neale, 2008)? Despite—or because of—these differences, human rights anthropologist Sally Engle Merry sees academia and activism as complementary, with “academic research provid[ing] the knowledge base for activism and activists defin[ing] the important and interesting problem for the researcher” (Merry, 2005: 254). But as activist anthropologists move between these two worlds— both in our fieldwork settings and in the messages we aim to impart—we struggle to achieve (and often fall short of) the ideal of disseminating activist anthropological findings in ways that uphold the standards set by our academic discipline and at the same time generating insights useful to those on the ground (Juris and Khasnabish, 2013a: 26). Writing separately for our academic and activist colleagues offers one pragmatic option (Neale, 2008). But for those of us committed to closing the anthropology/activism divide, this solution is only a stopgap. The pages that follow both echo these challenges and suggest new ways to surmount them. In the end, some of the greatest tribulations faced by activist anthropologists are profoundly personal ones. We sometimes feel fragmented or overwhelmed by the intensity of what we document and do. For those of us who approach our work as an integrated knowledge-production/difference-making project, balance between the academic and activist aspects of our professional lives is as elusive as “work-life” balance. Like other dual-citizens, we are compelled to constantly (re)consider where our primary loyalty lies and what our unique contributions to already “crowded fields” might be (Casas-Cortés, Osterweil, and Powell, 2013: 215). For many of us, our greatest worries are not rejected articles, declined grant proposals, or even lost jobs or legal repercussions; in our darkest moments, what we fear most is that we may not make much difference after all (see Checker, 2014; Schuller, 2014).

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This volume takes these challenges as motives. Together, we seek not merely to promote a broad anthropological acceptance of activism, but to cultivate a vibrant, cohesive, and truly transformational activist anthropology. Whether we change the world, change one small part of it, or stand difficult ground as “supportive interlocutors” (Juris and Khasnabish, 2013b: 368), we persist out of a sense of responsibility and a deep commitment to solidarity.

The Road (and Volume) Ahead Anthropology has important roles to play in bridging the divide between academic and activist worlds. First, the anthropological worldview makes some form of engagement difficult to avoid. Anthropology’s relativistic perspective and holistic approach, discussed above, is fertile breeding ground for empathy, which often inspires advocacy. This empathy is explicitly engaged through reflexive and often autobiographical accounts of ethnographic work, such as those that comprise this volume’s chapters. Second, contemporary anthropology is highly sensitive to issues of power and justice, including the political asymmetries that shape the cases we study and the personal positionalities and relationships that contour the contexts of our work. Anthropologists are well situated to speak truth to power and obligated by their ethnographic methods to strive to understand research participants’ diverse perspectives. In activist contexts, we can apply these methods to comprehend multiple sides of competing agendas (see Fitzpatrick, in this volume). The local knowledge that anthropologists contribute can inform a better understanding of activists’ motives, make sense of debates within and between social movements, and determine how disagreements can be successfully resolved. Third, it follows that activist anthropologists are propelled not only by abstract moral principles, but also by interpersonal expectations of reciprocity. Succeeding as ethnographers requires developing social relationships; our research subjects become our teachers, collaborators, and even friends. This—combined with the awareness that we, as researchers, benefit tremendously from these relationships—leaves many anthropologists with a strong desire to give back. In all of its forms, activism is an attractive option—sometimes the only real option—for repaying those who open their lives to us. Finally, anthropologists can present activists’ goals, together with their systemic inspirations and implications, to decision-makers in ways that promote effective policy and constructive change. From the foundational literature outlined above to Dana-Ain Davis’s “pracademic” bridging of theory and practice (2006: 230) and Barbara Rose Johnston’s responsible anthropological citizenship (2010), inspiring options for integrating anthropology and activism are within our reach. While we have many role models (including those whose words you are about to read), our roles are not fixed. As scholars, authors, and human beings, it is up to each of us to decide which combination of possibilities to pursue: Will we amplify local activists’ voices and legal arguments by producing reputable published work? Will we give readers a sense of “being there” (Juris and Khasnabish, 2013a: 3) and, in so doing, generate

Introduction 13

understanding and empathy? Will we use our skills—whatever they may be—to build capacity and support communities’ on-the-ground efforts? Will we find ways to take action even when we are physically distant from the people and causes we support (Desai, 2013)? Will we bear witness, knowing that, in the end, our stories are all we really have (Wylie, 2018)? Will we serve as translators between disparate discourses who carry messages to distant domains and participate in the co-creation of new conceptual worlds (Casas-Cortés, Osterweil, and Powell, 2013)? Will we envision promising new futures and promote alternative possibilities? Will we embrace the power of an anthropology confident that it can change the world (Collins, 2007)? What else will we do? We contend that there is no single ideal intersection of anthropology and activism, nor any perfect route through the ethical and conceptual mazes that energize the processes of research and reporting. Because activist researchers are directly engaged in the contexts that they study, Davydd Greenwood suggests, “activist research, if anything, has greater potential for meeting the standards for scientific knowledge creation than does conventional social science” (2008: 320). Engagement does not simply secure real-world benefits—it often also produces better research. By assembling a dozen concise, relatable chapters written by scholars at different career stages who employ various methodologies and tackle assorted research topics, Anthropology and Activism demonstrates by diverse example how activist anthropological research can be successfully navigated. Chapters explore not only how social movements emerge and operate, but also how ethical and professional obligations shift as we become more entwined in our research participants’ lives. They demonstrate how anthropology can develop into activism through its use of ethnographic methods and theory to empower research participants. And they consider ways to ensure ethics and integrity in anthropology and activism without forcing any individual to “be” either. This volume’s contributors are diverse in their research topics and years of experience. Together, they bear witness to increasing activist engagement within the field of anthropology; in an era of widely perceived ecological and political crisis, disinterested data collection increasingly appears to be a luxury that neither we nor the world can afford. While the topics covered in this book may appear specific and local at first glance, they have broad, global implications. Global trends suggest that the issues and forms of activism addressed in this volume will remain relevant for many years to come. Activism—like culture itself—is constantly changing rather than static and fixed. The wide-ranging implications of today’s ongoing struggles mean that far from becoming quickly dated or irrelevant, these case studies will serve as durable documentation of how such movements develop and change over time and space. Contributors also enter the conversation about anthropology and activism from several different angles. The authors featured in Part One conduct research on people and groups who are themselves activists. Here, observations and analyses of the inspirations and limitations that contour activists’ quests to build better worlds become springboards for contemplating researchers’ places in ever-changing social landscapes. In Chapter One, Richard Bargielski draws on his experience as a “native anthropologist” to demonstrate the utility of anthropological theory as an analytical

14 Anthropology and Activism

tool for residents of Ashtabula, Ohio seeking understanding of and compensation for toxic contamination. He presents an alternative vision for the causes and consequences of white working class political (in)action in the face of extreme environmental degradation. Driven by her own passion for non-GMO agriculture, Rebecka Daye (Chapter Two) examines the motives of anti-GMO activists and their ultimate achievement of a local ban. She posits Jackson County, Oregon’s successful GMO-free campaign as an example from which other activist movements can learn. Chapter Three sees Suzanne Morrissey and Olivia Hagmann explore the transformational role of a Portland, Oregon community-based activist organization in resisting the mainstreaming of acupuncture to unveil the relations of power in the acupuncture profession. Michael Still, the author of Chapter Four, considers how an environmental justice community in Chelsea, Massachusetts can engage with public health researchers, policymakers, and peers to create a space of equitable knowledge exchange and a perception of their area as empowered rather than merely afflicted. Scholars who contribute to Part Two enter the conversation by considering their own activism and its implications. In Chapter Five, Anna Willow asks why some people take action to protect threatened local environments and improve the world in which they live, while others in similar circumstances do not. On the way to tentative answers, she reflects on her own motives and limitations as an activist, as well as those of activists in three North American extraction zones. In Chapter Six, Eileen SmithCavros and Patricia Widener consider the complex role of citizen-activist anthropologists through a poignant and personal exploration of how their research on public resistance protests in southeastern Florida was informed by overlapping identities as residents, researchers, educators, and activists. Sarah Elizabeth Morrow, Elizabeth A. Winter, and Jodi A. Allison (Chapter Seven) describe their work with the US disability activist community in which they leveraged anthropological methods as a catalyst for reflexivity, self-efficacy, and ultimately activism among youth and adults living with disabilities. In the final chapter of the section, Elisabeth N. Moolenaar (Chapter Eight) traces her own journey over time from a disengaged “objective” researcher studying natural gas extraction-induced earthquakes in Groningen, Netherlands to an advocate and socially engaged actor. In Part Three, contributors explicitly contemplate anthropology and activism as interrelated ways of being in the world. First, Kelly Yotebieng (Chapter Nine) guides readers through a reflexive fieldwork narrative set in Yaoundé, Cameroon in which she ponders how—and if—her research could benefit research participants. She proposes ways in which anthropologists can ensure their “situated usefulness” in the diverse contexts of their research. In her exploration of anthropology’s contribution to broader arenas of activist engagement, Brenda Fitzpatrick (Chapter Ten) argues that combining ethnographic tools with a conflict transformation lens enriched both her ethnography and her relational and structural understanding of a conflict over a large hydroelectric dam in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. In Chapter Eleven, Mark Schuller takes us through his trials and tribulations in designing a course to build a “Communiversity” at Northern

Introduction 15

Illinois University. He argues that the top-down, neoliberal “bean-counting” performance measures employed by the university to assess student activist output are inappropriate. His chapter underlines how and why new metrics attuned to accountability and justice must be crafted. Lastly, in Chapter Twelve, Nolan Kline and his colleagues describe the juncture of their activist ethnographic research on immigrant rights, their academic positions, and their collaborative relationships with community-based organizations in and around Orlando, Florida. They argue for the importance of an activist anthropology capable of responding to pressing social and political problems. Moreover, they underscore how anthropological engagement itself can be a form of activism and consider ways in which activism and academic pursuits can be brought together in “pracademic” ways that benefit communitybased organizations and their causes. For those of us committed to making the world a better place, following Kay Warren’s recommendation to develop “new understandings of what makes good anthropology” (2006: 222) is an essential undertaking. The time is ripe to actively and explicitly deconstruct disciplinary assumptions and standards that perpetuate the problematic separation and hierarchy of academic and engaged anthropologies. Far more than another discursive shift, active anthropological engagement is “an opportunity to mobilize the discipline to work toward achieving a more ethical world” (Kirsch, 2018: 230). As each of us are able, it is up to us to push the boundaries of what qualifies as “good” work, by convincing departments, granting agencies, publishers, and (perhaps most importantly) ourselves that doing good anthropology in the 21st century means much more than pleasing peers and amassing knowledge. It is up to us to redefine what “success” means. This may require lengthening our timeframes (Speed, 2006) and accepting that processes can be as important as products (Johnston, 2010). And it could mean staunchly defending colleagues and students who value addressing injustice, halting destruction, and alleviating suffering more highly than advancing their own careers. Leading by example, the contributors to this volume demonstrate what the “good anthropology” of an uncertain new era will look like. Going forward, the question of whether one is an anthropologist or an activist will be less relevant as the broad spectrum of overlaps becomes increasingly clear. The work that we do to understand the world and the work that we do to change it are not separable projects (Routledge, 2013; see also Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2009). As we move from anthropology to activism and back again, we come to appreciate that the social change campaigns that shape the circumstances that we study and the disciplinary departments where we receive our training or do our teaching are parts of the same complex and interconnected whole.

References American Anthropological Association. 2012. “AAA Statement on Ethics.” www.americananthro. org/LearnAndTeach/Content.aspx?ItemNumber=22869 (accessed November 26, 2018). Anderson, E.N. 1972. “The Life and Culture of Ecotopia.” In Reinventing Anthropology, edited by Dell Hymes: 264–283. New York: Pantheon Books.

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Apoifis, Nicholas. 2017. Anarchy in Athens: An Ethnography of Militancy, Emotions and Violence. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Arenson, Karen W. 2005. “When Scholarship and Politics Collided at Yale.” New York Times, December 28. www.nytimes.com/2005/12/28/nyregion/when-scholarship-and-p olitics-collided-at-yale.html (accessed August 8, 2019). Baker, Lee D. 1994. “The Location of Franz Boas within the African-American Struggle.” Critique of Anthropology, 14 (2): 199–217. Casas-Cortés, Maribel, Michal Osterweil, and Dana E.Powell. 2013. “Transformation in Engaged Ethnography: Knowledge, Networks, and Social Movements.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey S.Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 199–228. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Chari, Sharad and Henrike Donner. 2010. “Ethnographies of Activism: A Critical Introduction.” Cultural Dynamics, 22(2): 75–85. Checker, Melissa and Maggie Fishman. 2004. “Introduction.” In Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America, edited by Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman: 1–25. New York: Columbia University Press. Checker, Melissa. 2014. “Anthropological Superheroes and the Consequences of Activist Ethnography.” American Anthropologist, 116(2): 416–420. Checker, Melissa, Dána‐Ain Davis, and Mark Schuller. 2014. “The Conflicts of Crisis: Critical Reflections on Feminist Ethnography and Anthropological Activism.” American Anthropologist, 116(2): 408–409. Collins, Samuel Gerald. 2007. All Tomorrow’s Cultures: Anthropological Engagements with the Future. New York: Berghahn Books. D’andrade, Roy. 1995. “Moral Models in Anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 36(3): 399–408. Davis, Dana-Ain. 2006. “Knowledge in the Service of a Vision: Politically Engaged Anthropology.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 228–238. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Desai, Manisha. 2013. “The Possibilities and Perils for Scholar-Activists and Activist-Scholars.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey S.Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 89–107. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Fredlund, J., and Fiaveh, D.Y. 2019. “Activist Anthropologist Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison.” Anthropology News, August 7. www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2019/08/ 07/activist-anthropologist-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison/?fbclid=IwAR2uIyJlBuZOAr ylOLyoiTac_45Sx1agOjqB8gtYfSdDIFPWLrNraWqG4zA (accessed November 13, 2019). Gibson-Graham, J.K. and Gerda Roelvink. 2009. “An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene.” Antipode, 41(S1): 320–346. Ginsburg, Faye. 2004. “Foreword.” In Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America, edited by Melissa Checker and Maggie Fishman: ix–xvii. New York: Columbia University Press. Graeber, David. 2009. Direct Action: An Ethnography. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Greenwood, Davydd J. 2008. “Theoretical Research, Applied Research, and Action Research: The Deinstitutionalization of Activist Research.” In Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship, edited by Charles Hale: 319–340. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hale, Charles R. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120. Hale, Charles. 2008. “Introduction.” In Engaging Contradictions: Theory, Politics, and Methods of Activist Scholarship, edited by Charles Hale: 1–28. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Harrison, Faye V. 2010. “Anthropology as an Agent of Transformation: Introductory Comments and Queries.” In Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further Toward an

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Anthropology for Liberation, Third Edition, edited by Faye V. Harrison: 1–15. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association. Hastrup, Kirsten and Peter Elsass. 1990. “Anthropological Advocacy: A Contradiction in Terms?” Current Anthropology, 31(3): 301–308. Hemment, Julie. 2007. “Public Anthropology and the Paradoxes of Participation: Participatory Action Research and Critical Ethnography in Provincial Russia”. Human Organization, 66(3): 301–314. Hymes, Dell. 1972. “The Use of Anthropology: Critical, Political, Personal.” In Reinventing Anthropology, edited by Dell Hymes: 3–79. New York: Pantheon Books. Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2008. “From the Associate Editor for Practicing Anthropology.” American Anthropologist, 110(2): 172. Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2010. “Social Responsibility and the Anthropological Citizen.” Current Anthropology, 51(S2): S235–S247. Juris, Jeffrey S. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Juris, Jeffrey S. and Alex Khasnabish. 2013a. “Ethnography and Activism within Networked Spaces of Transnational Encounter.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey S.Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 1–36. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Juris, Jeffrey S. and Alex Khasnabish. 2013b. “The Possibilities, Limits, and Relevance of Engaged Ethnography.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited Jeffrey S. Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 367–390. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Karooma, Cleophas. 2019. “Research Fatigue Among Rwandan Refugees in Uganda.” Forced Migration Review, 61: 18–19. Khasnabish, Alex and Max Haiven. 2014. The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity. London: Zed Books. Kirsch, Stuart. 2002. “Anthropology and Advocacy: A Case Study of the Campaign against the Ok Tedi Mine.” Critique of Anthropology, 22(2): 175–200. Kirsch, Stuart. 2018. Engaged Anthropology: Politics Beyond the Text. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kleinman, Arthur, Veena Das, and Margaret Lock. 1997. Social Suffering. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lassiter, Luke E. 2005. The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, Herbert S. 2001. “The Passion of Franz Boas.” American Anthropologist, 103(2): 447–467. Low, Setha M. and Sally Engle Merry et al. 2010. “Engaged Anthropology: Diversity and Dilemmas: An Introduction to Supplement 2.” Current Anthropology, 51(S2): S203–S226. Maeckelbergh, Marianne. 2009. The Will of the Many: How the Alterglobalisation Movement is Changing the Face of Democracy. London: Pluto Press. Malinowski, Bronislaw. 2013 [1922]. Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. New York: Routledge. Merry, Sally Engle. 2005. “Anthropology and Activism: Researching Human Rights AcrossPorous Boundaries.” PoLAR, 28(2): 240–257. Milton, Kay. 1993. “Introduction.” In Environmentalism: The View from Anthropology, edited by Kay Milton: 1–17. London: Routledge. Mullings, Leith. 2015. “Anthropology Matters.” American Anthropologist, 117(1): 4–16. Nader, Laura. 1972. “Up the Anthropologist—Perspectives Gained from Studying Up.” In Reinventing Anthropology, edited by Dell Hymes: 284–311. New York: Pantheon Books.

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Neale, Jonathan. 2008. “Ranting and Silence: The Contradictions of Writing for Activists and Academics.” In Taking Sides: Ethics, Politics and Fieldwork in Anthropology, edited by Heidi Armbruster and Anna Lærke: 217–255. New York: Berghahn Books. Price, David H. 2004. Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI’s Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Price, David H. 2008. Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Routledge, Paul. 2013. “Activist Ethnography and Translocal Solidarity.” In Insurgent Encounters: Transnational Activism, Ethnography, and the Political, edited by Jeffrey S. Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 250–268. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1995. “The Primacy of the Ethical: Propositions for a Militant Anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 36(3): 409–420. Scholte, Bob. 1972. “Toward a Reflexive and Critical Anthropology.” In Reinventing Anthropology, edited by Dell Hymes: 430–457. New York: Pantheon Books. Schuller, Mark. 2014. “Being an Insider Without: Activist Anthropological Engagement in Haiti after the Earthquake.” American Anthropologist, 116(2): 409–412. Shukaitis, Stevphen and David Graeber, eds. 2007. Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations, Collective Theorization. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Singer, Merrill and Hans Baer. 1995. Critical Medical Anthropology. Amityville, New York: Baywood Publishing Co. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 2013. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books. Speed, Shannon. 2006. “At the Crossroads of Human Rights and Anthropology: Toward a Critically Engaged Activist Research.” American Anthropologist, 108(1): 66–76. Tax, Sol. 1975. “Action Anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 1(4): 514–517. Team Colors Collective. 2010. Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States. Oakland, CA: AK Press. Warren, Kay B. 2006. “Perils and Promises of Engaged Anthropology: Historical Transitions and Ethnographic Dilemma.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 213–227. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Wilkinson, Iain and Arthur Kleinman. 2015. A Passion for Society: How We Think About Human Suffering. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Wylie, Sara Ann. 2018. Fractivism: Corporate Bodies and Chemical Bonds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

PART I

Anthropology OF Activism

1 ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE IN WHITE WORKING CLASS COMMUNITIES A Chemosocial Perspective Richard Bargielski

In 1970 the United States employed some 18 million workers in manufacturing, comprising a third of its working population. Midwestern states including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan were global hubs for extracting resources, processing them into goods, and eliminating their wastes. Their cities and towns were bustling centers of family life and labor union politics. Today, the number of manufacturing employees in the United States stands at a mere ten million—a loss of eight million, with five million of those losses coming since 2000 (Smil, 2013). The hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs led to a decline in social capital and civic engagement in the part of the USA known as the “Rust Belt.” Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in the sharp shift of the US Midwest away from progressive politics and toward a politics of resentment. In 2016 a series of global elections, culminating with the US presidential election in which Donald J. Trump narrowly won the electoral college (despite losing the popular vote), thrust deindustrialization to the forefront of our collective political conscious (Gusterson, 2017). Much of the national conversation has focused on the supposed role played by a group known as the “white working class”—a loosely defined category of people who generally lack a college education and work for an hourly wage rather than a salary (Walley, 2017)—in advancing populist politics. While anthropologists have begun to make significant contributions to the study of groups opposing these changes (see Kline et al. and Smith-Cavros and Widener in this volume), there has been comparatively little attention paid to the values and attitudes that underlie the conservative activists and voters who propelled leaders like Boris Johnson (the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom) and Trump to power. A common narrative has emerged that this group is experiencing a “culture in crisis,” (Vance, 2016) in which traditional values are incompatible with modern realities like globalization and deindustrialization. In the face of economic and cultural transformation, white Americans have indeed experienced increases in morbidity and mortality,

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especially related to drug abuse and suicide (Case and Deaton, 2015; 2017). The story goes that working class whites, distressed by the loss of their communities, are driven to their own doom by seeking to numb the pain somehow, whether through biochemical or geopolitical means. This conversation has taken on increasing importance as activists and politicians on the left debate whether to try to reclaim these voters or abandon them forever. Without anthropological voices contributing to this debate, the conversation about how and why the US white working class manages their social suffering has become dominated by stereotyping and agenda promotion. Recently, in their introduction to a special section of American Anthropologist titled “The Anthropology of White Supremacy,” Aisha Belisio-De Jesús and Jemima Pierre (2019) noted that the Anthropocene is just one area of anthropology where scholars have failed to engage critical theories of race. It is not enough for anthropologists to simply collaborate with groups who share our values. If we desire to affect meaningful change that will improve people’s lives, it is first necessary for us to go into the weeds and conduct ethnographies of people with whom we may not necessarily agree—or even like. I want to believe that there is a space for thinking anthropologically about white working class political ecologies. Our popular narrative about the impacts globalization and deindustrialization have had on non-college educated whites glosses over several decades of abuse imprinted on Midwestern bodies and landscapes. The story of Midwestern decline is tied up in place, with the Appalachian Mountains to the East supplying coal, the iron mines of the Great Lakes to the North supplying iron ore, and the Great Plains to the West and metropolises of the Northeast gobbling it all up. That unique geography led to the strategic placement of economic firms which exploited resources, technologies, and populations (Kern and Wilson, 2014; Feather, 2017). As deindustrialization progressed throughout the Midwest, the departure of extractive and manufacturing industries left behind entire communities once built on their foundation. This is an important and often overlooked part of our narrative on the white working class, and it deserves more attention. How were white Midwestern bodies treated as disposable, both during and after the heyday of US manufacturing? Why did the new politics of white racial resentment happen to emerge in the same places where economic decline was most acute? As anthropologists seek to expand our role outside of academia and into the public and activist spheres, these are important questions with which we must contend. In order to understand how activism manifests, it is necessary to examine it in all places and forms. Here, I suggest that the concept of chemosociality, or how we become through chemical interactions, is among anthropology’s key contributions to understanding the white working class (Shapiro and Kirksey, 2017). The social suffering wrought by deindustrialization is not merely seen as a decline in paycheck; it is also embodied through illnesses, injuries, and emotions. To understand suffering, we must understand how humans and industrial chemicals have combined to form an Anthropocene where working class whites are cast out and forgotten, relegated to Midwestern blasted landscapes (Kirksey, Shapiro, and Brodine, 2013). This chapter adopts chemo-ethnography as a framework for examining the lived experiences of

Anthropology OF Activism 23

white working class people in Ashtabula, Ohio. I examine the impact of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (also known as CERCLA or Superfund) on the politics of deindustrialization in Ashtabula. CERCLA was passed by the United States Congress in 1980 following the Love Canal environmental disaster in Niagara Falls, New York, and immediately transformed Ashtabula as five sites around the county were placed on the National Priorities List (NPL) for cleanup under the legislation. Most prominent among these is Fields Brook, a stream in the northern part of Ashtabula County that was surrounded by more than 20 different industrial facilities. I argue that the impacts of the contaminants on human and environmental health are an important and often overlooked part of the feelings of resentment attributed to rural white America. The novel chemosocialities that emerge from human interactions with chemicals have given rise to a form of environmental justice activism that is unique to white working class Americans. While environmental justice is usually examined in communities of color and is seen as being a domain of socially liberal politics, the environmental injustices that occurred in Ashtabula County produced a different range of strategies, coalitions, and ideals. These novel assemblages transcend political boundaries, and proponents of environmental justice remain split to this day over whether the Superfund designation was helpful or harmful. Human-chemical interactions, such as chemical reactions themselves, produce emergent phenomena and novel material conditions to which anthropologists seeking to understand post-industrial political upheaval must pay attention. While this chapter will not discuss the full origins and impacts of white nationalist sentiments, it will hopefully shed light on how those movements come to be normalized and destigmatized. Furthermore, it is important to note that I hold a personal stake in this matter. I grew up in Ashtabula Township, two miles from the chemical industrial complex that produced Fields Brook Superfund Site and less than a mile from the facility where the dredged soils and all of their contaminants were incinerated. I can vividly recall walking to the school bus stop as a child, taking in the smells of ash and rotten eggs upwind. Since the 2016 election I have been disappointed to hear many of my liberal colleagues—including many in anthropology—criticizing the people, places, and lifeways I grew up among. The current characterization of rural America as a “culture in crisis,” irredeemably racist and conservative, is an injustice against my hard-working, progressive-minded friends and family who are actively working to make a difference in their communities. It also fails to acknowledge and address the anxieties and challenges that arose from deindustrialization, possibilizing the synthesis of nationalism and populism. To be clear, I am not suggesting that populist conservatism is solely a product of economic anxiety. Contrarily, I am suggesting that white racial identity is inseparable from such feelings of economic anxiety, coupled with the industrial legacy of the Midwest. To this end, it is necessary to understand how the political economy of industry gave shape to white racial identity in the United States.

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Who is the “White Working Class”? The theoretically problematic nature of defining a white working class demands anthropological attention. Ethnographic insights into the formulation of class and ethnic identities subsumed under the category “white” are vital to producing a more vibrant portrait of the lives that occupy this group. The historical division between sociology and anthropology as the respective studies of “self” and “other” has meant that the former has been the hub of scholarship on whiteness and class. Anthropological attention to the white working class has been limited in both breadth and scope, with works such as Sherry Ortner’s New Jersey Dreaming (2003) among the most prominent investigations of culture and class among US whites. However, the ethnography only briefly explores racial identity, instead focusing on conceptions of upward mobility and class. The thinness of anthropological literature on white working class political activism is a shortcoming in our discipline that must be corrected. In Tobacco Capitalism, Peter Benson (2011) coins the term “plighted citizenship” to describe the affective, resentful acts that white Americans take to express discontent with their modern government. Plighted citizenship refers to political action borne out of a feeling that one has been a victim of injustice. Other anthropologists including Willow (2014) and Westermeyer (2016) have suggested that white working class activisms are a product of the growing reach of neoliberalism that render them newly precarious. Anthropological engagement with whiteness can expand our understanding of the white working class by revealing how lived experiences of race, class, and power shape our engagements with the world. In light of recent global political events, there is indeed a space for anthropologists of activism to begin to engage with activisms with which we may not necessarily agree. The white working class is a social category used to describe workers who make an hourly wage and lack a college degree. This stands in contrast to workers in the middle or professional classes, who are better educated and were historically salaried. The difference has also long been one of productivity: many members of the working class, particularly those in manufacturing, work with commodities, while the professional classes manage ideas or capital. Members of the white working class in the US Midwest are the descendants of European immigrants from nations including Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Poland, and Norway. Most of these migrants arrived in the Northeastern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many, especially from northern European countries, initially settled in mining towns throughout Appalachia, where jobs in the coalmines provided upward mobility for the new migrants. Coal experienced a bust period following the Great Depression from which it never fully recovered as new technologies allowed it to be replaced by oil and natural gas. Insecure once again, some traveled north to states such as Ohio and Michigan, where they found work in the burgeoning factories (Feather, 1998). Settlements frequently created ethnic enclaves of people with similar backgrounds living and working closely. However, whiteness as a category is vague, and so the white working class also includes people of national origins other than those that I mentioned. I will return to this point in a moment.

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The white working class looms in the American imaginary as the picture-perfect representation of the American Dream. It is often mentioned, but seldom defined. Economists and pollsters who remain attuned to electoral politics have dominated the conversation, all but ensuring a limited scope of whom or what constitutes the white working class. Since the New Deal in the 1930s and the advent of organized labor, the national Democratic Party has made working class whites a pillar of its base of support. Following the 2016 Presidential election there has been an almost unending stream of punditry about how best to “win back” those voters. Thus, there is renewed and ongoing concern with white working class people insofar as they are viewed as fundamental instruments for levers of political power (Kline and Vickers, in this volume). The white working class refers to a triadic status of racial, economic, and political citizenship. However, the role of each is vaguely defined and elides historical and modern social realities. First, regarding race, the white working class is a category that homogenizes groups of people from diverse geographic backgrounds without regard to their unique values and experiences. The purpose of establishing white identity in the United States, according to historian Grace Elizabeth Hale (1995), was to formulate political coalitions that could continue to advance a segregationist agenda. This is reflected in the history of the national Democratic Party as a predominately southern enterprise in the early 20th century. The ascent of race, especially whiteness, in substitution for ethnicity as a marker for identity among European migrants is a problematic construction that substitutes an identity based on heritage for one based on racial supremacy. New migrants were absorbed into the white political majority through this mechanism in an effort to consolidate political power among segregationists. Whiteness, then, exists as a social construct rather than a biological one. “Working class” has historically denoted workers who lack a college degree, earn an hourly wage, and produced commodities with their labor. However, the term is increasingly inappropriate, given modern economic realities, if it ever really did describe many of these jobs to begin with (Walley, 2017). For instance, many workers with college degrees now work in jobs that pay an hourly wage, especially those who are unable to find positions that utilize their specific skill sets. By comparison, many manufacturing sector workers, especially those who have been union members, earn wages that rival that of their college educated peers. In one factory examined for this research, the starting wage is $30 per hour, with some long-term employees making as much as $250,000 annually at the time of retirement. Such wages are typically associated with the professional class. Moreover, the growth in service sector employment means that many people with college degrees now face the same insecurity as their less educated counterparts. Furthermore, to reiterate an earlier point, the category “white working class” is a political construction, and hence it is assumed that members of the category will vote together. These simultaneous homogenizations of racial, class, and political identity make problematic narratives such as the one this chapter argues against possible.

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A Chemo-Ethnography of Fields Brook Superfund Site An anthropological investigation of the white working class begins with the embodied. The white working class was initially identified as a political category designed to unite people of disparate geographic and historical backgrounds into a common coalition. Political associations were thus based on conjoined monolithic ideations of race and class. The idea that class should be a fundamental marker of identity suggests that in order to understand the white working class, anthropologists must attune themselves to the commodities that structured economic life. These would be the industrial products that were extracted and manufactured in factories and plants across the Midwestern states. In recent years, anthropologists have increasingly turned their attention to what I call more-than-human pursuits. These are commonly subsumed under the categories of either posthumanism or multispecies ethnography. Based on the works of Bruno Latour (2005), Donna Haraway (2007), Gilles Deleuze, and Felix Guattari (Ogden et al., 2013), more-than-human anthropology posits that nonhuman actors have fundamental roles to play in human social life. Nicholas Shapiro and Eben Kirksey (2017) take this a step further, coining the terms chemosociality and chemo-ethnography to describe more-than-human anthropologies that focus on interactions between humans and chemicals. Derived from Paul Rabinow’s biosociality (1996), chemosociality complicates nature-culture dualisms by investigating how humans enculturate nature through chemicals, and vice versa. Chemo-ethnography, then, is a mode of ethnographic inquiry that attends to the relationships between humans and chemicals. The remainder of this chapter demonstrates the relevance of chemosociality using an ethnographic case study from Ashtabula County, Ohio. I have spent the past four years researching what people know about environmental problems in their community and the ways in which they respond as a result of what they know (or think they know). When I began my research in Ashtabula County in 2014, I was initially interested in a budding group of environmental justice activists who called themselves The Vincina Protocol Project. This group was founded and led by a local resident named Mike, whose wife, Vincina, had died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease); Mike and several other area residents believed that industrial contamination of water had caused a so-called cluster of ALS cases in Ashtabula County. Initially, I was interested in the source of this contamination narrative: How did people in my hometown come to understand the prevalence of supposedly unexplainable illnesses that seemed more common than in most places? Over time, I learned that many of the older residents who were active in this group drew this information from long-lost contamination narratives that I, as a young resident of Ashtabula, had never heard before. As I completed my Master’s thesis on the subject, I was stunned to learn that I had been sheltered from many harsh realities. For example, I realized that the neighborhood where my own childhood home was located had been re-zoned as industrial a few years after my parents purchased it, meaning that

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regulations governing noise and air pollution were more relaxed than other places in Ashtabula. Surprised by this finding, I eventually learned that this was related to the cleanup of a major Superfund Site in my own community. The United States Congress passed CERCLA, which created the Superfund Program, in 1980. The program’s goal was to rehabilitate and manage properties where chemical wastes had been improperly disposed or managed, creating risks to human and nonhuman ecological health. Properties placed on the NPL were the principle targets of enforcement, spawning new financial and ecological regimes governing water, soil, and toxicity in industrialized communities. My chemo-ethnography came to focus on the Fields Brook Superfund Site, which is located in northern Ashtabula County. Fields Brook spans two communities, Ashtabula Township and the City of Ashtabula, through a 6-square-mile watershed that empties into the Ashtabula River and subsequently Lake Erie. Declared a Superfund Site by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1986, Fields Brook has had a profound impact on the bodies and culture of Ashtabula. The experiences of contamination residents encountered when they lived or worked near Fields Brook have shaped their attitudes and perceptions even after some moved away. It also served as the historical foundation for memories of contamination that influenced past and present beliefs and collective actions alike in Ashtabula. The fortuitous intersection of Lake Erie and Appalachia centered Ashtabula along the routes of iron ore and coal that powered America’s steel industry. Ashtabula Harbor has been called “the world’s greatest iron ore receiving port,” taking in more iron ore for many years in the late 1800s and early 1900s than any other port in the nation (Feather, 2017). Steel manufacturing routes held significance during World War II when cities like Youngstown and Pittsburgh relied on middle ports like Ashtabula to move goods along economic routes. In Nature’s Metropolis, William Cronon (1991) points out that small communities like Ashtabula were instrumental in extracting, manufacturing, and supplying the resources that promoted urban growth of cities like Chicago. The industrialization of Ashtabula continued after World War II, undergoing several transformations. As industrial chemistry took hold of American life, so too did it take root in Ashtabula. A study conducted by industrial social psychologists in 1984 on behalf of several chemical industries and the state of California profiled what it called the “least-resistant personality”: Southern or Midwestern; rural; low rates of college education; below-average household income; high rates of practicing Catholicism; large percent of population over 65; and an economic base that is based around extractive industries such as mining or agriculture (Powell, 1984). Communities with diverse European immigrant populations such as Ashtabula fit this description: Many first- or second-generation workers sought a better life and were not prone to protest industrial development. Factionalism among immigrant communities in the forms of church and neighborhood segregation further contributed to a lack of social organization against industrial risk. Fields Brook Superfund Site was the product of contamination by 19 different industrial and chemical facilities. Fourteen facilities accepted responsibility for the cleanup and formed the Fields Brook Working Group to plan and fund the

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cleanup and monitoring of the Superfund Site. A rancid cocktail of chemicals were found in the water and soil of Fields Brook: polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury, lead, chlorine, and even radioactive wastes such as uranium and radium (US Environmental Protection Agency, 2018). The remainder of this chapter presents the history of how Ashtabula’s residents first learned about Fields Brook through their experience with depleted uranium—a radioactive chemical compound stored and used at one of the facilities that was responsible for the Superfund.

Nuclear Knowledge: Depleted Uranium and the Origins of Fields Brook Superfund Site Depleted uranium is a natural by-product of uranium enrichment, which produces the radioactive isotope that we commonly conjure up when we hear the word uranium. Enriched uranium contains high levels of the uranium isotope U-235—a fissile isotope useful in producing nuclear energy. Depleted uranium is composed primarily of U-238, a much more stable compound, but still contains trace amounts of U-235. Before the Cold War, depleted uranium was stored and disposed of as a waste material; however, upon the revelation in the 1960s that the Soviets had developed bullet-resistant armor, the US Army launched a series of materials tests and found that depleted uranium was an ideal material from which to produce armor-piercing bullets (US Department of Veterans Affairs, 2018).

FIGURE 1.1

Fields Brook near its confluence with the Ashtabula River. Railroads, seen above the brook, were a major source of pollution. Photo by Ryan Cook

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In Ashtabula, Reactive Metals Incorporated (RMI) was contracted in 1962 as one of the nation’s leading producers of depleted uranium. The facility had already owned and operated two plants for three decades: A titanium plant and a sodium plant. A third plant was located in Youngstown, Ohio, about an hour to the south. The introduction of a uranium extrusion plant created plentiful well-paid jobs in the community. However, it also led to controversies. RMI operated secretively, with many employees kept in the dark about the materials with which they worked. One plant nurse whom I interviewed recounted her horror when she began working at RMI: “I worked at Elkem prior to coming to RMI, and when I was there, all of the nurses were trained to understand the facility, the compounds, the machines… that way, if someone was injured, we would understand how and what had happened and we could treat them safely and properly. When I started at RMI, there was no floor tour. I asked about employee health records, and was told that that was off limits. The files were held in a padlocked file cabinet that only the plant managers had access to. When I asked an older nurse why things were like that, she told me simply: Nobody gets out of here without cancer.” This nurse left RMI within three weeks, refusing to be complicit in what she saw as a dangerously secretive work environment. This small act of resistance is significant in showing the discomfort that RMI’s own employees had with the lack of information they were given about potential risks. Such small acts, I am told, were uncommon, but those who took them began to spread concern among community members, slowly accumulating a critical mass of concern. The tales of cancer coming from within and around RMI are prominent legends in Ashtabula. In seeking informants for my research, I spoke with many people who told me that their parents had worked there at one point, but since died of cancer. The growing concerns about RMI eventually erupted into several protests. Because I was born after these protests, my accounts of them come from more than 80 interviews with community activists, residents, workers, and elected officials, as well as several written, published accounts. A first wave of protests began in summer 1978. One resident from the neighborhood downstream from RMI, Gary Zalimeni, had heard recently from a neighbor about RMI’s actions and asked an unpopular question: “Are you aware of a facility in this area that handles radioactive materials?” Zalimeni asked, to which a councilman who had once worked at RMI replied “yes.” “Everything changed when Gary Zalimeni raised Hell,” said one local water activist named Ann who had been present. The details of Zalimeni’s involvement in Fields Brook protests are found in detail in a 2015 blog that he published on the subject (Zalimeni, 2015). Zalimeni commissioned soil tests following the meeting as a way to challenge state assertions that the contamination measured was not great enough to cause human harm. The results of the citizen soil tests showed otherwise. Feeling shut out and silenced, he and his neighbors used the findings of the soil test to gain media attention from news outlets in Cleveland, Ohio, drawing wider attention to the Superfund Site. Zalimeni’s willingness to put RMI’s

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conduct out in the open was a watershed moment: prior to that point, no employees of RMI had publicly acknowledged that the facility worked with radioactive materials. To this day, many employees whom I interviewed insisted themselves that they had no such knowledge. RMI itself refused to talk publicly about its nuclear operations until the EPA’s eventual declaration of Fields Brook Superfund Site in 1986. The second protest occurred in July 1983, three years after the EPA Superfund program had been created. In 1983 Fields Brook had not yet been declared a Superfund Site, but four other properties in Ashtabula County had been added to the NPL: Big D Campground, Laskin-Poplar Oil Company, New Lyme Landfill, and Old Mill Fertilizer and Feed. As stories like those of the aforementioned nurse spread throughout the community via word of mouth, more residents began to learn the truth about RMI and took it upon themselves to do something. In her memoir, Mosaic and Memory, nationally known anti-nuclear activist Bea Silverberg (2018) described meeting with two RMI employees who showed physical signs of radiation poisoning: “We were huddled over a corner table at McDonald’s after a prearranged meeting in the parking lot. It was 1983; Dr. Bob and I from the Ashtabula Peace Council were listening to two workers from the Reactive Metals Inc. (RMI) Extrusion Plant relate their grueling story… But the thing that riveted Bob’s and my attention was their skin, on both their faces and arms. It was GREY-BLUE in color and looked like the texture of hard leather. Each man had worked more than fifteen years at the Ashtabula RMI plant which processed and extruded uranium hexafluoride into radioactive ingots for use in nuclear weapons. The workers’ health problems had surfaced after being in the plant more than ten years and had never been diagnosed nor treated to give them any relief for their symptoms. The ailments, neurological and organic, were severe enough for them to have to stop work, and they were enduring great stress, weakness, and pain. The company denied any responsibility for their condition, and to their knowledge, other workers in the plant were not being screened for possible health effects of the industrial radioactive environment. The two workers and the wife spoke in hushed voices, reminding us that by telling their stories, they were at great risk of being punished by the company which was still paying minimum benefits” (Silverberg, 2018: 83). Following this meeting, Silverberg organized a protest of the Ashtabula Peace Council, a local group of anti-war activists, at RMI. On July 16, 1983—38 years to the day after the test detonation of the first atomic bomb—more than 100 residents marched on RMI both to protest its existence and educate members of the community about what was really going on behind the factory gates. They held signs and released black balloons bearing the message, “Freeze Nuclear Weapons production here at RMI and Everywhere!” One informant named Isaac, who was a young boy at the time of the protests, spoke fondly of his memories of the day: “It had such an impact on me and how I view environmental justice and peace, and it helped turn me into the activist I am today.” Silverberg was then 100 years old, but I

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had the opportunity to interview her about that day. One thing that stood out to her was the fact that many plant employees came outside to engage with them, separated by the fence: “They stood there and shouted at us to go home. I also noticed one man, in the back, who was not saying anything but he was taking pictures.” Years later, in 1995, an acquaintance of Bea and Isaac’s named Jane worked at RMI as an EPA librarian. It was Jane who discovered what had become of the photos: “It was my job to sort through all of the EPA records for the company. One day, while sorting a filing cabinet, I came across a series of photos of the 1983 protests. I quickly realized that I recognized several faces: there were my friends, staring back at me. The company had printed and kept their photos after nearly a decade. It was, to put it mildly, really creepy.” The concern about RMI and the contamination of Fields Brook peaked in 1986—the year that Fields Brook was officially listed on the NPL. In 1987 the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) conducted a study of cancer in the area, which concluded that there was as much as 100 times the expected prevalence of cancer in the community. However, according to the ODH, it was impossible to conclude that this was a result of contamination from RMI. The reasons given ranged from the assumption that most residents were of low socioeconomic status and would therefore have corresponding lifestyles that made them susceptible to cancer, to the possibility that such an ethnic enclave could share genetic predispositions (Indian and Hundley, 1987). Eventually, concerns about Fields Brook attracted the attention of international environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, prompting a third wave of protests. Within a few months, many residents had heard about the findings of the citizen-commissioned soil sample, which had found radionuclide contaminant levels to be as much as several hundred parts per million higher than was permissible under then-current environmental law. One local resident, William “Red” Leonard, helped make Greenpeace aware of Fields Brook Superfund Site and organized a local protest. In spring 1988 Greenpeace sailed into the Ashtabula Harbor on a ship, took to shore, and quickly moved toward RMI’s extrusion plant. On their way, Greenpeace activists planted black flags with skull-and-crossbones images in the yards of every household where someone had died of cancer—at least 40 homes in total, according to Zalimeni’s blog. Once they made their way to the industrial complex, the activists donned hazmat suits and entered Fields Brook, where they placed a large wooden board bearing the Greenpeace emblem over a drainage pipe that sent waste water from RMI into the Brook. This act of protest quickly attracted attention, as the blockage swiftly caused a backup of contaminated water within the extrusion plant. RMI employees and managers went to the site of the blockage, demanding that the activists leave. When they refused, the Ashtabula County Sherriff’s Department was called to arrest the activists. Local environmental lawyers offered legal counsel to some of the activists. A few were arrested, but none were ultimately charged.

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Conclusion: Towards a Chemo-Ethnography of Environmental Learning The story of how Fields Brook came to be known in Ashtabula illustrates the importance of chemosociality in studying environmental justice activism. For anthropologists to sufficiently study white working class identity populism as a new cultural formation, we must be attentive to populations historically underrepresented in our ethnographies and our own social circles. RMI was among the most secretive companies in Ashtabula, to the point that even contracted employees and nurses were unaware of the materials and compounds being handled within. The accumulation of first-hand chemosocial encounters over time eventually produced a critical mass of outspoken residents who were willing to fight against the continued existence of RMI and its contamination of Fields Brook. Employees such as the nurse whom I interviewed and the two men whom Bea met in 1983 were instrumental in making outsiders aware of what they had previously been forbidden to speak of. In turn, the Ashtabula Peace Council spread this information, where it eventually landed in the hands of outspoken residents like Zalimeni and Leonard, who in turn prompted their own protests. Eventually, under the Great Lakes Legacy Act, a plan was put forth to clean up Fields Brook, the Ashtabula River, and Lake Erie. Today, these bodies of water have been rehabilitated to a point, but many locals still harbor great mistrust of corporations and the government alike. Because RMI was contracted with the US Department of Energy, many informants with whom I spoke perceived the cleanup as an “inside job,” in which money was ultimately funneled back into the pockets of the polluters. Moreover, there is still a significant blackout of information related to RMI’s role in Fields Brook. When the company reached a settlement with the EPA for the cleanup, they were not required to claim direct fault, being listed as only a “Potentially Responsible Party.” In one interview with an employee of Demaximis, an environmental engineering and services firm that handles the continued management of the Superfund, I asked directly whether RMI had been responsible for the radioactive contamination of Fields Brook. The employee responded that he “cannot answer that one way or the other.” Relentless, I eventually managed to contact two former plant managers from RMI who had worked on the Superfund cleanup. Both initially expressed interest in being interviewed for my research, but later changed their minds out of fear that they could face retribution for divulging information. With regard to the white working class, radionuclide chemosociality had the interesting effect of unifying the sensibilities of people with very different politics. People who identified as liberal and conservative alike decried the contamination of Fields Brook, and they were largely glad that it had ceased. They also agreed that the US government was largely to blame, although which branch (the Department of Energy—DOE—or the EPA) they assigned the blame to was largely a product of personal politics: Liberals tended to blame the DOE for the original contamination, while conservatives tended to express ire about the EPA’s management of the cleanup. Many moderate or conservative residents also believed that the cost of the cleanup—measured in the loss of jobs and industries that once

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provided a good way of life—was too high a price to pay. It was thought that the government had not done a good enough job, leading to increased mistrust. As a young resident of Ashtabula, I grew up around the factories and the impacts of contamination wrought by the industries surrounding Fields Brook. Based on the memories of these protests, it is clear that much of the concern for environmental health in Ashtabula stems from the contaminated legacies of sites like Fields Brook. Chemo-ethnography presents a novel way to understand how this mistrust began by examining how specific, first-hand encounters with chemicals—in this case, radionuclides—can serve as moments of genesis for new environmental knowledges and affinities that can eventually translate to forms of activism. To understand the deindustrialized populist politics of the American Midwest, we must first look backward and trace the lineages of contamination through the people whom they affected.

References Belisio-De Jesús, Aisha M. and Jemima Pierre. 2019. “Toward an Anthropology of White Supremacy.” American Anthropologist (Early View), December 30, 2019. doi:10.1111/aman.13351. Benson, Peter. 2011. Tobacco Capitalism: Growers, Migrant Workers, and the Changing Face of a Global Industry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cronon, William. 1991. Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West. New York:W.W. Norton and Company. Case, Anne and Angus Deaton. 2015. “Rising Morbidity and Mortality in Midlife among White Non-Hispanic Americans in the 21st Century.” PNAS, 112(49): 15078–15083. Case, Anne and Angus Deaton. 2017. “Mortality and Morbidity in the 21st Century.” Papers on Economic Activity, Brookings Institute, Spring: 397–476. Feather, Carl E. 1998. Mountain People in a Flat Land: A Popular History of Appalachian. Migration to Northeast Ohio, 1940–1965. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Feather, Carl E. 2017. Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio: A History of The World’s Greatest Iron Ore. Receiving Port. Geneva, OH: The Feather Cottage Media. Gusterson, Hugh. 2017. “From Brexit to Trump: Anthropology and the Rise of Nationalist Populism.” American Ethnologist, 44(2): 209–214. Hale, Grace Elizabeth. 1995. Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890–1940. New York: Vintage Books. Haraway, Donna J. 2007. When Species Meet. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Indian, Robert W. and Vickie Hundley. 1987. “Cancer Surveillance in the Population in Close Proximity to the Fields Brook Hazardous Waste Site: Ashtabula County, Ohio. ”Columbus, OH: Ohio Department of Health, Division of Epidemiology, Chronic Disease and Special Studies Unit. Kirksey, S. Eben, Nicholas Shapiro, and Maria Brodine. 2013. “Hope in Blasted Landscapes.” Social Science Information, 52(2): 228–256. Kuz, Martin. 2002. “Sweet Life at the Trough: RMI’s 40 Year Legacy of Devouring Public funds.” CleveScene.com. www.clevescene.com/cleveland/sweet-life-at-the-trough/Con tent?oid=1478905 (accessed 2019). Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

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Ogden, Laura A., Billy Hall, and Kimiko Tanita. 2013. “Animals, Plants, People, and Things: A. Review of Multispecies Ethnography.” Environment and Society: Advances in Research, 4: 5–24. Ortner, Sherry B. 2003. New Jersey Dreaming. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Powell, J. Stephen. 1984. Political Difficulties Surrounding Waste-to-Energy Conversion Plant Siting. Los Angeles, CA: Cerrell Associates, Inc. Rabinow, Paul. 1996. “Artificiality and Enlightenment: From Sociobiology to Biosociality.” In Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics, edited by Jonathan Xavier Inda: 181–193. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Shapiro, Nicholas and Eben Kirksey. 2017. “Chemo-ethnography: An Introduction.” Cultural Anthropology, 32(4): 481–493. Silverberg, Bea. 2018. Mosaic and Memory: My Life Then and Now. Cleveland, OH: Bea Silverberg. Smil, Vaclav. 2013. Made in the U.S.A.: The Rise and Retreat of American Manufacturing. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. United States Department of Veterans Affairs. 2018. “Depleted Uranium.” www.publichea lth.va.gov/exposures/depleted_uranium/ (accessed November 20, 2019). United StatesEnvironmental Protection Agency. 2019. “Fields Brook Superfund Site.” https:// cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0504723 (accessed November 20, 2019). Vance, J.D. 2016. Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis. New York: Harper Collins. Walley, Christine J. 2017. “Trump’s Election and the “White Working Class”: What We Missed.” American Ethnologist, 44(2): 231–236. Westermeyer, William H. 2016. “Local Tea Party Groups and the Vibrancy of the Movement.” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 39(1): 121–138. Zalimeni, Gary. 2015. “One Mile From Home.” A Peak at the Peak. https://apeekatthepeak. org/one-mile-from-home-beginnings/ (accessed November 20, 2019).

2 GMO-FREE ACTIVISM IN RURAL SOUTHERN OREGON Motivations, Ideologies, and Values Rebecka Daye

In turbulent times, amid discontent and growing criticism of the current global agrifood complex and the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs, also discussed as transgenics and biotechnology) in agriculture, the increasingly popular GMO-free movement posits local non-GMO agriculture as a way to address environmental concerns while safeguarding and promoting small-scale farmers and local family farms. Whether scholars discuss relocalization efforts and civic agriculture (Ayres and Bosia, 2011; Delind, 2011; Albrecht and Smithers, 2018), social movements and political ecology (Escobar, 1998; Edelman, 2001), or agrifood movements and democratic choice (Hassanein, 2008; Carlson and Chappell, 2015; Dekeyser et al., 2018; Prost et al., 2018), social movements with a focus on sustainable agriculture and biodiversity advance a distinctive approach that pays close attention to cultural differences, as well as to the assertion of local community rights, social justice, and political autonomy. But what motivates people to become involved in local GMO-free movements? What do they hope to accomplish? And what can an analysis of the GMO-free movement campaign in Jackson County, southern Oregon tell us about the circulation of knowledge/ideology/values around such issues? Understanding what motivates people to participate in social movements is important, because stated motivations reveal not only local values and ideologies, but also what participants hope to achieve via their participation (Albrecht and Smithers, 2018). This research uses Graeber’s (2001) articulation of value to understand the processes through which humans create meaning in their lives. Ideology refers to the set of normative beliefs and values that people use to navigate personal, social, and political spheres of life. The intersection of local values and ideologies underlying GMO-free activism—coupled with campaign framing— can tell us something about the likelihood of its success and about the position of GMO-free activism within the larger fabric of agrifood activism. In fact, framing

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has become central to the analytical repertoire of social movement theory (Magnan, 2007). As Fairbairn eloquently states, “framing highlights the dynamic and contingent aspects of meaning creation, as well as the potential for conflicting interpretations of the same reality” (2012: 219). Framing is an ongoing process of multiple and contested discourses and ideologies sensitive to the context in which the frames are created (Magnan, 2007; Fairbairn, 2012). Thus, framing becomes an important indicator of the way knowledge, ideologies, and values are shaped, disseminated, and experienced by individuals and societies. Framing also accomplishes three tasks in the discursive work of social movements: Diagnosing the problem, attributing blame, and proposing/motivating action (Magnan, 2007). GMO-free activism offers an analytically rich terrain for anthropologists seeking to draw attention to significant and meaningful work performed by activists in the advancement of a local, ecologically sound, and socially resilient community-based agrifood system. These topics are also of considerable interest to me personally, not only as an anthropologist, but also as a human being on this planet concerned with ecological sustainability, environmental justice, and human rights. This chapter presents ethnographic data on the ways in which GMO-free activists in Jackson County constructed and articulated their motivations for joining the movement, as well as the way in which meaning production (e.g., knowledge, values, and ideology) was used to garner public support to pass a local ban on the propagation of GMOs in Jackson County. GMO-free Jackson County is the group of local farmers and citizens that started the movement in 2012. Our Family Farms Coalition (OFFC) is the local farmer-led organization that led the campaign for a GMO-free Jackson County in 2014. Founding members are primarily farmers, but membership is inclusive of those interested in working to safeguard local biodiversity and protect the family farm (personal communication, 2016). Our Family Farms (OFF) is a non profit educational organization established in 2015 to continue the outreach and promotion of a GMO-free Seed Sanctuary in southern Oregon. OFF's stated primary goal is to protect and promote family farms that grow traditional crops by strengthening local communities to create GMO-free zones in the United States and around the world (Our Family Farms, 2016). Throughout the chapter I also reflect upon my role as an anthropologist studying GMO-free activism in southern Oregon. The GMO-free activism considered in this chapter is mediated by local ecological, economic, and cultural considerations. Drawing on social movement theory and agrifood activism scholarship, I suggest that motivations for GMO-free activism in Jackson County centered on localization of the food system, saving the family farm, and safeguarding biodiversity via the promotion of an ecologically sound and socially resilient community-based agrifood system. While Jackson County has joined a growing list of local communities and nation-states that have successfully banned GMOs in agriculture via democratic processes (Library of Congress, 2014), it is unique in that an additional outcome of the ban has been the development and promotion of a local living seed sanctuary.

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Social Movements and GMO-Free Activism By utilizing anthropological research to place biotechnology debates at the center of social movement theory, marginal sites such as Jackson County can be seen as emergent centers of innovation. The central task of any social movement is to gather, assemble, and motivate individual actors to advance the principal mission of the movement. Social movements are complex adaptive systems created by and consisting of diverse social actors who were convinced to become involved in the movement and afforded sustained opportunities to take part in collective action (Diani, 2003). Social movements scholars claim that “social movements have three important dimensions: actors’ recognition of commonalities and shared identities, objectives, and understandings; adversarial relations with opponents who claim the same goods or values; and actions that exceed the tolerance limits of a social system, thereby pushing it to change” (Edelman, 2001: 289). However, in her comparative study of motivations for citizen-activists opposing three different extractive industrial development projects, Willow (in this volume) discovered five core elements shared by individuals who became activists: Strong values and passion for the issue, concern for the welfare of others, long-term vision for the future, a perception of injustice, and empowerment/capacity for action. These core elements were evident in my research participants as well as in my own motivations as an anthropologist studying GMO-free activism. Ayres and Bosia (2011) argue that GMO-free movements are responding to the convergence of an ongoing economic and ecological crisis that threatens the viability of small-scale and sustainable agriculture farming practices, and as a result, they are part of the broader social movement for the relocalization of agriculture. The idea that localization movements simultaneously promote environmental sustainability and social justice is both aspirational and contestable (Albrecht and Smithers, 2018). Nonetheless, local food systems “are civic in nature and, as such, are instruments of place-based negotiation, collective responsibility, and a participatory democracy” (DeLind, 2011: 275). Despite their geographical placement, civil society organizations are often connected to other local and global activist networks that provide support, as well as share information and experience to advance their cause (Diani, 2003; Friedland, 2010). Local GMO-free activism is part of a global food democracy movement that promotes an alternative vision for the agrifood system by advocating for the preservation of the small-scale family farm, environmental sustainability, and social and economic justice. Part of the uniqueness of local GMO-free activism is that it traverses the local/global dichotomy, in that its workings are hyperlocal but its concerns are connected with the broader global movement. For example, although efforts in Jackson County were geared towards a county-level ban on GMOs, the GMO-free Jackson County movement was in constant contact with various other GMO-free movements locally, regionally, and globally. The conflict over biotechnology (embodied in this case by GMOs) is not only about efforts to relocalize agriculture; it is also about social-ecology, or ways of

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knowing and understanding the relationship between humans and the natural world (Herring, 2008; Jamison, 2012). In Western society, reductionist scientific determinism—especially within agricultural systems—has become the dominant form of knowledge. Biotechnology (including GMOs) represents a particular form of knowledge that is directly linked to scientific determinism. Developments in biotechnology have enabled nature to be manipulated to increase production and efficiency, with less attention paid to the effects on ecological integrity (Lyons and Geoffrey, 1999). However, organic and non-GMO farmers often describe the relationship between humans and the land as interconnected, which in turn fosters a holistic approach to farming practices (Lyons and Geoffrey, 1999; Parks and Brekken, 2019). Thus, for organic farmers and seed growers in Jackson County, biotechnology in agriculture represents the antithesis of what a sustainable farming system should be. There are considerable challenges in reconciling different ways in which the contentious issue of biotechnology, the environment, and sustainable farming practices are framed and perceived. Proponents of biotechnology frame GMOs in highly positive terms; they are seen as solutions to the problem of insufficient food production to feed a growing global population, as well as addressing environmental problems caused by the overuse of chemicals in agriculture (Stone, 2002; Godfray, 2010). Opponents of biotechnology frame their position in terms of farmers’ rights, local autonomy, ecological concerns, and food justice, which are seen as elements in need of protection from GMOs’ integrated threat to family farms, as well as traditional seed and crop diversity (West and Larue, 2005; Levison, 2014). To further exacerbate the situation, the scientific testing of GMO crops has been considered suspicious and uncertain because multinational agrochemical corporations have strong proprietary rights and conduct their own field trials (Murcott, 2001; Herring, 2008). Simultaneously, alternative knowledges have been increasingly marginalized via US development policies and programs that favor biotechnology (Magnan, 2007; Tiberghien, 2012). Murcott (2001) notes that it is difficult for informed opinions to emerge when the public has successfully been kept in the dark about GMO foods with only a few specialized groups of people aware of the extent of GMO agriculture, let alone the different forms of genetic modification. I chose to focus on GMO-free activism and opponents of biotechnology specifically out of a deep concern for the state of agriculture locally and globally, the loss of traditional seed and crop diversity, and a strong belief in farmer’s rights. After years of studying social science literature on the human right to food, food sovereignty, and the state of the world’s agriculture, I wanted to understand the motivations and amplify the voices of people who are actively working towards local sustainable food production systems. As outlined in this volume’s introduction, anthropological research has the ability to speak truth to power, as well as highlighting the voices of those who have been marginalized. More specifically, Laura DeLind expresses concern that people “seem to have forgotten (and perhaps are being encouraged to forget) that local food, as part of a regenerative agrifood system, is also about restoring ‘a public culture of democracy’ and engaging in the

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continual creation, negotiation, and re-creation of identity, memory, and meaning” (2011: 279). She further argues that US food justice movements should consider the use of multiple methodologies to explore and promote the integration and reintegration of local food into a place-based practice (DeLind, 2011). Applied anthropological research is one avenue of engagement that is both relevant to public discourse and uses social science scholarship to work towards a more equitable world. As many of the chapters in this volume attest, the practice of applied anthropology has a moral obligation and commitment to reciprocity with the subjects of our investigations (see also Kirsch, 2018). While anthropology has the ability to link big picture concepts with practice, food justice advocates emphasize the need for local agrifood projects to be created by and for members of the community. Participants in the GMO-free Jackson County campaign shared a common vision for local control and sustainable agriculture in the Rogue Valley. Their shared vision, strong framing of the issue, and commitment to participatory democracy resulted in the 2014 ban on the propagation and cultivation of GMOs in the county. But they did not stop there. In January 2015 OFF established the educational arm of the organization to continue the outreach and promotion of an in-situ GMO-free Seed Sanctuary. The Seed Sanctuary is seen as a mechanism to protect and promote a local place-based agrifood system, seed diversity, and traditional food supply through ongoing public outreach and agricultural community workshops (Our Family Farms, 2017).

Research in Jackson County The data presented here are the result of an ethnographic study conducted on GMO-free activism and participatory food democracy in southern Oregon between 2016 and 2017. My presence as a cultural anthropologist studying the GMO-free movement was widely accepted and welcomed by OFF leadership, as well as by the community of volunteers who agreed to be interviewed. Research participants overwhelmingly thought that it was important that the information surrounding their ballot measure was discussed and shared broadly, although there was some concern about who funded my research project and with whom my data would be shared. In addition, although the GMO-free campaign activities were conducted during 2012–14 and my research was conducted in 2017, some participants had concerns for their own personal autonomy and safety as local activists. Interestingly, several activists also expressed concern that conducting research on a contentious topic like GMO-free activism could hurt my career as a budding anthropologist (a theme also discussed by Moolenaar, in this volume). However, as an undergraduate, I had been deeply inspired by Carol Nagengast and Velez-Ibanez’s 2004 book, Human Rights: The Scholar as Activist, which demonstrates how anthropological inquiry and comprehensive ethnography can highlight patterns of power and social change and thus help us to understand the range of opportunities available for creating a more just society. The personal motivations and ethical principles that guided my decision to become an anthropologist came from a

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strong belief in the potential contributions of anthropological research to humanity. Thus, the desire to make my research count and to be of value to my research participants was among my primary considerations from the beginning. Jackson County is a premier organic vegetable seed-growing region situated in southwestern Oregon near the California border. It is the sixth most populous county in the state. There are 214,069 acres of farmland. The average size of farms is 124 acres, although the majority of farms are between 10 and 49 acres. Crop sales account for 58 percent of market value of products sold, and fruits, tree nuts, and berries are the top crops in terms of value by commodity group (United States Department of Agriculture, 2012). From the outset, one primary goal of my research was to analyze participant motivations for GMO-free activism in rural southern Oregon. In 2017 I conducted 42 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with volunteers working at various levels of the campaign and engaged in seven participant-observation sessions at various OFF events. Interview questions were designed to elicit feedback about what motivated respondents to engage in the farmer-led campaign for a GMO-free Jackson County, as well as the way in which participants’ meaning production (e.g., knowledge, values, and ideology) relating to the use of GMO seeds in agriculture was shaped, framed, and shared with the broader public to garner public support for the measure. Research participants were selected via snowball sample. The sample was not broad-based, but rather was targeted in the sense that the parameters for research participants were defined as those who were actively engaged in the GMO-free Jackson County campaign (Bernard, 2006). Individuals were recruited for the study via participant referral, OFF outreach, and respondent-driven referrals. Research participants included individuals who were involved with the GMO-free Jackson County movement, specifically GMO-free Jackson County (GMOFJC) and OFFC volunteers (n=36), members of the (neighboring) Josephine County GMO-free movement who also volunteered with GMOFJC or OFFC in some capacity (n=4), and members of other organizations that supported (n=2) or opposed the GMO ban (n=2). Eleven volunteers were farmers, and twenty-nine participants were non-farmers, the majority of whom had home gardens. While conducting field research I also attended and participated in current OFF public events such as Seed Sanctuary celebrations, Farm to Table fundraising dinners, a public lecture on the Future of GMOs and the State of Oregon Legislative Hearings. Participant-observation of current OFF events allowed me to experience and document the different ways that OFF members and attendees talk about, access, use, and share information related to past and present GMO-free activism, food sovereignty, and democratic action.

Local Values and Motivations for GMO-Free Activism Jackson County Measure 15–119 makes it unlawful to propagate, cultivate, raise, or grow GMOs. The ordinance promotes the economic security and commercial value of agricultural production in the county by safeguarding producers from damages or diminishing values owing to genetic contamination from GMO crops. It

GMO-Free Activism in Rural Southern Oregon 41

FIGURE 2.1

A tractor demonstration and rally in 2014, Medford, Oregon (Our Family Farms 2017). Photo by Our Family Farms, 2017.

also supports the county’s stated goal of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens. The process of ordinance adoption began in 2012, when a local organic farmer discovered that a neighboring farmer was growing GMO sugar beet seeds under contract with Syngenta, a Swiss biotechnology company. Members of GMO-free Jackson County collected more than 6,700 signatures, which allowed the initiative to be approved for the May 2014 ballot (Wilce, 2014). Our Family Farms Coalition ran the official campaign for Jackson County Ballot Measure 15–119 in 2014. Proponents of the measure ran a decentralized, grassroots campaign that focused largely on educating the public. Campaign activities included public presentations, tabling at various events including local farmers’ markets, posting on social media (including Facebook), phone banking, canvassing, and a variety of other activities such as walking in the 4th of July parade and the tractor demonstration in downtown Medford (Figure 1). In May 2014 a total of 66 percent of voters in Jackson County voted to ban the propagation and cultivation of genetically engineered crops in the county (BallotPedia, 2015). The follow section presents findings on how participants in the GMO-free Jackson County movement constructed and articulated their motivations for participating in the movement, as well as how they garnered public support for the ballot measure. Results are presented in sets corresponding to the four thematic categories: Motivations for participation in the GMO-free Jackson County

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movement; perceived issues with the use of GMO crops in agriculture; perceived issues with the use of GMO crops in the Rogue Valley; and opinions regarding effective strategies for garnering public support for the ballot measure.

What Motivated You to Join the GMO-Free Jackson County Movement? When asked what motivated them to join the GMO-free Jackson County movement, participant responses fell into three predominant themes: Supporting the local community (46 percent), human health (40 percent), and environmental concerns (37 percent). Supporting the local economy and protecting the family farm were cited most often by respondents. In fact, participants drew comparisons between their own perceived responsibilities as active citizens and supporting their local economy and local farmers. As one local GMO-free activist told me: “Well you know it’s a network of people here in the community. I’m a real strong believer in the “Know your Farmer, Know your Food” movement. And so we knew quite a few vendors in the farmers market and we had a good relationship with [them].” The impact of GMOs on human health was also a prominent motivating factor, and sentiments regarding healthy food were often connected directly with ecological concerns. Ecological concerns varied slightly between citizens, who were broadly concerned with the unforeseen consequences of GMO technology, and farmers who were concerned with seed sovereignty, as demonstrated, respectively, in the following quotes from my interviews: “At the DNA level changing what is natural, what nature has provided has consequences that are not taken into account… [including] ramifications for the environment.” “The whole thing of genes being patented seems very fundamentally not right. It’s just an abomination that has become institutionalized and so it is virtually impossible to disengage from what has been imposed.”

What Do You Think are the Issues Relating to the Use of GMO/GE Crops in Agriculture? The predominant issue indicated by 79 percent of respondents in response to the question relating to GMO agriculture was ecological considerations (79 percent), followed by corporate control (51 percent), and human health (38 percent). However, many of these themes are overlapping. For example, ecological considerations are often directly linked with research and regulation, research and regulation are directly linked with corporate control, and the lack of appropriate research and regulation is

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directly related to notions of ill effects on human health. The primary ecological concern noted among participants was the use of pesticides, followed by loss of biodiversity and threat of cross-contamination. For example, interviewees told me: “You’re required to spray huge amounts of pesticides, which they will refer to as “herbicides.” And if you think that Round-up is harmless then you’re crazy.” “It has totally impacted diversity. Where we used to have like 64 varieties of tomatoes, now we have like, six. So it’s diminishing the resilience of the seed stock. And also access. And that’s part of why I worked so hard on trying to get people to save their own seeds.” “I think it’s irresponsible for the companies that promote those crops and the farmers who grow them. It’s irresponsible because, depending on the crop of course, many of them cannot be controlled out in the environment. And so when you have something out in the environment there’s a strong risk of contamination. There have been many contamination events that have had real world consequences.” Protecting the food supply was a common theme among respondents. Over half of respondents expressed a concern regarding scientific uncertainty and the lack of appropriate research and regulation on the use of GMO technology in agriculture. And 51 percent of respondents expressed concern about the corporate takeover of the agrifood system and corporate intrusion in political matters. Several interviewees connected the use of GMO crops to a violation of human rights and human health issues: “I think it’s questionable that things [GMOs] can be introduced into the food system without vetting and being properly researched. There are no long-term studies on GMOs that show they’re anything other than dangerous and an insult to the integrity of the genome.” “Because it is a violation of people’s right to not know what goes into their body before they eat it. Even though people make an effort to eat healthy foods it’s almost impossible to avoid consuming GMO laced food.”

What Specifically About the Use of GMO Crops in the Rogue Valley was of Concern to You? Respondents were asked two separate questions regarding the use of GMOs: One focused on GMOs in general, the other focused on GMOs specifically in the Rogue Valley. The issue of GMOs in Jackson County centered on two closely related issues: The threat of cross-contamination (known as transgenic trespass) of GMO seeds with organic, conventional, and hybrid seeds and the creation of a Seed Sanctuary. The threat of cross-contamination was a constant theme discussed by respondents, the majority of whom were aware of the narrow Rogue Valley

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geography and its designation as a premiere seed-growing region. Participants generally thought the narrow, windy Rogue Valley could not support GMO and non-GMO crops alike. In other words, there was a general fear that organic and non-GMO seeds would eventually be contaminated, and not only would farmers lose their livelihood, but associated ecological issues would also occur. In fact, several farmers in Jackson County were forced to destroy their crops, owing to the threat of cross-contamination after the discovery of GMO sugar beets in 2012. A few farmers shared that they believed Syngenta consciously knew that they were coming into a valley of small organic farms, perhaps with the intention to contaminate every organic and non-GMO farm in the valley: “The biggest concern was drift. We’re too narrow a valley. You cannot have GMOs and organic or sustainable agriculture in this valley. The GMO will take over because of the pollen drift. So we have to keep them out. There’s no question.” Research participants believe that GMO-free seed sanctuaries are important because they allow farmers to grow organic and traditional crops without the threat of cross-contamination. They also promote agrobiodiversity and support farmers’ right to save and exchange/sell their seed. In fact, several seed farmers were members of various local seed networks and associations, as well as national organizations like the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association. As one interviewee expressed: “This is where I really feel like I upheld that whole idea of the Seed Sanctuary. We’ve got to have some areas, and this is the perfect area as a seed producing area, to say we’re going to keep seeds safe here. We’re like a living seed bank here.”

What Do You Think was the Best Strategy for Motivating Citizens to Vote YES on the Jackson County GMO/GE-Free Initiative? The desire to preserve locally embedded agricultural production was the primary theme expressed by GMO-free activists as the reason that the campaign was able to garner public support for the measure. This theme was mentioned repeatedly in the ordinance text that they drafted, as well as by a majority of my respondents. Asserting local control was also connected to perceived corporate intrusion in local matters. The campaign to oppose Measure 15–119 received large sums of money from corporate agribusiness firms and trade associations from outside of the county and oftentimes even outside of Oregon (Wilce, 2014). As a result, more than 50 percent of research participants linked voters’ support of local control to protecting the family farm, even when they recognized that not everybody in the county had a concern about GMO technology specifically. However, participants also believed that educating the population via tabling events and door-to-door canvasing was a

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significant factor in garnering public support. All three factors relating to local control are demonstrated by interviewee comments below. “I think it was like a tangible way for people to have self-determination.” “When we started talking about the economic impact to the farmers… And there were people who joined the movement, in terms of voting yes or agreeing, that could actually give a lick about GMOs.” “I think it really got down to education. That’s what the foundation of the democracy is: an educated population. I think that’s where we really stepped up. People were out there day after day, door to door, events, tabling, just constantly making information available to people.”

Locally Embedded GMO-Free Agriculture “In many ways, citizens active today in networks concerned with agriculture and food are reconnecting with ‘the warmth of things.’ By giving their own meaning to official procedures, by transforming law courts into political forums and by stubbornly defending their seeds and holding on to different ways of growing food, a critical practice asserts itself.” (Muller, 2019: 70)

Two key benefits of anthropological inquiry are the attention it pays to the consideration of what motivates and inspires people to act and the ability of anthropology to amplify their voices. This study found that participants prioritized the value of local family farms, as well as locally embedded GMO-free agriculture and sustainability. There was also a shared sense of injustice stemming from the perceived lack of appropriate regulation and transparency on the use of GMO crops in the Rogue Valley. In fact, respondents unanimously agreed that government agencies have not represented the interests of communities or family farms by developing clear and effective agrifood policy, owing to the influence of corporate money and lobbying. Citizens therefore felt a strong sense of responsibility to assert their rights for food justice, local control, and an environmentally sustainable future. This was achieved not only via the ballot measure for a GMO-free Jackson County and associated campaign efforts, but also through ongoing efforts for GMO-free zones in Oregon and beyond and through the ensuing creation of a Seed Sanctuary (for additional information on the GMO-free Seed Sanctuary in the Rogue Valley, visit www.OurFamilyFarms.com). One of the biggest concern for farmers and food activists in Jackson County was pollen drift from genetically engineered crops, which can lead to contamination of organic and non-GMO open-pollinated seeds leading to a loss of agrobiodiversity and economic income for organic and non-GMO farmers. As Campbell and Veteto (2015) note, consolidation in the seed industry via the growth of agrifood corporations, genetically-modified seeds (GMOs), and plant patents has decreased agrobiodiversity, threatened sustainable food production systems, and restricted farmers’ right to save seeds. However, grassroots efforts to safeguard

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local agrobiodiversity and advance farmers’ rights complement ongoing political efforts to achieve food justice via multiple methodologies, as proposed by DeLind (2011). Farmers and concerned citizens in Jackson County have not forgotten the value and importance of local food, regenerative agriculture, or a public culture of democracy. In fact, they have engaged—and continue to engage—in the continual negotiation of meaning and identity related to farming practices in the Rogue Valley. With the establishment of the United States Department of Agriculture-recognized local GMO-free Seed Sanctuary, citizens of Jackson County continue to promote and integrate local food into a place-based practice through ongoing efforts for GMO-free legislation at a state and federal level, public presentations, and farmer/citizen educational workshops focusing on regenerative agriculture. The motivations and ideologies discussed above provide insight into what participants want to happen as a result of enacting GMO-free legislation at the county level. My research revealed relationships with local farmers and the preservation of family farms as important components of enacting a GMO-free zone in Jackson County. It suggests that, taken in conjunction with ecological and health-based concerns, participants’ impetus to join the GMO-free movement was about valuing, supporting, and working towards a local and sustainable community-based agrifood system. However, it is analytically interesting to note the contrast between campaign framing and actual motivations for GMO-free activism, wherein health impacts were very significant motivators for individual participation, but were much less central to the framings employed by the movement. The results of this analysis show that the conflict over the use of agricultural biotechnology in Jackson County, Oregon is a not merely a battle of values and ideology; it is a battle for local control and support for an economic and ecologically sustainable agrifood system. Part of the uniqueness of local GMO-free activism is that it traverses the local/global dichotomy, in that its workings are hyperlocal but its concerns are connected with a broader global movement. Herring (2008) argues that the GMO debate will subside over time into the realms of niche politics or discretionary food preferences. He claims that “successful opposition has been in formal-legal institutions, not in the fields of farmers, where direct interests have outweighed ideology” (2008: 462). This claim is challenged by the successful farmer-led campaign for a GMO-free Jackson County. Nevertheless, it does indicate that irreconcilable differences remain in the discursive framework and ideological factors held by proponents and opponents of biotechnology. In addition, while the discussion in this paper has limitations to its generalizability, it does highlight the value of civil society initiatives and democratic processes, as well as the meaningful work performed by GMO-free activists in the advancement of an environmentally sound, socially resilient, and place-based agrifood system. As Figueroa (2015) reminds us, meaning is manifested in the cultural, social, and economic practices relating to the production and consumption of food and local food movements have an important role to play in shaping global agrifood processes. By shifting the discussion away from crises associated with environmental destruction and the loss of economic revenue and instead documenting the motivations,

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ideologies, values, and actions of people with hopes, dreams, and aspirations (who are willing to work hard to achieve them), the anthropology of activism also has an important role to play. I am deeply supportive of the GMO-free movement for reasons articulated by my research respondents and share their profound concern for the state of the world’s food supply.

Reflections This study was conducted from an anthropological perspective, which provides a holistic view of human-environment relations. As a result, this research utilized various lenses to assess the enactment of food justice, including the human right to food, food sovereignty and food democracy, food regime theory, social movements, food system activism, political ecology, and agrobiodiversity—which are not fully discussed in this chapter. Challenges and limitations to the study include participants’ memory recall of campaign events and the timeframe in which they occurred. Participant recall was at times imprecise, because although the movement began in February 2012, the official campaign did not begin until January 2014, and this study was conducted three years after the campaign. This also limited my ability to fully understand and experience the depth of emotions and the swirl of campaign activities that my informants endured for two years. The nonprofit arm of OFF is dedicated to the continued outreach and promotion of a GMO-free Seed Sanctuary in southern Oregon. As I transition from student to professional, I have been contemplating to what extent I can transition from an anthropologist studying activism to an engaged activist anthropologist, working alongside and for the betterment of the communities that I work with. The first course of action, as I see it, is to work with the research community to ensure that the research results are disseminated beyond academia. Although this study was conducted three years after the official GMO-free campaign ended, the success of the campaign and ensuing activities has real-world applications for civil society and governing bodies relative to the enactment of food justice and democratic processes. I have recently begun the process of engaging in dialogue with OFF on the dissemination of my findings to various institutes (such as Food First and the US Food Sovereignty Alliance) that work to rebuild local food economies and assert democratic control over the food system, as well as to civil society organizations and other public venues in order to help to inform future public policy initiatives aimed at determining local agrifood systems. I am hopeful that the broad dissemination of research findings will be used as an argument to incorporate local voices in future agricultural decisions and food policies at multiple levels, including local, regional, state, federal, and global.

Abbreviation GMO

Genetically modified organism. A plant or living organism whose genome has been altered by the techniques of genetic engineering, so that its DNA contains one or more genes not normally found there.

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References Albrecht, Cayla and John Smithers. 2018. “Reconnecting Through Local Food Initiatives? Purpose, Practice and Conceptions Of ‘Value.” Agricultural and Human Values, 35: 67–81. doi:10.1007/s10460-017-9797-5. Ayres, Jeffrey and Michael J.Bosia. 2011. “Beyond Global Summitry: Food Sovereignty as Localized Resistance to Globalization.” Globalizations, 8(1): 47–63. BallotPedia. 2015. “Local GMO on the Ballot.” https://ballotpedia.org/Local_GMO_on_the_ ballot (accessed 2017). Bernard, H. Russell. 2006. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, Fourth Edition. Oxford: AltaMira Press. Campbell, Brian, C. and James R. Veteto. 2015. “Free Seeds and Food Sovereignty: Anthropology and Grassroots Agrobiodiversity Conservation Strategies in the US South.” Journal of Political Ecology, 22(1): 445–465. Carlson, Jill and M. Jahi Chappell. 2015. “Deepening Food Democracy.” Retrieved from Library of Congress (2014). “Restrictions on Genetically Modified Organisms.” Global Legal Research Center. Dekeyser, Koen, Lise Korsten, and Lorenzo Fioramonti. 2018. “Food Sovereignty: Shifting Debates on Democratic Food Governance.” Food Security 10(1): 223–233. doi:10.1007/ s12571-017-0763-2. DeLind, Laura B. 2011. “Are Local Food and the Local Food Movement Taking Us Where We Want to Go? Or Are We Hitching Our Wagons to the Wrong Stars?” Agriculture and Human values, 28(2): 273–283. doi:10.1007/s10460-010-9263-0. Diani, Mario. 2003. Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action. New York: Oxford University Press. Edelman, Marc. 2001. “Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics.” Annual Review of Anthropology, 30: 285–317. Escobar, Arturo. 1998. “Whose Knowledge, Whose Nature? Biodiversity, Conservation, and the Political Ecology of Social Movements.” Journal of Political Ecology, 5(1): 53–82. Figueroa, Meleiza. 2015. “Food Sovereignty in Everyday Life: Toward a People-centered Approach to Food Systems.” Globalizations, 12(4): 498–512. Friedland, William H. 2010. “New Ways of Working and Organization: Alternative Agrifood Movements and Agrifood Researchers.” Rural Sociology, 75(4): 601–627. Godfray, H. Charles et al. 2010. “Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People.” Science, 327: 812–818. Graeber, David. 2001. Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. New York: Palgrave. Hassanein, Neva. 2008. “Locating Food Democracy: Theoretical and Practical Ingredients.” Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition, 3(2–3): 286–308. doi:10.1080/ 19320240802244215. Herring, Ronald J. 2008. “Opposition to Transgenic Technologies: Ideology, Interests and Collective Action Frames.” Nature Reviews Genetics, 9(6): 458. doi:10.1038/nrg2338. Jamison, Andrew. 2012. “Agri-Food and Social Movements.” Science as Culture, 21(4): 587–591. doi:10.1080/09505431.2012.701615. Kirsch, Stuart. 2018. Engaged Anthropology: Politics Beyond the Text. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Levinson, Lydia Rae. 2014. Taking Back the Commons: Motivating Factors for the Local Control of GMOs (Master of Community and Regional Planning Graduate Theses and Dissertations Paper 14065). Ames, IA: Iowa State University. http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/14065 (accessed 2017).

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Lyons, Kristen, and Geoffrey. Lawrence. 1999. “Alternative Knowledges, Organic Agriculture, and the Biotechnology Debate.” Culture and Agriculture, 21(2): 1–12. Magnan, Andre. 2007. “Strange Bedfellows: Contentious Coalitions and the Politics of GM Wheat.” Canadian Review of Sociology, 44(3): 289–317. Murcott, Anne. 2001. “Public Beliefs About GM Foods: More on the Makings of a Considered Sociology.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 15(1): 1–11. Nagengast, Carole, and Carlos G.Vélez-Ibáñez, editors. 2004. Human Rights: The Scholar as Activist. Washington, DC: Society for Applied Anthropology. Our Family Farms Coalition. 2019. www.ourfamilyfarms.org/ (accessed 2019). Parks, Melissa M. and Christine Anderson Brekken. 2019. “Cosmovisions and Farming Praxis: An Investigation of Conventional and Alternative Farmers along the Willamette River.” Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 41(1): 34–44. doi:10.1111/cuag.12171. Prost, Sebastian, Clara Crivellaro, Andy Haddon, and Rob Comber. 2018. “Food Democracy in the Making: Designing with Local Food Networks.” Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: 333. Montreal, QC: Association for Computing Machinery. Stone, Glenn Davis. 2002. “Both Sides Now: Fallacies in the Genetic-Modification Wars, Implications for Developing Countries, and Anthropological Perspectives.” Current Anthropology, 43(4): 611–630. doi:10.1086/341532. Tiberghien, Yves. 2012. “The Global Battle Over the Governance of Agricultural Biotechnology.” In Regulating Next Generation Agri-Food Biotechnologies: Lessons from European, North American, and Asian experiences, edited by Michael Howlett and David Laycock: 111–127. New York: Routledge. USDepartment of Agriculture. 2012. “Census of Agriculture: Jackson County Profile.” www.agcen sus.usda.gov/Publications/2012/Online_Resources/County_Profiles/Oregon/cp41029.pdf (accessed 2017). West, Gale E., and Bruno Larue. 2005. “Determinants of Anti-GM Food Activism.” Journal of Public Affairs, 5(3–4): 236–250. doi:10.1002/pa.25. Wilce, Rebekah. 2014. “Oregon’s GMO Sellout.” The Progressive, May 24. https://progres sive.org/magazine/oregon-s-gmo-sellout/ (accessed 2019).

3 SOCIAL JUSTICE, TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE, AND “LIBERATION ACUPUNCTURE” Exploring the Activism of the Peoples Organization of Community Acupuncture Suzanne Morrissey and Olivia Hagmann

In 2016 Sherry Ortner exposed anthropologists’ tendencies toward the dark side of life; those deleterious effects of global cycles of neoliberal politics and ideologies, of “brutal capitalism” that leaves a wake of pain and suffering in its path (Ortner, 2016). While we did not need Ortner to tell us what we already know about ourselves, there was something satisfying about naming our nihilism. Indeed, in research, teaching, and learning, even the authors of this chapter occasionally become morose and crestfallen over the fantastic capacity of humans to harm themselves, one another, animals, and the environment. Are we gluttons for punishment? Sick voyeurs? Why continue our work? Ortner reminds us, however, that for all the social suffering we bear witness to, there is also love and hope, compassion and joy, hilarity and community to be seen. Thus after years of trolling for fish of discrimination and oppression in the form of disease and death, chronic illness, and reasons to despise conventional medicine, we have arrived at “the good” and come to a place of activism that pursues “a changed, more just world” (May, 2015: 85). The People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) in North America protests against the exclusionary logics of biomedical hegemony and, along the way, it grants personhood and rights to care where they have previously been denied.

Anthropology Gets Poked: A Foray into Acupuncture Activism Since 2013 the principle author, one filmmaker, and four undergraduate anthropology students have been engaged in an anthropology of activism with POCA, tracing an exposé of private acupuncture practice and for-profit acupuncture schools in the Global North that, rather than disrupting old logics of biomedicine, act to reproduce them by writing normative education and treatment on white, affluent bodies. Our work with POCA began as one piece of a larger project

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surrounding medical pluralism, patient access and choice, and chronic illness; theoretically its intent was to contribute to scholarship on the embodiment of disease, health disparities, structural barriers to healthcare, and health outcomes of integrative treatment modalities (i.e., complementary and alternative medicine alongside conventional medicine). While interviewing a researcher with the National College of Natural Medicine (now the National University of Natural Medicine) in Portland, Oregon in 2012, one student-researcher was introduced to the work of POCA and its mission to establish a counter-narrative to homogenized acupuncture in the United States. Shortly thereafter, we began working closely with POCA providers to collect interview data, observe clinic activities (e.g., patient-provider interactions and business design and administration), collect textual data on the POCA website and blogs, and film treatment sessions and practicums for production of a documentary film on their community acupuncture movement. One year after starting the work with POCA, the POCA Technical Institute (an Oregon Medical Board-licensed acupuncture training institute) opened its doors to its first cohort of students. Since then, POCA Tech has been folded into our research: Interviewing students, attending classes, consulting on the school’s self-study for accreditation with the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine, and teaching their required “multicultural competency” module every year. At present, the first author is a principle investigator on a collaborative POCA/Whitman College research project to establish, collect, and analyze data for the Adverse Event Reporting Database for acupuncture safety. The second author was funded by Whitman College as a studentresearcher and videographer for the POCA-affiliated Community Acupuncture Project (CAP) of West Seattle. Her work with CAP culminated in a two-day pop-up community acupuncture clinic staged at the Congregational Church in Walla Walla, Washington. As a project in public anthropology, the pop-up clinic was designed to showcase community acupuncture as a form of social commentary and action while also presenting the role of anthropology in discussions of accessible and affordable healthcare. Three acupuncturists, eight reclining chairs, and six volunteers later, 115 residents of the town received free acupuncture treatment. POCA activism research is decidedly critical, exploring power and equity across transnational landscapes of illness perceptions and diagnoses, treatment, and outcomes. Recently, however, we have taken this work from the ivory tower to a collaborative stance of transformative public action. In this chapter, we show the use of anthropology to explore the practice of community acupuncture as social action: Low-cost, frequent acupuncture delivered in communal spaces to people who otherwise lack resources to access all types of healthcare—conventional as well as integrative. POCA activism can be traced through the work of one licensed acupuncturist, Lisa Rohleder, and an emerging group of providers who refer to themselves as “acupunks” or “punks” for short, representing their intentional connection to a social movement to change the face of acupuncture delivery and education through, in their words, “the calmest revolution ever staged.” At the Working Class Acupuncture clinics where the bulk of ethnographic work

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happened, clients pay for treatment based on a $15–$35 sliding fee scale, with no income verification nor expectation of paying the same amount each time that they visit. “Pay what you can” is the policy. Even if you have only $5 in your wallet, chances are high that you will get the care that you need. The story of the People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture shines a spotlight on a group that otherwise might not be deemed “activist” by anthropologists, who, in seeking understanding, also seek their own transformation. From comfort in the theoretical spaces of critical medical anthropology and confines of the academy, the authors emerge as collaborators to rupture the status quo and to imagine “what could be” in a public ethnography-scape (Bestemen, 2013: 5). At a moment when conventional acupuncture exists on the sideline of a biomedical playing field, yet has learned to throw the ball into the end-zone of insurance reimbursement and “wellness,” POCA operates from a position of double precarity: First, marginal to biomedicine and, second, on the fringe of conventional, Westernized acupuncture. Simultaneously locating their work in a universal healthcare movement as well as in reaction to a “whitening” and biomedicalization of acupuncture, POCA acupuncturists cast a critical light on the landscape of systems operating within systems that reproduce hierarchies of power for patients and students of acupuncture. They are driven to activism to direct our attention to inequities of access—in terms of receiving acupuncture as well as becoming students of acupuncture—and also to provide care more broadly (literally to more people at affordable rates) and to educate responsibly (that is, at low cost, so that students do not leave school with debt and within the structures of people’s real lives, so that they can keep themselves afloat while attending acupuncture school).

Points of Insertion: Acupuncture Futures and an Anthropology of Activism Across the spectrum of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies practiced in North America, some, especially acupuncture, stand out as particularly adaptable and desired in a Western context. Analyzing data from the National Health Interview Survey, Patricia Barnes and colleagues found significant increases in the use of CAM therapies between 2002 and 2007, including acupuncture— increases that coincide with growth in the number of American states licensing acupuncture, in the number of lay articles describing its benefits, and in public awareness, generally, of what the practice is. It is estimated that visits to acupuncturists in the United States tripled between 1997 and 2007, with more than 3 million adults reporting acupuncture use by 2007 (US Department of Health and Human Services, 2013). Acupuncture seems to appeal especially to “patients who have conditions which established medicine has been unable to resolve” (Bates, 2000: 514), for whom the moniker “alternative” represents conscientious objection to biomedicine. Moreover, conventional, (bio)medical doctors are referring patients to acupuncturists in greater numbers and more often (in comparison to

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other CAM modalities) and also going to acupuncturists themselves for treatment (Zhang et al., 2012). Related to the rise in the use of CAM therapies, research advances looking at the effectiveness, quality, and safety of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) are also on the rise and have been reported in peer-reviewed journals and government reports in greater numbers in the past decade. A review of the literature reveals the therapeutic potential of acupuncture for a range of conditions (Xue et al., 2010), including lower back pain, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, insomnia, cocaine dependence, and tension-type headaches, as well as migraines, neck pain, and fibromyalgia, with acupuncture introduced as an additive to or replacement for conventional care. The purpose of this chapter, however, is not to cheerlead for the value and acceptance of acupuncture, but rather to present how acupuncture has emerged from being dubbed counter-culture at best and quackery at worst to achieving legitimate status on the mainstream medical landscape (at least in some circles), where it is even possible to argue, as Ruth Barcan has, that “biomedicine and its alternatives co-produce each other” (Barcan, 2011: 15). Furthermore, we highlight how this new conventional acupuncture is being agitated by POCA, as it confronts the commodification of TCM and acupuncture and schools of naturopathic medicine in an expanding effort to drive down the cost of acupuncture delivery and education. In Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization, Jeffrey Juris (2008) addresses how anti-authoritarian and anti-globalization groups, such as POCA, are able to gain traction through networking and education on a local and grassroots level in order to create nationwide change. Through accessible education, acupuncture treatments, and transparent ideologies, POCA, which was first launched as a single Portland acupuncture clinic, now delivers upwards of one million acupuncture treatments per year at over a hundred clinics nationwide and is now accepting its sixth cohort of students at POCA Technical Institute. Acupunks’ activism takes the form of a philosophy of “fair treatment” for all, inexpensive acupuncture to reach clients “on their own terms,” sustainable community relationships to revitalize local economies, collaboration with community health programs to provide trauma-informed acupuncture, and POCA Tech—an affordable alternative to expensive acupuncture schools that trains people in harm reduction and the business of community acupuncture. In a presentation to the Oregon Medical Board for licensure of POCA Tech, Lisa Rohleder (2014) describes her experiences as a first-generation college student and how her grandfathers (a gas station attendant and chemical plant worker) and father (a truck driver), could never afford $75 to $100 per treatment of acupuncture—they certainly could not visit her in private practice. Rohleder goes on to say that “acupuncture can help people bear their burdens, whether those burdens are physical, mental or emotional. The lower your socioeconomic status, the more burdens you have to bear.” With this in mind, Rohleder describes how she was motivated to “redesign the business model for acupuncture so that [she] could actually treat gas station attendants.”

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“For us,” Rohleder concludes, “POCA is a kind of alternative universe, where people who don’t have much money can get the acupuncture they need regardless of whether insurance will cover it.” As one acupunk named Dylan explained in a research interview: “You can treat people the way they need to be treated because one of the things that people don’t realize is acupuncture got its reputation by treating people over the centuries, got its reputation by just frequent treatments, you know, two or three times a day.. If I could, I would treat someone three times a day and they would get better in a week. You’d have 20 treatments in a week and they’d feel better. So we do the best we can to charge as little as we can and to have people come in as often as they can. So that’s what I like about the community style of treating. To me this is how it’s always been” (August 1, 2014).

Acupuncture as Activism: A Response to the Mainstreaming of Conventional Acupuncture Through a simultaneous process of commodification and legitimacy-building, acupuncture is produced to meet white, wealthy, and medicalized expectations of a holistic Eastern medicine experience replete with requisite spiritual iconography, energy healing, and Chinese herbs, on the one hand, and measurable clinical outcomes and biomedical symbolism on the other (Chang et al., 2011). This means that in the contexts where acupuncture is available, a privileged demographic is at hand. And, as that privileged set makes acupuncture publicly visible, demands on acupuncturists grow, to, first, meet expectations of an authentic Eastern aesthetic and, second, defend the healing power of their work. Defense of acupuncture typically follows one of two paths: Either a proverbial white coat is donned, a qi “imbalance” diagnosis is made, and randomized clinical trials with sham controls are designed (Barnes, 2005), or efficacy studies are eschewed in favor of exploring therapy effectiveness through qualitative patient reported outcomes (Barry, 2006; Aldridge, 2007). Regardless of which path is chosen—an acquiescence to biomedical science or a refusal to follow clinical models of research—notions of tradition and authenticity are privileged and contribute to a process that Mei Zhan calls the “worlding” of TCM, which affects the delivery of acupuncture in North America as ideas of purity translate into a “whitening” of this medical practice. In her ethnography, Other Worldly, Zhan argues that “processes of commodification generate new sites where the clinical and pedagogical knowledge and practice of traditional Chinese medicine are creatively and meaningfully reorganized, negotiated, and performed” (Zhan, 2009: 64), resulting, for example, in acupuncture delivery in the form of private, one-on-one sessions where whole-body points are needled in spa-like atmospheres. In turn, acupuncture commodified in this way becomes accessible only or largely to people of means. As Barcan maintains, however, “this shouldn’t

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blind us to the fact that non-biomedical healing practices continue to be practiced in non-commodified forms in modern Western nations within specific ethnic or other communities (TCM throughout the Chinese diaspora; spiritualism in working-class Britain, and so on)” (Barcan, 2011: 12)—to which we can add community acupuncture. What is happening in POCA activism is a contestation of mainstream acupuncture as an enactment of its own form of discrimination, despite its claims of distinction from biomedicine. The suggestion is that acupuncture cannot be discriminatory because it is not of biomedicine; however, in a complicated process of building legitimacy, it invariably biomedicalizes itself (Baer, 2004). Yet, liberatory frameworks cannot be presumed “incontrovertibly progressive” simply because of an orientation toward social change and supposed counter-narrative to biomedicine. Indeed, there are no liberatory guarantees in their practices; the “contexts and modalities of their use matter” (May, 2015: 86). As Hans Baer remarks about the process of biomedicalizing all forms of complementary and alternative medicine such as acupuncture, “rather than encouraging people to become part of social movements that attempt to either reform of revolutionize society, they take the larger society as a given to which one must adjust” (Baer, 2004: 134–35). In response, POCA aims to go beyond lip service to “diversity” to insist on structural change. And, while they may not be marching in the streets to protest empty rhetorics of counter-hegemony, POCA acupuncturists perform activism in the everyday act of providing acupuncture to recovering addicts, veterans, differently abled bodies, low and middle-income families, and people across multidimensional spaces of gendered races, ethnicities, and ages. In their words, acupunks “prick, prod, and provoke” as a living. POCA punks strive to make things as simple as possible in their clinics so that they can care for as many people as possible. One of the ways that they do this is through treating all patients together in one large room, in community fashion. Patients roll up their sleeves and pant legs and locate reclining chairs that they intend to occupy for an hour or so. In a single room, dimly lit and characterized by dozing, sometimes snoring and twitching clients, the punks on shift needle their way through multiple patients at one time. For the observer, the single distinguishing sound of the treatment rooms is the click, crank, and release of recliner chairs being put into perfect rest-position. Although this suggests a lack of privacy, many patients seem to prefer this group healing space. In fact, the space-designs are intentional and linked to the healing mission of community acupuncture, where punks “plug in” and patients get “pinned down” to provide a collective hold on one another. As one punk said, “It feels well-worn to me; I am ‘held’ here… People plug in and they hold the space and they hold each other. That’s how it feels.” Clinics use comfortable reclining chairs, have lights dimmed, and play soft music in the background. This practice allows clinics to save a lot of money without sacrificing quality of care—savings that are passed on directly to clients in the form of that sliding fee scale. With this model, patients get more treatments more frequently than they would otherwise.

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“It would seem that modern-day practitioners of acupuncture have made a choice to define the practice of acupuncture as something complicated, something to fight over. We could also choose to define it as something simple, something to share. Approaching these issues from the perspective of a preferential option for the poor instead of from the perspective of turf warfare, we could—with equal justification—claim that if acupuncture belongs to anyone, it belongs to the people who need it the most, the people with the fewest resources, the people for whom its simplicity makes it uniquely accessible. In short, the preferential option for the poor represents a compelling moral argument that poor people have first claim on acupuncture and whatever method gets it to them, in a way that they can use it, should be embraced” (https://liberationacupuncture.org/node/32, accessed July 16, 2019).

POCA Activism and Liberation Acupuncture In its adaptation from ancient forms of practice associated with TCM, acupuncture as we know it has undergone local transformation to secure a place in the American healthcare system by participating in clinical trials to assert cause and effect efficacy, operating within the private insurance complex and attaching itself to New Age wellness ideologies that privilege and exotify the Other. With POCA

Photo taken at The Turning Point: Frederick’s Community Acupuncture. Photo by Jonathan Colborn

FIGURE 3.1

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leading the charge, acupuncture in North America is having another (trans)local transformation that, likewise, values “tradition.” However, this time it is a tradition of practice written on the body of the global peasant—acupuncture delivered en masse, with an emphasis on distal point insertion, frequent delivery, and often for preventative health rather than curative effect. POCA activist acupuncturists are raising the veil on relations of power in the profession, particularly on divisions between private-practice acupuncturists and lineage and community practitioners, demanding new forms and deemphasizing the exotic. POCA’s movement aims to disrupt strongly held beliefs about what acupuncture treatment and education should look like in North America—beliefs held by leaders in the umbrella realm of complementary and alternative medicine as well as by private practice acupuncturists, who Rohleder and her followers call “boutiquers.” POCA has sparked a rather contentious divide between private-practice acupuncturists and community acupuncturists, with the former accentuating spirituality-as-healing in their work, and the latter rendering the strange (i.e., the exotic) familiar by demystifying acupuncture and reducing it to its principle elements. As they fulfill their commitment to providing low-cost, frequent care to people who otherwise lack resources to access all types of healthcare—conventional as well as CAM, punks set themselves up for mainstream criticism of how they teach and practice. POCA has laid claim to the phrase “liberation acupuncture”—a school of thought that represents a third form of acupuncture, distinct from standard TCM and Five Element approaches taught at other institutions. POCA sees liberation acupuncture, rooted in liberation studies, as a fundamental practice for the community acupuncture model. Through the application of fundamentals of liberation theology outlined by social psychologist Ignacio Martín-Baró and other liberation scholars, POCA has created a system where acupuncture acts as a means of social and medical liberation. As defined on POCA’s website, liberation acupuncture is: “a conceptual framework for acupuncture that affirms that individual health and disease do not exist, and cannot be understood or addressed, apart from social conditions – particularly injustice, inequality, and the pervasive influence of traumatic stress” (https://liberationacupuncture.org/ accessed July 24, 2019). Further, POCA punks explain: “If we want to be relevant, we need to take into account the life experiences of a wide range of real people, not just a narrow and economically privileged segment of the population. Liberation Acupuncture maintains that acupuncture must be practical, by being based on experience and by having a positive impact on society” . (https://liberationacupuncture.org, accessed July 24, 2019)

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On the Liberation Acupuncture website, punks identify their roots and ideological framework with the work of the Young Lords and Black Panthers during the late 1960s and early 1970s (Nelson, 2011) in utilizing acupuncture for drug rehabilitation in response to the neglect of healthcare in their communities in the South Bronx (Burrough, 2015: 450). These acupuncture treatments, which were led, taught, and practiced by Mutulu Shakur at the Lincoln Detox Center, were positioned as radical protest (Burrough, 2015: 45). Treatments were accompanied by Marxist and liberation literature for the purpose of lifting communities through healthcare and liberation education—something that Black Panther David Hilliard claims qualifies as “revolutionary medicine” (Nelson, 2011: 71). Hilliard goes on to say that with the commodification and neoliberalization of medicine, “doctors are not servants of the people, but professionals” (Nelson, 2011: 71). As a revolutionary means, the Black Panthers “want to do away with the bourgeoisie concept of medicine. It should be brought down to the community to teach the people how to practice medicine” (Nelson, 2011: 71). Steps in the Black Panthers’ revolutionary medicine included establishing the Lincoln Detox Center and the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture. In similar fashion and in pursuit of social justice in healthcare aims as the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture, POCA expanded its mission beyond the delivery of acupuncture to the teaching of it: POCA Technical Institute is an innovation in acupuncture training that provides low cost instruction and residency to students for whom acupuncture school would otherwise be out of reach financially, geographically, and logistically. Unlike standard schools of acupuncture, POCA Tech offers a Master’s level certificate rather than a Master’s degree. The school serves the needs of the POCA coop, rests on a philosophy of trauma-informed care, and trains students in a community acupuncture business model, as well as in distal point practice, which relies on TCM theory yet emphasizes value (to the client) over depth in auxiliary and private services. The POCA Tech imperative of “work[ing] on our problems by rejecting the system” is clearly articulated to prospective students, to which is added: “We believe that much of the physical and mental suffering around us is a result of structural violence…What you see when you work in the clinic is how the violence of our economic system is written on our patients’ bodies and minds…If worldly success and recognition are important to you, if you hate being misunderstood and dismissed (including by other acupuncturists), and particularly, if validation from ‘the system’ is something you want, this is not the school for you. Community acupuncture is a vocation. It’s not easy and it’s not for everyone. If caring for people on the margins will bring you joy, POCA Tech is for you” (http://www.liberationacupuncture.org, accessed July 24, 2019).

Social Justice, Mutualism, and Anthropology for the Public The authors’ entrée into the anthropology of activism began from research experiences and theories in critical studies of health and disease, particularly involving engaged ethnography with patients who suffer chronic illness without relief

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from biomedical treatments. In the work with POCA, though, more time has been devoted to gathering provider narratives than patient ones—particularly punk stories of coming to the practice of community acupuncture with the intention of serving marginalized groups without the reward of lucrative incomes in return. Along the way, we have been struck by a number of overlaps between critical medical anthropology and community acupuncture in terms of philosophies, outlooks, and methodologies of practice. It is these overlaps with POCA activism that captivate us. First, there is what is studied and attended to—namely, chronic illness, health disparities, social suffering, and structural violence written on the bodies of the poor and underserved. Second, there is a shared sense of how health is conceived, studied, and framed—achieved through the collection of illness narratives and patient-reported outcomes with attention to language, embodiment, and the political economy of health. Third, overlaps can be found in our mutual consideration of why these things are important—to address relationships of power in healthcare delivery and education, to expose multiple vectors of oppression and suffering, and to offer a critique of mainstream medicine, including the mainstreaming of acupuncture. And, finally, commonalities are seen in the aims of the critical health work that we undertake—whether theoretical, applied, or for the provisioning of care, critical medical anthropologists and community acupuncturists alike seek to apply findings to harm reduction programs, to decrease social suffering, to influence health education reform, and to broadly provide social justice and equity in healthcare delivery. The organizational structure of POCA takes the form of a multi-stakeholder cooperative (MSC). Hans Münkner, a professor and scholar of cooperative law, explains that these cooperatives are for the purpose of “pursuing common interests, irrespective of their legal form” (Münkner, 2004: 56). He emphasizes the social and motivational aspects of such cooperatives by theorizing that institutional problems, such as medical, social, and employment exclusions can be solved better with a multi-stakeholder model. Applicable to POCA, Münkner identifies the following MSC conventions: Mobilization of local resources for local development, activation of self-help potentials, and enhancement of the inclination to cooperate and to practice mutual aid among all interested persons (Münkner, 2004: 50). Münkner also explains that MSCs are well suited for outreach to communities “on the basis of organized self-help, mutual aid, and solidarity” (Münkner, 2004: 61). An explanation of what the MSC model means in the community acupunctureas-social-justice context can be found in blog posts on the POCA Tech website: “What a beautiful humanitarian organization POCA must be, to put in this huge effort just so that I could go to an affordable acupuncture school! I think I love you! Actually, POCA isn’t a humanitarian organization at all, though it sometimes gets mistaken for one. POCA’s a co-op, and it’s really important to understand the difference. There’s a difference.

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Yes. POCA is based on the principle of mutualism. The dictionary definition of mutualism is the doctrine that mutual dependence is necessary to social well-being. The second, related term is mutual aid, which means cooperative as opposed to competitive factors operating in the development of society. This is really different from charity. POCA isn’t a position just to give things away, because POCA is made up of people who need things and who depend on each other to make those things happen. If you go to the school that POCA made, POCA wants something in return. There are obligations” (www.pocatech.org/what-poca-tech, accessed July 24, 2019).

Punk Identities and Radicalization Punk interviewees with whom we work talk about being part of something that is much bigger than they are as individuals. Below, we present excerpts from interviews with Portland acupunks (whose names have been changed) to show how the term “punk”—and its derivatives punking, pinning, poking, and prodding—signal identity formation for POCA practitioners around the shared cultural belief in making care affordable and spreading resources in non-hierarchical ways. Moreover, these terms serve to distinguish what acupunks do from regular acupuncturists. Interview responses fell into what we delineated as three categories, although not mutually exclusive ones. These include rebellion (against an establishment), anarchism in association with communism, and individual identity formation that follows from the collective.

Rebellion For the first category, rebellion, project participants repeatedly came to the idea of being anti-establishment in general and anti-acupuncture-establishment in particular. They reject the form that it takes as a practice and as an institution of higher education. They talked about “punk” as a charged word that suggests a radical movement and a culture of disrupting ideas around “proper” needling practices; being punk is a transgressive act. Hillery, for instance, described being a punk as: “this thing so antithetical to everything else that people are doing in the acupuncture world.. This work feels like helping people in this really direct way and not having all these systems in my way; I’m not dealing with insurance, I’m not dealing with whether or not we get grants to continue working. [I’m] able to work in a place where…there’s nothing in between me and my work.” She went on to note that “acupuncture school is really expensive [yet] teaches you a lot of things that are completely irrelevant to being a punk…But we’re saying, ‘there are these things that we learned but we don’t have to use them.’ We can make a priority of healing a lot of patients and charging on a sliding scale. And that goes against what we learn in acupuncture school, where we are ‘very special’ …and we deserve to be compensated well for our

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services. And, that we should find a niche market where we treat only infertility or we treat only athletes. [That’s how] we build ourselves, our names, up in the community. Here, we don’t do anything like that—we don’t advertise ourselves as individual punks..That in itself is the idea of losing your ego and not making it about you but making it about patients’ access. We’re all choosing to not make a lot of money off our patients; to not make a lot of money off the backs of our patients is the transgressive statement. And if the rest of the acupuncture world wants to be upset with that, that’s not nearly as important as what our patients get from it.”

Anarchism Second, the punk-interviewees associated their activities with anarchism, understood here to imply voluntary cooperation and free associations that are non-hierarchical, being decidedly anti-capitalist and focused on communal good, being communist in their organizational structure, and relying on the power of their patients to heal themselves. Over and over I listened as punks talked about being part of something that was much bigger than they are as individuals. As punk Annie explained, “In school they want you to start your private practice, charge as much as possible, go through insurance. So [punk] is a good word for branching out and doing our own thing, taking care of the community, coming together as a community to take care of each other.” Repeatedly I was told, “It’s about social capital that builds when you live and work in the same neighborhood as your patients do.” Annie relayed the story of someone who comes to the clinic regularly, who also lives in her neighborhood and frequents the same public library, and who intervened to help Annie as she struggled one afternoon to manage her two kids and a load of books that caused a security sensor to buzz loudly. Annie added that each time that she gave birth to one of her babies, she returned to the clinic after maternity leave to find bags of hand-me-downs, all donated by patients. “There’s a lot of love going around here…We’re responsible to these patients because they put food in our bellies.” In return, punks identify the value in making the clinic space one in which patients know what to expect and feel like it is “their place.” According to Annie, “to try acupuncture is a big deal, so just opening the door can be really powerful to a lot of people…I can’t cure things and I don’t want to be a substitute for major medical interventions. I want to be a piece of the puzzle in a patient’s care.” Annie and others described the process of deprogramming themselves from acupuncture school, where they were instructed to make diagnoses and to counsel their patients on healthy behaviors and “lifestyles.” She told me, “I don’t want to make my patients’ goals or change the goals [that they have]. I don’t know better than they do what they need, so what I can do well is support them in reaching their goals, make it so they can come here as often as they like.” In an act of resistance against commodifying her practice and making herself out to be distinct from the group, Annie explained that patients who come to POCA clinics can see any punk—no one is held out as special or separate from

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the group, and that “group” includes active clients as well as the community neighborhood where they practice. These are important differences, she said, “between being a punk and not being a punk.”

Identity Through these practices, punks arrive at a sense of belonging, which leads me to the third category of “punk” definitions—those attached to provider identity. As one punk said excitedly, “I belong to THAT—to community acupuncture, to POCA! I belong to helping people and making care affordable.” Each punk spoke with pride and enthusiasm about their attachment to the community acupuncture movement where they found group solidarity and a common language around healing. Punk Jacob explained: “We have a lingo that we use like ‘pinning’ and ‘poking’ and ‘punking’—the vernacular within community acupuncture. Punking is what we do because we are punk acupuncturists, working at community clinics. ‘Pinning’ is the act of putting needles in people and ‘unpinning’ is taking them out. ‘Poking’ or ‘prodding’ is talking about things we’re not supposed to talk about in the acupuncture world, like the cost of education, the cost of healthcare, the undertraining of people in the business aspects of the profession. We’re stirring the pot together!”

Discussion What makes POCA successful? Punks are committed and passionate about what they provide and where they provide it, which results in patients who are happy with what they receive—they feel better, have comforting relationships with the spaces and their punks, and do not go broke getting care. Furthermore, POCA Tech does not teach to the test (although their students do in fact go on to pass Board exams). Training comes in the form of good technique and procedures while also including critical studies of intersecting racist, sexist, classist, and ableist ideologies and oppressions. POCA “punklings” graduate with tools to reduce the suffering—social, emotional, and physical—of their patients. As we enter the sixth year of ethnographic work and film production with POCA punks, certain philosophies, outlooks, and methodologies of practice have come to light. First, there is a commitment to particular issues and ailments, namely chronic illness, health disparities, social suffering, and structural violence written on the bodies of the poor and underserved. Second, there is a shared sense of how health is conceived, studied, and framed—achieved through the collection of illness narratives and patient reported outcomes with attention to language, embodiment, and political economy of health. Third, there is mutual consideration of why these things are important: To address relationships of power in healthcare delivery and education, to expose multiple vectors of oppression and suffering, and to critique

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mainstream medicine (including the mainstreaming of acupuncture). And, finally, POCA punks seek to apply findings to harm reduction programs, to decrease social suffering, to influence health education reform, and to provide social justice and equity in healthcare delivery. According to POCA punks, all of these aims are achieved through community acupuncture. As one told me, “The community thing is that you see other people sitting there and so, it becomes accepted more. And, you see how they’re snoring and relaxing and healing, and your friends are. And, then you can start saying, ‘it’s okay for me to sit’ and realize that that’s enough for you as well—to get pinned down, stop moving around, and just let something else happen, let the healing happen.”

References Aldridge, David. 2007. “Qualitative Methods in CAM Research: A Focus Upon Narratives, Prayer and Spiritual Healing.” In Researching Complementary and Alternative Medicine, edited by Jon Adams: 23–38. New York: Routledge. Baer, Hans. 2004. Toward an Integrative Medicine: Merging Alternative Therapies with Biomedicine. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. Barcan, Ruth. 2011. Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Bodies, Therapies, Senses. New York: Berg. Barnes, Linda. 2005. “American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and Their Points of Insertion.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 19(3): 239–266. Barnes, Patricia M., Barbara Bloom, and Richard L. Nahin. 2008. “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Use Among Adults and Children: United States, 2007.” National Health Statistics Report 12. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Barry, Christine Ann. 2006. “The Role of Evidence in Alternative Medicine: Contrasting Biomedical and Anthropological Approaches.” Social Science and Medicine, 62(11): 2626–2657. Bates, Donald G. 2000. “Why Not Call Modern Medicine “Alternative”?” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 43(4): 502–518. Besteman, Catherine. 2013. “Three Reflections on Public Anthropology.” Anthropology Today, 29(6): 3–6. Chang, Dong-Seon, Hyeyeon Lee, Hyejung Lee, Hi-Joon Park, and Younbyoung Chae. 2011. “What to Wear When Practicing Oriental Medicine: Patients’ Preferences for Doctors’ Attire.” The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 17(8): 763–767. Juris, Jeffrey S. 2008. Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. May, Vivian M. 2015. Pursuing Intersectionality, Unsettling Dominant Imaginaries. New York: Routledge. Münkner, Hans H. 2004. “Multi-Stakeholder Cooperatives and their Legal Framework.” In Trends and Challenges for Co-operatives and Social Enterprises in Developed and Transition Countries, edited by Carlo Borzaga and Roger Spear: 49–69. Trento: Edizioni31. Rohleder, Lisa. 2014. Presentation to the Oregon Medical Board for licensure of POCA Tech. August 1. www.pocacoop.com/pocatv/post/poca-tech-and-the-oregon-medical-board. US Department of Health and Human Services. 2013. Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Introduction. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services.

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Xue, Charlie C.L., Anthony L. Zhang, Kenneth M. Greenwood, Vivian Lin, and David F. Story. 2010. “Traditional Chinese Medicine: An Update on Clinical Evidence.” Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16(3): 301–312. Zhan, Mei. 2009. Other-Worldly: Making Chinese Medicine through Transnational Frames. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Zhang, Yan, Lixing Lao, Haiyan Chen, and Rodrigo Ceballos. 2012. “Acupuncture Use among American Adults: What Acupuncture Practitioners Can Learn from National Health Interview Survey 2007?” Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Volume 2012: 1–8. doi:10.1155/2012/710750.

4 ENGAGED ETHNOGRAPHY IN A RESIDENT-ACTIVIST ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COMMUNITY Michael Still

For students at Boston University School of Medicine’s Medical Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Practice graduate program, the first semester involves seeking an internship with organizations whose mission and work fit their research interests. In this way I—together with the rest of my cohort—would cultivate relationships that would inform our studies while also engaging meaningfully with the surrounding community. While several of my peers’ interests were clinical or mental-health focused, I was interested in defining health more broadly as access to material and non-material resources that result in an individual having a high-degree of satisfaction with life (Baer, Singer, and Johnsen, 1986). I wanted to explore how residents whose lives explicitly intersect with environmental health issues on a regular basis come to terms with being identified by outsiders–government regulators and researchers–as “at risk.” I wanted to know what kinds of information and action inform the response to threats to individual and population health. I was also interested in identifying underlying causes such as access to transit, equitable housing, and representation. I found a robust EJ activist presence in Chelsea, separated from Boston by Chelsea Creek and the Mystic River. I emailed the director of a group called GreenRoots (GR) in hopes of obtaining permission to meet with the staff. The following passage is from my initial email: “I intend to study the intersection of environment and health in the city of Boston, specifically with respect to neighborhoods and organizations that deal with public health concerns. The Improved Public Health and Air and Water Quality program at GreenRoots flows perfectly with my direction of study. I believe that I could be of service to the organization, and that the community of Chelsea and GreenRoots would be an excellent resource for me in my research” (email message, August 24, 2017).

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In my zeal, I identified Chelsea as a part of Boston—an oversight that to some might not hold much weight. The proximity and interwoven economic and social environs of the two municipalities facilitated my error. The people of Chelsea are quick to point out the distinction. I backpedaled both in an effort to secure an internship and field site, and because my ethnocentric comment had violated an anthropological taboo. I had assumed that my perception of the region was correct, negating the local knowledge of my participants and the fact that they inhabit a city of their own. I came to realize the pragmatic and symbolic importance of the distinction. Boston enjoys newly built greenways and grabs the attention of politicians and funders. Riding the current wave of gentrification, Bostonians are moving into condominiums in freshly built towers that took the place of old neighborhoods, pushing up rental prices in Chelsea and surrounding communities. Embedded in the exchange is Chelsea residents’ resistance to incorporation and displacement by Bostonians who depend on Chelsea’s resource procurement while neglecting provenance. While Chelsea supplies food, road salt, and oil for neighboring Boston, its contributions are frequently overlooked and under-appreciated. Much of GR’s work is about drawing attention to Chelsea as a unique city that bears important burdens for its surrounding communities by virtue of its industrial waterfront. In looking at GR and environmental justice through an ethnographic lens, my aim is to reveal the social aspects of environmental justice activism and advocacy. I lean on stories about EJ work to add personal narratives to the technical information about sea-level rise and toxic emissions that lurks in the background. My role at the organization and as a researcher was to present an accurate and nuanced portrayal of events as I encountered them. In doing so, I noticed similarities between the work of activists and that of anthropologists. Good science—meshed with compelling narrative—gives credence to the struggles of those who show up elsewhere as data points in studies on water quality or exposure to diesel fumes. Doug, a full time GR staffer who was always enthusiastic about injecting residents’ stories into advocacy work, noted that a person standing in front of you telling you how their lives are affected by the environment is just as effective (if not more so) than a dataset or graph that says the same thing. In this way, residents are able to harness their stories and use them in activism, advocating for themselves and their home because they know more about it than anyone else. I compiled data for this chapter during 18 months of participant-observation with GR and as an assistant for researchers engaging in participatory action research with GR members. I also conducted one-on-one interviews (n=11) with GR staff and associated stakeholders (Still, 2019). Throughout the course of my time with GR, my responsibilities included in-office work (calling and emailing stakeholders, gathering information about project permitting in Chelsea and Boston, combing through state and federal environmental laws in search of relevant passages for use in upcoming public information meetings with developers, and making myself available to assist the staff in any way they needed) as well as several off-site projects (raising community awareness about the current state of environmental health and

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accompanying informants when they attended meetings hosted by local government and academic institutions). Simultaneously, I became a research assistant on a project overseeing a community-based participatory research project illuminating the frequency of Clean Water Act violations by the numerous fossil fuel companies along Chelsea Creek.1 In this role, I combed through Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) data and sought community feedback on awareness and impressions of chemical leaks. Perhaps more importantly, I acted as a liaison between GR and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Northeastern University-based primary investigators.

Environmental Justice Activism in Chelsea Chelsea is home to the largest produce distribution center on the east coast. If you live in the greater Boston area and heat your home with oil in the winter, it probably came from the tankers that clog the channels of Chelsea Creek. All of the jet fuel used by the planes at Logan Airport is stored along the Chelsea River. And there is enough road salt stored here to supply 350 New England communities, keeping roadways safe from winter Nor’easters. One resident-activist characterized her perspective of industrial land use: “We have so much…stuff coming in and it’s so much, so much is happening so obviously it affects our environment. We don’t have that much green space…it’s hard to be active around here because there’s no space to be active in” (Chelsea resident 1, 2018). Like most GR members, she is a life-long Chelsea resident. Her perspective is structured by the things that she sees—and does not see—in her community. One hundred percent of the 40,227 people of Chelsea live in a designated EJ area: Each of the city’s six census tracts qualify under the EPA designations of low income, percent minority, linguistic isolation, or education level. Federal guidelines dictate that an area need only qualify under one of their demographic indicators to be considered an EJ area; all of Chelsea’s census tracts check multiple boxes (US Census Bureau, n.d..; MassGIS, n.d.). To address these circumstances, a small group of residents with backgrounds in community organizing founded GreenRoots in the summer of 2016. Initially, they operated as Chelsea GreenSpaces, a department within The Chelsea Collaborative (TCC). The Collaborative is a nonprofit organization whose mission is “to address persistent issues of inequity, which negatively impact the well-being of Chelsea residents, particularly those most vulnerable among us such as children, immigrants, and refugees” (Chelsea Collaborative Inc, 2018). Established in 1988, the TCC serves Chelsea’s burgeoning immigrant population. Recognizing the need for an organization devoted solely to EJ causes, those who would form GreenRoots broke off and harnessed support from the Chelsea Creek Action Group (CCAG)—an already dedicated group of volunteers and activists in East Boston—to form a single body of supporters and EJ resident-activist workers and volunteers. Elsewhere, I go into detail about the successes of the CCAG and GR in preventing oil-fired power plants, ethanol trains, and electrical substations from taking space in their community (Still, 2019).

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One of GR’s greatest victories came when the organization successfully blocked Energy Management Inc (EMI) from building a diesel power plant only 250 yards from the Burke Elementary School (GreenRoots Inc., n.d.). Organizers rallied community support for letter-writing campaigns, attendance at EMI community outreach sessions, and City Hall meetings by regularly updating a blog with information about meeting dates and times. Resident-activists also held positions in the City of Chelsea’s government, giving them a head start on opposition to undesirable developments. Knowing when and how to pressure the Massachusetts EPA office was a key factor in stopping EMI’s permitting process. The Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act mandates that all projects requiring state approval file an environmental review assessing projected impact and mitigation of environmental risks. The state reviews each proposal, and in the case of EMI, it decided that the plan lacked emergency response and safety measures sufficient for a site that houses hazardous materials such as particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen oxides. EMI withdrew its proposal after this memorandum was issued (Estrella-Luna, 2009). Through collaboration with Alternatives for Community and Environment, an environmental justice organization in Roxbury, MA, and the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental law group that works across New England, CCAG leveraged state policy and community support to pressure state agencies to apply the full measure of relevant statutes in the case of the EMI plant (Estrella-Luna 2009). Local media coverage of resident-activist protests and community events also played a part in making sure the project was unsuccessful (Conti, 2006; 2007). I heard Chelsea residents speak about past campaigns as if they were weeks removed instead of years. Their community’s burdens are at the forefront of their minds, as are the institutions responsible for these burdens. Not only did GR oppose the plant, but its members stood in opposition to EMI and its owners’ characterization of their home as an industrial zone (Estrella-Luna, 2009). This one-dimensional label from an outsider—like my own misstep—failed to grasp Chelsea as a place where families live and enjoy life. GR uses a pluralistic methodological approach to take on institutional powers who see their home as a place to do business. GR acquires legal, scientific, and community resources to achieve equitable representation and resource allocation. Resident-activist workers and volunteers aim for equitable redistribution of resources and increased opportunities for resident participation in decision-making processes. Discussion of resource distribution and equity is a central theme of environmentalism and EJ (Banuri et al., 1995; Schlosberg, 2007; Bullard et al., 2011). These themes are visible in Chelsea. Community meetings at GR are often centered around engagement with developers and policymakers who seek comment from Chelsea residents on infrastructure and development plans. Resident-activists understand that representation comes after action. Their protests and letter-writing campaigns are precursors to dialogue. Concerns for equity are clearly demonstrated by the ways that residents participate in governmental processes such as public comment forums, where the city presents plans ranging from new condominium buildings and new transit lines to plans to address

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climate change effects such as heat-islands and the rising sea levels that already inundate streets when a storm happens to coincide with high tide. EJ methodology in Chelsea involves a collaborative effort between legal aid organizations, residents turned activists who mobilize in service of their homes and hold influential positions within the city, and institutional bodies whose researchers put into practice their belief in a community-centered approach. This triumvirate of activist-legal professional-researcher each lends a unique form of capital to the fight for equitable representation and decision-making around issues of climate change. GR is where community voices come together and are strengthened as a single entity. The organization leverages community support and “local knowledge”—practical expertise rooted in place and experience that is foundational to resident-activism in Chelsea (Geertz, 1982). GR is a conduit of individual and community power via participation. The staff provide community input via editorials, presence at hearings, letter writing campaigns, and petitions to The Energy Facilities Siting Board, The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, Eversource, Global Oil, and The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Association—forces that are responsible for building and approving placement of petroleum and ethanol tanks, train and transit routes, and green-spaces. These agencies are the wielders of what Foucault calls biopower—the ability to decide whether to “make live or let die” (1975: 241). They determine what goes where, which neighborhood gets a park or boardwalk (both which have been shown to increase the mental and physical health of the surrounding population), and which one gets a highway overpass. Such biopolitical decision-making ability is at the heart of EJ and its focus on inclusion and equity. It is made tangible through the process of deciding where to locate things that are detrimental to the environment and neighboring communities. In Chelsea, there is an established resistance to one-sided biopolitics.

The Journey to Chelsea The first time that I travelled from my home in Boston to GR was for a fundraiser. I recorded my journey in my fieldnotes. The event took place on a warm evening in early September. The route is well-traveled by commuters. Chelsea residents line up to catch the bus home after working all day in Boston, the few miles between home and work consuming a significant portion of their mornings and evenings. Understanding—as best I could—what daily life is like for Chelsea residents is essential to knowing what it means to be a resident-activist. How they, individually and collectively, encounter the world and how they move through it makes up an essential part of their disposition, their way of being. In turn, this perspective gives context to the EJ actions that Chelsea residents take. A chemical leak or oil sheen is not a single occurrence. Behind an environmental hazard is the history of its source and the relationship between source and destination, corporation and body, CEO and citizen.

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I opened the transit mobile app—a necessary tool for anybody riding public transportation in and around Boston. I tapped in the address of the GR office and awaited the directions: Take the green line inbound to Haymarket, then transfer to the 111 bus. Get off at the corner of Park and Cross Street, then a short walk to the office. Easy enough, I thought. Total distance six miles. Travel time: One hour. One hour seemed much too long. I eventually landed on the streets of Chelsea. They resemble those of the sprawling outskirts of the City of Boston—haphazard roadways lined with multifamily homes—but this was the first time since moving to the region that I saw Spanish-language signage. Construction vehicles and orange barrels blocked a few roads along my planned route. A brief but disorienting detour led me past a school and a park, both filled with young residents enjoying the autumn afternoon. I also passed the Chelsea community garden. The growing season was at its peak, and the plot burst with vibrant green accented by red and purple perennials. A handful of people tended to the garden, watering and pruning against the backdrop of Chelsea’s industrial Waterfront. I turned a corner down a steep hill towards Marginal Street. In front of me was the entrance for Eastern Minerals. White hills of mineral salts stood in the background, covered with a voluminous tarp and obscuring views of Chelsea Creek. I saw the GreenRoots building on the horizon. I crossed the street, dodging semi-trucks in the absence of a crosswalk. Suddenly, it hit me. A scent that I had never experienced before swirled in the air. I stopped in my tracks and gagged. Looking around for the source of the stench, I saw a brick building situated across the street from a dilapidated pier and rotting pilings—a holdover from the early days of Chelsea’s industrial growth. Broken windows were boarded up or stuffed with the kind of fiberglass insulation that lined the walls of the basement in my childhood home. A weathered sign read “Boston Hides and Furs LTD.” Fumes from the tannery, commingling with chemicals and rotting flesh, were seeping through the broken panes. Moving through the tannery fumes, I was almost at the office. The putrid air had distracted me from a gigantic oil/chemical tanker ship— ushered by a team of tugboats—looming in the creek adjacent to the GR building. As I neared the office, I heard music—a Latin American Bachata rhythm— echoing off the sides of the massive watercraft, reverberating back into the neighborhood. I rounded the corner and saw a band tucked into the corner of the lot outside GR. Several dozen people gathered around the musicians. Some were dancing, others stood in conversation. A few children sat on a riverside bench, waiting for the ship with the name “Fourni” inscribed on its bow to clear from their view. More people milled about inside the office, some lined up in front of a makeshift buffet table covered with trays of food: Salad, pizzas, burritos, flautas, and Latin American specialties such as pupusas with curtido. At the far end of the room, a counter served as a bar; a woman was taking drink orders while laughing in loud conversation with her patrons. I mingled with some of the attendees. Most of the people in attendance were from Chelsea; some resided in East Boston, unsurprisingly, as most EJ

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movements have a tight local focus (Martínez-Alier, 2009). All were there because they had an interest in GR’s mission, however they interpreted it. I meandered through the crowd and met Rachel, a resident who had been active with GR and its predecessor for “a few years now” and was there to enjoy an evening of fun and festivities. She mingled among friends and neighbors, as well as a few local politicians who donned the requisite smiles and lapel pins that bespoke power and influence. We struck up a conversation about Chelsea and GR. At every turn, Rachel was quick to say how accomplished she felt as a member and resident, that her sense of pride in her city had a lot to do with GR’s existence. A few minutes later, Marta—a woman I would later come to know over my time at GR— announced that the program was about to start and instructed everyone to go out into the parking lot to hear Diane, GR’s executive director and lifelong Chelsea resident, speak (Still, 2019). Diane was in front of a chain-link fence adorned with a banner displaying the GR logo: A maple tree with its roots reaching down to fuse with the green beams of the Tobin bridge. Although I do not recall her exact words, her message was filled with pride about the past year’s accomplishments, gratitude for everyone in attendance, and a call for increased support in the coming months. To conclude her speech, Diane introduced a few members of the ECOcrew—GR’s youth contingent. She noted that the young EJ activists were competing to see who could raise the most money over the course of the evening and urged the audience to seek them out and contribute if the festivities so moved them.

FIGURE 4.1

GreenRoots supporters gather along Chelsea Creek to enjoy their annual celebration, reflecting on recent successes and challenges and sharing their vision for the coming year. Photo by Mike Still

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That first walk through Chelsea became a starting point for my research into community collaborations between academics, policymakers, and residents interested in moving the needle from negative peace (the absence of violence) toward positive peace (the presence of equity) (Galtung and Fischer, 2013). Positive peace comprises equity in research, as well as in the distribution of environmental hazards, green spaces, and other elements that benefit the community. As my research got underway, I became aware of a piece called “Suspending Damage,” written by Eve Tuck in 2009. This “open letter to communities, researchers, and educators,” calls on all parties to refocus research away from a central (and singular) idea of damage. Damage-centered research, Tuck argues, although good-natured in its intent to identify oppressive structures and communities, paints a picture of marginalized individuals and populations incapable of achieving justice and equity without the aid of those who hold power and influence. Damage-centered research is akin to what Sherry Ortner (2016) calls “dark anthropology”—work centered around oppression and suffering of those subject to the decisions of policymakers and corporations removed from the community. Ortner (2016: 65) discusses this through an anthropological lens that considers “emphasizing the harsh, violent, and punitive nature of neoliberalism and the depression and hopelessness in which people under neoliberal regimes are often enveloped,” while in turn suggesting a shift to an anthropology of the good (exemplified by Yotebieng and by Kline et al. in this volume). Researchers—myself included—and agencies (like the EPA, whose EJ index identifies areas with overlapping demographic and environmental indicators without context or insight into the desires of the people who reside there) inevitably wield an instrument of surveillance over residents. Inhabitants of EJ-identified areas are already under the watchful eye of government institutions founded on racist and/or classist ideas that are a constant reminder of historic colonization and aggression that resurfaces (or has remained constant) through media and political discourse (Parenti, 2004; Kendi, 2017). GR and its staff constitute an activist cultural system—a web of understanding and interpretation—wherein residents are encouraged and empowered to realize their agency (Geertz, 1973). The work of a resident-activist focused on environmental justice involves identifying and combatting culturally salient health risks, inequities, and injustices that are the result of imbalanced biopower over spaces and bodies on the part of industrial interests and governmental regulations. The aim of the organization is to achieve equity in power, to inform, and to mobilize the great masses of their city upstream—rising against the tide of environmental health risks, resisting development that ushers in gentrification, and working toward a unified vision of a “Healthy Chelsea.” Their philosophy is rooted in Freirean conceptualizations—the idea that equity between those who “know” and those who “learn” is vital to continued success, as defined by the members themselves, of local EJ work (Freire, 1970). Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), formed a theory of knowledge and education, emphasizing the idea that the process of transferring knowledge is not—and cannot be—neutral. In his examination of teaching, which in Chelsea extends to

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participatory research, Freire notes the relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed that limits the freedoms of the burdened group. Anthropological inquiry and community-centered approaches to research are tools that researchers use to eliminate the imbalance of power when collaborating with community-based organizations and resident-activists.

Environmental Justice Activism: An Emancipatory Habitus “The conditionings associated with a particular class of conditions of existence produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures” (Bourdieu, 1990: 53). All of this is to say that one’s surroundings (visible and invisible) have a hand in forming one’s way of being, acting, and moving through the world. My walks through Chelsea revealed the city’s built environment and the resident activists whom I met told me about their experiences with the companies and governmental bodies that have made Chelsea “bear a burden for the region” (Chelsea resident 2, 2018). The term burden comes up repeatedly in GR discourse to indicate that the city provides benefits like oil, road salt, produce, and access to Boston for surrounding communities. The “present class of conditions” are the structural, biopolitical factors such as chemical runoff and the state and federal permits that allow them, but also community ties that foster a space of emancipatory knowledge exchange. Residentactivists’ internal, innate understandings of their home as a place of family ties, of celebration—and of the occasional oil spill—structure how they move through their world. When doing EJ work, their dispositions determine how they address the issues that they see, feel, and know. These issues give form to the disposition of the resident-activist; they shape how resident-activists carry themselves in the pluralistic world of their work and how they adapt to events like municipal hearings or a street-side protests. GR staff have a consciousness of their own habitus and that of others whom they encounter, enabling activists to emphasize an aspect of their own disposition and way of being when necessary—the difference between pen and sword. In Chelsea, emancipatory pedagogy (Freire, 1970) results in material and nonmaterial manifestations of agency. If agency, like habitus, is a way of being and acting that results from life experiences and surroundings, then its local products are murals, gardens, displays of photography, and public green spaces that benefit the community. One manifestation is the Chelsea PORT (Publicly Organized Recreational Territory) park that sits creekside at the far end of Eastern Minerals’ fenced-off property, where hills of road salt are piled. These minerals are offloaded from ocean liners and transported throughout New England via diesel trucks. In 2012 the company purchased an adjacent property and began expanding its salt yard. The city approved the plan to increase operations contingent on efforts to create a seasonal park on the recently acquired piece of land. The Chelsea PORT park now has a basketball court, amphitheater, walking paths, and dedicated parking. This park as a symbol of

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health represents the kind of positive peace noted above—one that feeds into cognitive realities, the way one sees the world, and then back out into surrounding structures. This internalized understanding of life is influenced by the setting, with the social world concurrently influencing individuals. Resident-activists re-shape their physical world by preventing developments that are detrimental to health and promoting the installation and construction of beneficial structures and, in doing so, increase the social capital of their activist cohort through name recognition by industry leaders, policymakers, residents, and researchers. These too can be seen as increasing health, or at least the access to material and nonmaterial resources that lead to a high degree of life satisfaction (Baer, Singer, and Johnsen, 1986). A researcher like myself who collaborates with a group like GR is responsible for entering the space respectfully, for even engaged researchers work in a space that is not their own. My early mischaracterization of Chelsea as part of Boston was quickly forgotten by my informants, but it was something that I held onto. A researcher can easily turn to “dark anthropology” by focusing on their own conceptualizations and allowing biases to dictate procedure. This is the opposite of Dutta’s (2008) culture-centered approach and counter to the idea of equity in knowledge exchange that elevates the work of EJ and the research that so reverently focuses its lens on communities composed of resident-activists. GreenRoots sheds light on existing environmental hazards in large part by canvassing neighborhoods and tabling—setting up shop on a local street or in one of the few green spaces within city limits. By making introductions, following up, and recruiting acquaintances and friends, GR staff spread information about their campaigns and initiatives. Resident-activists’ increased awareness precipitates action and reaction to an oil company or a cloud of diesel fumes. As GR engages its members in emancipatory education—a humanizing force that empowers residents about toxins—it simultaneously acts to moderate health discourse to ensure purity (in the sense of something that is healthy) of what enters the minds and bodies of its members (Freire, 1970). Activist actions produce more activism. One outcome of engagement that I saw in Chelsea was an increase in activists who were mobilized against a perceived insurgent force (whether structural or chemical). And so, EJ activism is praxis, deep reflection, and subsequent action aimed at transforming a targeted structure (Freire, 1970). In this case, the structures exist in both a material and non-material sense. Tall buildings, piles of mineral salts, and massive shipping tankers obstruct views while their volatile byproducts do the same to residents’ airways. Heads of industry do their best to limit transparency in their processes. For instance, EPA data show that during 2013–18 there were several reporting delays or non-reports on the part of oil companies that are mandated to disclose their effluent discharge on a regular schedule (Kouyoumjian, 2019; Open Water Data, n.d.).

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Research and Environmental Justice Activism “For many of us, the research on our communities has historically been damage centered, intent on portraying our neighborhoods and tribes as defeated and broken.” Tuck, 2009

Living in an environmental justice community compounds the physiological effects of pollution through an increased psychological burden on both the individual experiencing negative physiological health and those who live with and support these individuals (Morello-Frosch et al., 2001; Brulle and Pellow, 2006). Multiple studies show inequities in environmental risk and related health disparities between wealthy whites and people of color and/or low socioeconomic status in the state of Massachusetts (Faber and Kreig, 2004). The study of public health has moved toward embracing social determinants of health and now plays a key role in supporting grassroots EJ work. The experiences of environmental injustice and consequent health impacts are diverse, interrelated, and complex. Science that is “good” in the eyes of the resident-activist (including the “good anthropology” noted in this volume’s introduction) is the kind identified and sought by the GR staff, and it is still being defined as researchers are called to work across disciplines, engage meaningfully with communities, and navigate institutional expectations. Chelsea resident-activists’ definition of “good science” includes research that moves away from the damage-centered approaches critiqued by Tuck. GR staff frequently talk about how much they love their home and about the benefits that Chelsea provides to the region. Collaboration with researchers is a key aspect of EJ work, especially researchers who recognize the importance of a “culture-centered approach” to EJ and public health research. Centering cultural voices in research elevates the voices and desires of residents in the perception and realization of health risks and in the dissemination of information about health problems facing communities (Dutta, 2008). Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) has been an effective approach to researcher-resident collaboration in Chelsea. I saw that most of the environmental research done in collaboration with GR was and is participatory. CBPR is an action-based orientation that positions researchers as co-equals with participants (Minkler and Wallerstein, 2008). In addition, those who take a CBPR approach adopt “commitment to critical consciousness, emancipation, and social justice” in the tradition of Freire’s emancipatory learning model (Minkler and Wallerstein, 2008: 28). In doing so, researchers who utilize CBPR move away from the kinds of research that results in a one-dimensional portrayal of those who have traditionally been studied as victims (Tuck, 2009) and toward a more complex and realistic portrayal of participants that includes the burdens faced by a community but not at the expense of its benefits and grounding. Successful ethnography is similar to CBPR in that both lean on Freire’s emancipatory model. Co-researchers from academia and the community join forces to achieve goals that are codeveloped across cultural boundaries. The success of my

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own research with GR depended on how well I served the organization and on how well my research served their needs. Centering their mission was crucial. Prioritizing community needs and interests makes for more successful anthropology via more interested and active participants, increased opportunities for engagement, and the kind of rich participant-observation that is the hallmark of ethnographic methodology (Bernard, 2017).

“If you want to get something done in Chelsea, you had better talk to GreenRoots” The above quote comes from a member of a Boston nonprofit that frequently collaborates with GR. Each institution that has a stake in Chelsea—municipal offices, industrial facilities, research-oriented universities, and community organizations—has a distinct cultural boundary and its own form of cultural capital. This is not to say that their boundaries prevent interchange and collaboration; rather “cultural boundaries are less like barriers than they are like thresholds or frontiers that mark the movement across them and even create the motivation for relationships with what lies beyond” (Bashkow, 2004). When GR staff give a presentation at a forum that connects nonprofits and funders, they will often include cultural artifacts like images depicting their gardens, their river, and themselves. These images add depth and weight to discussions that would otherwise revolve around city ordinances and zoning codes. They show an insider’s perspective of Chelsea. Audiences from varied cultural backgrounds get to peer, momentarily, through a new lens. GR presents to audiences a more complete view of a city previously defined by EPA data and media characterizations of an area that is polluted or toxic (Dooling, 2017). This too is a goal of anthropology, to produce thick descriptions—narratives of culture that allow readers to grasp some of the meaning that participants place on the occurrences and actions of daily life (Geertz, 1973). Included in the accounts of resident-activists are the emotional and social aspects of EJ concerns—the things that unite a group in protest and celebration. Engaging in activism as an anthropologist constitutes participating in activities with those who are the subject of research, but also leaning on their local knowledge to gain insight into local priorities. Doing so in a culture-centered manner improves the quality of work and strengthens trust between researchers and communities.

Note 1 For more on Open Water Data, see datalanterns.com.

References Adamkiewicz, Gary, Ami R. Zota, M. Patricia Fabian, Teresa Chahine, Rhona Julien, John D. Spengler, and Jonathan I. Levy. 2011. “Moving Environmental Justice Indoors: Understanding Structural Influences on Residential Exposure Patterns in Low-Income

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Communities.” American Journal of Public Health, 101(S1): S238–245. doi:10.2105/ AJPH.2011.300119. Baer, Hans A., Merrill Singer, and John H. Johnsen. 1986. “Toward a Critical Medical Anthropology.” Social Science and Medicine, 23(2): 95–98. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(86)90358-8. Bandeira de Melo, Patricia, Luís Henrique Romani Campos, Alexandre Zarias, and Suzy Luna Nobre Gonçalves Ferreira. 2016. “Change of Habitus: The Young People and the Free Public University in Northeast of Brazil.” Policy Futures in Education, 14(7): 956–970. doi:10.1177/1478210316640979. Banuri, Tariq, K. Göran-Mäler, Michael Grubb, Harold K. Jacobson, and Farhana Yamin. 1995. “Equity and Social Considerations.” Climate Change (1995): 79–124. Bashkow, Ira. 2004. “A Neo-Boasian Conception of Cultural Boundaries.” American Anthropologist, 106(3): 443–458. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2004.106.3.443. Bernard, H. Russell. 2017. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. London: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1990. The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Brulle, Robert J. and David N.Pellow. 2006. “Environmental Justice: Human Health and Environmental Inequalities.” Annual Review of Public Health 27: 103–124. Bullard, Robert D., Glenn S. Johnson, and Angel O. Torres. 2011. Environmental Health and Racial Equity in the United States: Strategies for Building Environmentally Just, Sustainable, and Livable Communities. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association. Chelsea Collaborative Inc. 2019. “The Chelsea Collaborative.” www.chelseacollab.org (accessed September 15, 2019). Chelsea Resident 1. 2018. Interview with author, Chelsea. August. Chelsea Resident 2. 2018. Interview with author, Chelsea. August. Conti, Katheleen. 2006. “City Pushes Back against Power Plant,” The Boston Globe, December 24. Conti, Katheleen. 2007. “Energy Firm Plans Next Move on Power Plant: State Likely to Reject Permit,” The Boston Globe, May 24. Dooling, Shannon. 2017. “‘Hit First and Worst’: Region’s Communities of Color Brace for Climate Change Impacts.” WBUR News, July 26. www.wbur.org/news/2017/07/26/ environmental-justice-boston-chelsea (accessed August 23, 2018). Dutta, Mohan J. 2008. Communicating Health: A Culture-Centered Approach. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Environmental Justice Viewer. n.d. http://maps.massgis.state.ma.us/map_ol/ej.php (accessed September 15, 2019). Estrella-Luna, Neenah. 2009. “Environmental Review in Massachusetts: The Relationships, the Decisions, and the Law.” PhD. Dissertation. Boston, MA: Northeastern University. http:// search.proquest.com/docview/304964589/abstract/8002866080A54260PQ/1 (accessed September 17, 2018). Faber, Daniel R. and Eric J. Krieg. 2002. “Unequal Exposure to Ecological Hazards: Environmental Injustices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.” Environmental Health Perspectives, 110(Supplement 2): 277–288. Foucault, Michel. 2003.“Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76 (translated by David Macey, edited by Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana). New York: Macmillan. Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Herder and Herder. Galtung, Johan and Dietrich Fischer. 2013. “Positive and Negative Peace.” In Johan Galtung: Pioneer of Peace Research, edited by Johan Galtung and Dietrich Fischer: 173–178. New York: Springer.

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Geertz, Clifford. 1973. “Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In The Cultural Geography Reader, edited by Timothy Oakes and Patricia L. Price: 41–51. New York: Routledge. Geertz, Clifford. 1982. “The Way We Think Now: Toward an Ethnography of Modern Thought.” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 35(5): 14–34. GreenRoots, Inc. n.d. “Victories.” www.greenrootschelsea.org/victories (accessed November 26, 2019). Kendi, Ibram X. 2017. Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America. New York: Random House. Kouyoumjian, D. (and staff). 2018. “GreenRoots Lantern Fest Guiding Lights.” The Chelsea Record, November 29: 7. Martínez-Alier, Juan. 1997. “Environmental Justice (Local and Global).” Capitalism Nature Socialism, 8(1): 91–107. doi:10.1080/10455759709358725. MassGIS. n.d. “MassGIS Bureau of Geographic Information” n.d. www.mass.gov/orgs/massgisbureau-of-geographic-information (accessed October 8, 2018). Minkler, Meredith and Nina Wallerstein. 2008. Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: From Process to Outcomes. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bu/detail.action?docID=588918. Morello-Frosch, Rachel, Manuel Pastor, and James Sadd. 2001. “Environmental Justice and Southern California’s ‘Riskscape’ The Distribution of Air Toxics Exposures and Health Risks Among Diverse Communities.”, Urban Affairs Review, 36(4): 551–578. Open Water Data. n.d. http://datalanterns.com/ (accessed September 1, 2019). Ortner, Sherry B. 2016. “Dark Anthropology and Its Others: Theory Since the Eighties.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 6(1): 47–73. doi:10.14318/hau6.1.004. Parenti, Christian. 2004. The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America, From Slavery to the War on Terror. New York: Basic Books. Perovich, Laura J., Sara Wylie, and Roseann Bongiovanni. 2018. “Pokémon Go, PH, and Projectors: Applying Transformation Design and Participatory Action Research to an Environmental Justice Collaboration in Chelsea, MA.” Cogent Arts and Humanities, 5(1). doi:10.1080/23311983.2018.1483874. Schlosberg, David. 2007. Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Still, Michael Edward. 2019. “Rising Tides: An Ethnographic Case Study of ResidentActivists in an Environmental Justice Community.” Master’s Thesis, Boston University. Tuck, Eve. 2009. “Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities.” Harvard Educational Review, 79(3): 409–428. US Census Bureau. n.d. “US Census Bureau QuickFacts: Chelsea City, Massachusetts; United States.” www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/chelseacitymassachusetts,US/PST045217 (accessed October 30, 2018). Yanosky, Jeff D., Joel Schwartz, and Helen H. Suh. 2008. “Associations Between Measures of Socioeconomic Position and Chronic Nitrogen Dioxide Exposure in Worcester, Massachusetts.” Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A, 71(24): 1593–1602.

COMMENTS ON ANTHROPOLOGY OF ACTIVISM Dana E. Powell

(This commentary is dedicated to Dorothy C. Holland (1944–2019), who taught many of us to do this work.) I have long straddled the anthropology of activism and anthropology as activism, with considerable discomfort. As I argued with my co-authors Maribel Casas-Cortés and Michal Osterweil on a title that we wrote several years ago, when we have longterm relationships within the movements that we “study,” particularly when those relationships precede and create the conditions of possibility for a later ethnographic endeavor, the project of ethnography takes on new political, ethical, and social obligations (Casas-Cortés, Osterweil, and Powell, 2008; 2013). Having entered into anthropology as an activist first, and researcher second, I have worked to keep this disquieting, but productive tension at the center of my own practice (Powell, 2018). As activist-researchers, the boundaries between subject and object sometimes blur, in generative ways, yielding new forms of insight, owing to the possibilities opened up by shifting positionalities. But our roles as activist-researchers can also generate misunderstandings, especially when our alignments seem to be ambiguous or even suspect to those with whom we work: Are we primarily responsible to the academy, or the community? Other activist-scholars have engaged this question: Charles Hale has argued for activist research as a “dual alignment,” but one that is intrinsically contradictory, as it obliges us to different communities of practice (Hale, 2006). Shannon Speed collapses Hale’s opposition between cultural critique and activist research, arguing instead for a “critically engaged activist research,” in which our alignments are enmeshed because cultural critique does not depart from, but in fact serves, the activists with whom we work—in both symbolic and material ways (Speed, 2006). Such orientations work when anthropologists—largely inclined toward progressive politics—do anthropologies of/alongside movements with whom we share a political vision or homeland.

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But what space is there for an anthropology of activism when the movements depart from, or even deeply contradict, our own ethical commitments as political subjects? I am thinking here of Carie Little Hersh’s research on Christian New Age movements in Virginia Beach (Hersh, 2011) and Bill Westermeyer’s work on the US Tea Party movement (Westermeyer, 2016). Both anthropologists were embedded among activists with whom they did not share a politics or a common vision. Such approaches to the anthropology of activism illuminate the role of empathy and solidarity in ethnographic endeavors across political difference, and much like the four papers in this section, as well as my own work, turn a critical lens on familiar turf, aiming to “bring anthropology home from the tropics” (Latour, 1999). The chapters in this section attend to questions of illness, vulnerability, toxicity, embodiment, and risk, alongside questions of racialization, rurality, and urban invisibility. But they also track modes of activism that are responses to the lived effects of technoscience, in lesser-known internal frontiers. As a result, these chapters are anthropologies of modernity, exposing the malaise and violence of industrial and biotechnical capitalism, in their permeations of humans and other species. Each author emphasizes certain arts of resistance that contribute to pushing the boundaries of how we think about activism and anthropology’s relationship to activist practice, giving particular consideration to the ways in which non-elites come to see themselves in new ways and are thus moved to action (see Holland, Price, and Westermeyer, 2018). They make a powerful argument for the value of ethnography in understanding the knowledge infrastructures and experiences of risk, but also, the ways in which people become (or decline to become) subjects of action in the face of these forms of violence. These insights provoke critical reflection upon our theory of action: How are we measuring movement? What do we assume makes action legible? What are the media through which we imagine resistance (or retreat) to be taking place? Richard Bargielski draws attention to “chemosociality,” as he calls it: “How we become through chemical interactions” and possibilities for a political ecology of the white working class. He interrogates how this social group is used by forces of power to identify aspects of racial, economic, and political citizenship, eliding more than it shows. Bargielski pries open this black box, exposing the internal heterogeneity of this group, questioning its highly problematic historical production by party politics, segregationist agendas, and other social forces. White working class activism thus emerges in this paper as something only barely legible for anthropology—but his ethnographic attention to a Superfund site and its indeterminate impacts (including polychlorinated biphenyls, depleted uranium, and titanium dioxide) make it clear that, indeed, there is a new form of sociality motivating activism among Ohio residents and an urgent need to deconstruct racialized monoliths like the “white working class” in America. Rebecca Daye considers motivations around genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and biotechnology. GMO sugar beets in rural Oregon and the threat of other forms of “transgenic trespass” became the forces that ignited human activity, leading to a ban on GMO crops. Daye’s focus is on motivations and values for

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supporting or opposing the ban, and among a variety of reasons, local control emerged as the most salient reason for people to oppose GMOs as a shared ethical and moral value. At stake is the potential genetic remaking of more-than-human entities: “Crops” that not only underlie the local economy, but are central to the identity of this community. Daye’s project is a provocation to turn renewed attention to the role of “culture” within political ecologies of rural life, and the role of science and technology in posing threats to that mode of life, through the fear of contamination. Seed sanctuaries emerge as projects of hope, indicating a temporal horizon that shows how these activists are making material interventions into the future. Suzanne Morrissey and Olivia Hagmann consider community acupuncture in Portland, Oregon (POCA) as healthcare activism: An altruistic practice of serving marginalized groups of people. The authors show how the form of the cooperative (rooted in anarchic values of mutual aid and solidarity) is a platform for “acupuncture as social justice.” Their project shows how health disparities intersect with differences of race, class, gender, ability, and economic precarity to generate a need for trauma-informed care; against the dominant culture of biomedicine and its increasingly out-of-reach therapies, the labor of care emerges as activism. As in Daye’s analysis of farmers, Morrissey and Hagmann turn their attention to the role of (punk) culture to enrich their understanding of how communities of practice assemble around sets of values that strive to work against, or at least in the margins of, capitalism and its violent intersections with biomedicine. POCA’s theory of mutual aid resists the dispossession of bodies and communities by the modern state by striving for an alternative biopolitics. Michael Still brings our attention to the “shift in habitus” that motivates residents of Chelsea, Massachusetts to move to act upon the toxic discharges in their community. Using an environmental justice framework, he reminds us that risk is unevenly distributed, racialized, classed, gendered, and lived. Like Morrissey and Hagmann, Still shows how critical applied medical anthropology illuminates the questions of power that shoot through experiences of health. This work attunes us to the edges of urban life: People who live in the margins of wealth, where the externalities of urban industrialization seep into the air, water, and bodies of more precariously situated communities. This raises questions of citizenship—not unlike Bargielski’s chapter— and how knowing oneself or one’s community as a civic entity can be deeply linked to lived experiences of toxicity. Still’s chapter is a provocation both to attend to the margins and to the ways in which a shift in the embodied predispositions of understanding one’s condition can ignite new modes of environmental citizenship. Taken together, these chapters call for what Peter Redfield terms, “action without moral certainty” (Redfield, 2013). How do movements and activistresearchers engage in critical work, in the pursuit of justice, without the selfassured closure that activists are often accused of maintaining, and which often drives others away? Each of these papers exhibits a sensitivity to the complexities of resistance, while exposing the lifeways at risk under contemporary regimes of industrial and biotechnical capitalism. The authors probe difficult questions

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concerning how to make the space for activists to self-identify as such, and how we—also often activists ourselves—might articulate our anthropology with their work in a manner that does not make them objects of study prefigured as “good” or as “bad” actors (by us), but as agents of various political futures, as we are all constrained by the “affective pragmatism” shaping our capacities to imagine better futures (Ahmann, 2019). Action, these papers suggest, takes many forms (from acupuncture to crop-bans, from class identification to environmental justice) and the anthropology of activism must be attendant to this multiplicity in social practice as well as critically self-reflexive of its (our) own assumptions about what constitutes a good life.

References Ahmann, Chloe. 2019. “Waste to Energy: Garbage Prospects and Subjunctive Politics in Late Industrial Baltimore.” American Ethnologist, 46(3): 1–15. Casas-Cortés, Maribel, Michal Osterweil and Dana E. Powell. 2008. “Blurring Boundaries: Knowledge-Practices in Contemporary Social Movements.” Anthropological Quarterly, 81 (1): 17–58. Casas-Cortés, Maribel, Michal Osterweil and Dana E. Powell. 2013. “Transformations in Engaged Ethnography: Knowledge, Networks, and Social Movements.” In Insurgent Encounters: Ethnography, Activism, and the Transnational, edited by Jeffrey S. Juris and Alex Khasnabish: 199–228. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hale, Charles R. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120. Hersh, Carie Little. 2011. “Losing Faith in the Secular: The Politics of Faith and Knowledge at Two American Parachurches.” Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Holland, Dorothy, Charles Price, and William H. Westermeyer. 2018. “Political Becoming in Movements: Lessons from the Environmental, Tea Party, and Rastafari Movements.” In Political Sentiments and Social Movements, edited by Claudia Strauss and Jack R. Friedman: 265–293. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Latour, Bruno. 1999. Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Powell, Dana E. 2018. Landscapes of Power: Politics of Energy in the Navajo Nation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Redfield, Peter. 2013. Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders. Berkeley: University of California Press. Westermeyer, William. 2016. “Local Tea Party Groups and the Vibrancy of the Movement.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 39(S1): 121–138.

PART II

Anthropology AS Activism

5 ALL I CAN DO Why Activists (and Anthropologists) Act Anna J. Willow

For academics, activists, and those of us who see ourselves as both, understanding why some people act to improve their circumstances and the world they live in— while seemingly similar others do not—is an essential undertaking. With alarming threats to social justice, democratic processes, and basic environmental protections looming almost everywhere we look, this question is especially pertinent today. As an environmental anthropologist, I have spent recent decades exploring how and why grassroots activists challenge extractive industrial development and devastation, but this query has relevance far beyond my own research specialty. If we want to create change, knowing what motivates activists to act—as well as what keeps countless potential activists grumbling quietly at home—is a good start. This is an academic question: an anthropology of activism. But it keeps anthropology as activism on its visible horizon. We become activists when we cross the permeable boundary that separates generating knowledge from using it. With the ultimate aim of identifying common elements and areas where anthropological intervention could promote participation in campaigns for positive change, this chapter considers why activists act. Brief retrospective reflections drawn from my own ethnographic research among activists fighting the logging, oil and gas, and hydroelectric industries in three North American extraction zones serve as springboards for formulating provisional answers and finding new ways to “mobilize the discipline to work toward achieving a more ethical world” (Kirsch, 2018: 230). Along the way, I occasionally turn my analytical lens inward to contemplate why it is that I work to make a positive difference at my field sites and beyond. I also take time to address obstacles that impede additional activist engagement. While the stories presented here are unique, it is my hope that they catalyze important conversations concerning the factors that motivate the action (and inaction) that readers encounter in their own work and lives.

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Anti-clearcutting Activism in Northwestern Ontario My first real fieldwork took me to Grassy Narrows First Nation, a semi-remote Anishinaabe community in northwestern Ontario. Between 2003 and 2005 I devoted my life to understanding the backstory and inner workings of a direct action blockade launched by community members on December 3, 2002. Their immediate goal was stopping the passage of logging trucks and equipment through their Traditional Land Use Area, and their blockade went on to become the longest-standing protest of its type in Canadian history. Grassy Narrows was my dissertation project. I was eager from day one to do the kind of anthropology that accomplished more than just contributing to social scientific knowledge and theory. I approached my research and subsequent writing with the ambition of explaining why the blockaders took such dramatic action to protect their environment and telling their story in a way that inspired empathy and action in outsiders who read my words. Deeply supportive of my local collaborators but (as an American Fulbright student conducting research in Canada) afraid of getting kicked out of the country or inadvertently undermining their agenda, I became something of an “armchair activist.” I stood as a witness at blockades and marched alongside Anishinaabe activist friends, but mostly I hoped that the power and reach of my written words might somehow compensate for the self-declared inadequacy of my emplaced actions. Interacting for many months with Grassy Narrows’ most dedicated activists helped me to understand the historical, cultural, and political complexity upon which their anti-clearcutting campaign was built. Although I had initially been enticed by romantic images of Indigenous environmentalists standing up to extractive industry, I soon realized that environmentalism was, in this case, a strategy for survival rather than an end in itself (Willow, 2015a). In 1873 the community’s leaders signed Treaty Three (so called because it was the third of Canada’s numbered treaties), which promised that the people of Grassy Narrows and their descendants could continue to hunt, trap, and fish throughout their ceded territory (Federal Government of Canada, 1966 [1871–4]). But their 2,500-square-mile homeland had since been subject to hydroelectric development and severe mercury contamination from upriver industrial dumping. And the area was now undergoing intensive industrial logging to supply the international demand for newsprint—all without their consent. In only a few generations, land-based subsistence and the distinctive set of cultural beliefs and practices that it sustained had gone from an unquestioned way of life to an increasingly threatened emblem of Anishinaabe identity. First Nations people were quick to point out parallels between outsiders’ utilitarian indifference toward non-human nature and their disregard for Indigenous citizens’ welfare. These connections amplified and politicized their sense of relatedness to the natural world. In this context, the struggle to protect the land was concurrently a struggle for cultural preservation and political self-determination. The blockaders at Grassy Narrows argued adamantly that because clearcutting rendered meaningful land-based subsistence impossible, it constituted a violation of

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their treaty-guaranteed rights. The blockade was thus a political statement as well as a cultural project. As to the central question of what led activists at Grassy Narrows to act, I concluded the following: “People everywhere do what they perceive as necessary to their mental, physical, and spiritual survival. Very few of us would abandon the things we cherish most—our children and families, our cultural identities and fundamental rights—for the sake of even the noblest of causes. Instead, we choose to act because these things are so dear to us. We act in order to sustain and secure their future. When the people of Grassy Narrows took action to protect their land, they did so with the recognition that the fate of the earth and the fate of so much more are tightly interwoven.” (Willow, 2012: 192–93) It is true, of course, that some people have more reason to feel frustrated than others. And various forms of capital—social, cultural, economic, and emotional— are unevenly distributed and always in flux. But one question I was not able to answer in my time at Grassy Narrows was why only some members of the First Nation participated in the anti-clearcutting campaign. Indeed, most of the community’s 900-odd residents seemed to support the blockade in principle, but only a few dozen individuals were actively involved and even fewer were typically on the scene at any given moment. From what I could gather, some non-actors lacked the sense of ownership necessary to sustain their involvement. Others felt that their presence was unlikely to make a difference in the outcome or simply grew impatient with the slow pace of progress. A small handful of community members worked as contractors for logging companies (doing work like nuisance beaver removal and road repair); while they supported the blockade in principle, these individuals had something to lose if they took a public stand. Still others—struggling on welfare and living day to day—simply did not having the luxury of devoting scarce time and resources to the cause. Neither did I gain a solid understanding of why this community had taken action while so many others confronting similar challenges had not. Grassy Narrows’ strong, charismatic leaders no doubt played a role, but lacking a basis for comparison, I could only speculate.

Anti-fracking Activism in Ohio Fast-forward to 2012: Concerns surrounding peak oil had been replaced by enthusiasm (for some) and apprehension (for many others) over the extraction of fossil fuels from deep underground shale layers using high-velocity horizontal hydraulic fracturing (what most of us shorthand as fracking). Having arrived to teach at the Ohio State University only a few years earlier, I found myself on the periphery of a frightening new world of unconventional oil and gas extraction. As both an academic and a concerned resident, I decided to pay attention. I started with the simple goal of understanding the divergent ways in which Ohio residents

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were experiencing and interpreting the shale energy boom. Quickly, I moved on to explore what set anti-fracking activists apart from those who condoned industrial expansion (Willow, 2015b). The first thing I noticed was that shale energy was transforming relationships between people and places. Not surprisingly, those who embraced the industry talked about their experiences and expectations in ways that sounded very different from those who opposed it (Willow et al., 2014). While a majority of Ohioans never took a strong stance regarding shale energy development, those who did were highly vocal and deeply divided. Proponents’ position was almost universally underlain by an association of industrial development with economic benefits; supporters of fracking saw it as a chance—maybe the only chance—at prosperity. Anti-fracking activists, conversely, had multiple, overlapping non-economic reasons for opposing the industry. While most recognized oil and gas development’s adverse impacts on ecosystems and nonhuman life as serious problems, it was concern for their own families’ health and safety that spurred them to write editorials, organize rallies, and launch ballot initiatives. Many also lamented—or dreaded—having their way of life disrupted: They felt that fracking was jeopardizing connections to local environments and threatening the relaxed, rural ambiance that made their communities special. I was struck by the fact that every single anti-fracking activist I talked with mentioned disempowerment (defined here as infringement on citizens’ rights and the potential or actual hindrance of citizens’ ability to control their immediate surroundings); they saw uninvited energy development as a breach of fundamental rights and an affront to basic democratic principles (Willow et al., 2014: 60). Accompanying their perception of violation, many activists were motivated by a new sense of vulnerability. Some individuals who lived near ongoing operations felt that their families were “under siege” and “had to flee” (Willow et al., 2014). I was surprised by what I heard: I never imagined that middle-class Ohioans facing fracking would be driven by perceptions of injustice and insecurity that mirrored those that I had documented among Indigenous anti-clearcutting activists in Canada (Willow, 2014). But they were. In struggling to make sense of radically dissimilar reactions to the same ongoing phenomenon, I soon returned to fundamental values, which I approached by comparing divergent notions of well-being. Paralleling my earlier emphasis on economic and non-economic ambitions, I discovered that although opponents and proponents of oil and gas expansion both sought to improve the well-being of their families and communities, they defined this concept very differently. When I asked anti-fracking activists what they saw as central to their well-being, health and children were the most common responses. These individuals also listed community/relationships, sense of control/empowerment, and sense of positive legacy as important ingredients. In contrast, shale energy proponents echoed industry propaganda in putting economic prosperity and jobs—both which were seen by anti-fracking activists as of much lesser import—at the top of their list of critical components of well-being.

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As I summarized in 2015, people who oppose shale energy development: “draw from a discursive framework that diverges dramatically from the perspective promoted by its proponents. Irreconcilable differences in descriptions and understandings of well-being—both in general and in their specific relationship to energy extraction and environmental transformation—complicate the search for common ground in the shale energy debate. When shale energy advocates and opponents talk and think about well-being, their separation is conspicuous, with primacy respectively placed on economic indicators or on numerous interrelated non-economic elements.” (Willow, 2015b: 15) Try as I might, I never did figure out why some people value money over health, justice, and future generations. And try as I might—despite all my letter writing, sign waving, and petition signing—I never felt I made much of a difference in the fracking debate. I felt—and still feel—helpless to challenge the political power of the oil and gas industry in an industry-friendly state.

Anti-dam Activism in Northeastern British Columbia Most recently, I have sought to shed light on why some residents of northeastern British Columbia vehemently oppose environmentally catastrophic industrial development while others accept (or even embrace) it. In a region that has endured many decades of logging, oil and gas drilling, hydroelectric dams, and coal mining, I was intrigued by both the diversity of residents’ past experiences and their equally diverse current responses to intensifying extraction. While each of these activities has its own distinctive footprint, the cumulative effects of decades of industrial expansion have been severe. Over two-thirds of the Peace River region (the more developed southern half of the province’s northeastern quadrant) is now significantly impacted by at least one kind of energy extractive operation or by agriculture and forestry (Booth and Skelton, 2011; Lee and Hanneman, 2012). Momentous sociocultural changes have necessarily followed, with land-based subsistence and associated beliefs and practices increasingly imperiled by lack of access, toxic contamination, and species decline (Willow, 2017). While I did encounter a few individuals who strongly opposed or promoted each (or all) of the area’s industries, it was the highly controversial Site C Dam that dominated my discussions with local residents during the summers of 2016 and 2017. Currently under construction and slated for completion in 2024, Site C is the Peace River’s third large hydroelectric dam. The W.A.C. Bennett Dam was the first. Built in the 1960s with no environmental impact assessment and no First Nations consultation, the massive W.A.C. Bennett Dam had horrific ecological and sociocultural effects (Loo, 2007). A second, smaller dam was completed at Peace Canyon in 1980. Despite being formally proposed and then rejected in 1983 and again in the early 1990s over concerns that the scheme was too financially risky and

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its environmental impacts too great, the province of British Columbia changed its own laws in the early 2010s to eliminate requirements for independent review in order to allow construction on Site C to proceed. The Site C Dam’s reservoir will eventually flood over 50 additional miles of Peace River valley, displace EuroCanadian families from bottomland farms and ranches, and threaten the little that remains of First Nations citizens’ customary use area. Numerous peaceful protests, petitions, and open letters have opposed the dam and a direct action protest camp slowed construction between December 2015 and March 2016 (Cox, 2018). Indigenous people and their allies see Site C as a clear violation of the subsistence rights guaranteed under Treaty Eight of 1899 (as was the case for Treaty Three, First Nations signatories were promised that they would be “as free to hunt and fish after the treaty as they would be if they never entered into it”—Fumoleau, 2004: 87–88). Multiple legal challenges have been filed and, as I write, a case concerning the potential infringement of Site C on First Nations rights is pending, with a decision expected by 2023 (Alaska Highway News, 2018). Northeastern British Columbia is home to long-term Euro-Canadian settlers and more recent job-seekers in addition to Cree, Dane-zaa, Kaska Dena, Saulteau, Slavey, and Tse’khene First Nations people who have lived in region since time immemorial.1 Here, attitudes toward extractive development cannot be reduced to heritage or history: Indigenous citizens are not especially predisposed to reject industry, and Euro-Canadians are not especially inclined to welcome it. Furthermore, recent years have seen the formation of anti-dam alliances between First Nations groups and settlers and numerous First Nations individuals own resource extractive companies or earn their living as industry contractors or employees. So why, in this northern resource frontier, do activists act? What inspires some people to take a strong stance against the Site C Dam and other extractive activities? I learned that personal circumstances, values, and propensities converge to motivate—or limit—active opposition. Predictably, people who live in close proximity to places that are (or will be) impacted by extractive schemes are more likely to oppose them. I also found that many activists express strong distrust in governmental decision-making and regulatory competence and believe that extractive industry (at least as currently practiced) undermines citizens’ rights or perpetuates social injustice. Echoing themes raised by anti-fracking activists in Ohio, activists are concurrently concerned about health and safety, climate, ecological and land use integrity, connection to land/place, and legacy. Perhaps most significantly, nearly every British Columbia resident who expressed an anti-dam stance said they were troubled by the long-term damage that extractive industry is doing to the region’s economic base (while some individuals who noted such damage also identified positive economic contributions, people who supported industry or were neutral toward it never talked about the economic damage wrought by extractive industry, only about its economic benefits) (for details, see Willow, 2019). In summary, three of the factors most characteristic of anti-dam activists—perception of adverse economic effects, distrust in government and regulations, and the view that extractive industry undermines citizens’ rights or perpetuates social

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injustice—indicate an acknowledgment that the status quo system is not sustainable and a willingness to envision alternatives to extractivism. Far from pragmatically accepting extractive industrial domination, those who oppose it believe that another world is possible. Conversely, those who support industrial expansion have a hard time imagining a world beyond the existing extractive system. Attuned to celebratory industry discourse, they are motivated by potential economic gains or, as is often the case, fear of economic decline. Accompanying their long-term thinking, the fact that many northeastern British Columbia activists expressed a relational worldview that emphasizes interconnections among human and non-human entities evokes the findings of environmental psychologists who argue that people who are “prosocial” (as opposed to “proself”) and who demonstrate a propensity for considering future consequences tend to act in more environmentally responsible ways (Joireman et al., 2001). Yet sentiment does not always equal action. I was intrigued to discover that many British Columbia residents who had not taken any actual action to oppose industry (which, in this case, included activities ranging from participating in peaceful protests and writing editorials to engaging in direct action and launching legal cases) felt just as strongly opposed as those who had. Not only are fundamental values and personal impacts important, then, but empowerment (belief in the efficacy of one’s actions) and capacity to act (the availability of resources and skills needed to accomplish a goal) must also be acknowledged as key pieces of the puzzle.

Comparisons, Connections, and the Problem of Non-actors With these cases in hand, we are ready to reset and reconsider this chapter’s central question. I scanned fieldnotes and write-ups from my previous projects in order to create the narratives just shared and comprehensive lists of the factors that inspired anti-extraction activists in these three very different corners of North America. I then cross-checked my lists to determine which factors were relevant across all three cases. Although the specifics of each instance vary (certainly because of real differences between places and populations, but also owing to the distinct methods and questions that guided my original research), important insights emerged from the overlaps. I found that anti-extraction activists take inspiration from a strong core of common elements. Five attributes are shared by individuals who not only oppose extractive industrial development in principle, but who also take tangible action consistent with their views. One necessary prerequisite is a robust set of values—what many people whom I have interviewed over the years call “passion.” While these values need not conform to any singular ideal, there must be a palpable connection between a person’s sense of self and that which they work to protect or produce. Second, explicit concern for others—broadly defined to include other people, future generations, and non-human entities—is essential. Third, people who become activists tend to have a long temporal frame; they contemplate the consequences that flow from their own actions and those of others and place as much (or even more) value

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on the long term as on the short term when considering costs and benefits. Fourth, while alternately framed as treaty rights, civil rights, human rights, property rights, or democratic participation, activists share a common belief that they have been wronged. While the language they use to describe their experiences and understandings is shaped by diverse political contexts, the sense that injustice is being perpetrated is a strong motivating factor. Fifth and finally, empowerment and capacity are extremely important. While this is a complex topic in its own right, people need to believe in the potency of their actions, to feel that they are capable of making a difference in their world. They need to have the tools and skills necessary to carry out their plans. And they need to have access to truthful sources of information as well as economic, social, and emotional support systems that prevent them from accepting a less-than-ideal current reality. Understanding what motivates activists is extremely important, but it is only part of the problem. Pressing questions remain: Why do so many people choose not to take action? What keeps others from doing more? To be sure, fundamental values (underlying belief systems) and attitudes (the concrete things that individuals like or dislike) influence decisions. Those who, for whatever reason, support extractive industry are extremely unlikely to participate in efforts to stop or slow it. But what about the countless individuals who do not want logging, fracking, or any other destructive force transforming their lands and lives, but who nevertheless do nothing to stop it from proceeding? More to the point, how can we harness the power of people who criticize environmental degradation, air pollution, or elected leaders, but never actually do anything to bring about change?

Grassy Narrows survival treaty rights future generations self-determination cultural preservation leadership lack of consent ties to land

Ohio British Columbia personal impacts distrust adverse economic effects treaty rights property injustice climate relational worldview health land use

FIGURE 5.1

non-economic well -being ecosystems safety families way of life violation of rights vulnerability future of region

Visual summary of factors that lead activists to act in three North American extraction zones. Factors commonly associated with non-action are listed outside of the Venn diagram. Photos by author

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The “values-action gap” discussed by environmental sociologists is relevant here. Surveys suggest several reasons people fail to act on their beliefs. A lack of information, time, money, sense of control and efficacy, and support from other household members were flagged as factors that prevent Canadians from making environmentally responsible waste management decisions (Kennedy et al., 2009). A similar study conducted in the United Kingdom identified whether or not people believe their actions make a difference and the norms exhibited by proximate others as important contributors to environmental decisions (Barr, 2007). Other recent sociological research has focused on the factors that lead communities to mobilize—or not mobilize—in opposition to externally imposed, environmentally risky proposals. Using the community as their unit of analysis and social movement development as their dependent variable, environmental sociologists Rachel Wright and Hilary Boudet (2012; see also McAdam and Boudet, 2012) compared 20 United States communities facing large energy infrastructure projects, examining the role of causal conditions like risk, political opportunity, civic capacity, the presence of similar industry, previous opposition experience, and economic hardship. Aware that issues and threats are regarded differently by different communities, but interested in variable circumstances rather than diverse cultures and asymmetrical power structures, they concluded that “having a similar industry or economic interest in the project, rooted in economic hardship, is a good indicator that a community will not mobilize.” Conversely, “communities with no similar industry and low levels of economic hardship mobilize given the presence of high levels of civic capacity” (Wright and Boudet, 2012: 763). While anthropologists demand greater attention to cultural complexity, contradiction, and nuance (and are usually willing to sacrifice breadth for depth), I echo these researchers’ calls to develop methods for studying and comprehending nonaction. If we are to inspire new activists, we need to look beyond the (relatively rare) places where mobilization takes place; we need to know what is holding notyet-activists back. Within anthropology, a respectable amount of attention has been directed toward understanding activist campaigns. Excellent studies have explored how activist groups develop over time, the internal and external political dynamics that shape various struggles, and the material and cultural conditions that inspire activists’ efforts.2 But there has been nearly nothing written about non-actors. We thus have a one-sided picture of a multi-sided problem. I doubt that this comes as a surprise: For one thing, non-actors are not inherently exciting; they are not an exceptional subcultural group; they are just there. For another, although non-actors vastly outnumber activists, they are very difficult to identify and study. My own past work has been no exception. While I have spent many years studying people who actively promote causes they care about, only recently have I begun thinking about those who do not take action and how this issue might be addressed. At Grassy Narrows, my access to non-actors was limited because my personal network and fieldwork geography revolved around the ongoing anticlearcutting campaign. As far as I could tell, most people who did not get involved were simply overwhelmed with other life responsibilities and circumstances. I saw

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some of the same in Ohio, but I also encountered numerous non-actors who opposed fracking in principle yet never spoke out publically either because they hoped that it could help them financially or because they feared being blamed for hindering the fortunes of family, friends, and neighbors. For other Ohioans who chose not to get involved in the fracking debate (those who, by virtue of living outside of extraction zones, had the luxury of making this choice), it was simply easier to pretend that the problem did not exist. During my British Columbia research—my first project to explicitly consider non-actors—I was reminded that people who avoid taking an active anti-extraction stance do not necessarily view such schemes in a positive light. In many cases, they fear withheld compensation payments, lost contracts, and absent employment opportunities. Often, those who oppose extractive industry passively rather than actively are more trusting of the government’s ability to responsibly regulate industry and less inclined to regard industrial extraction as a form of injustice. While these relatively passive individuals’ views and valuations of the natural world do not appear to differ substantively from those of their more active counterparts, what does differ is their significantly lower sense of empowerment and their perceived inability to make a difference. As for British Columbians who claimed neutrality toward industrial development, concerns about safety, health, and the environment were frequently weighed against the economic benefits believed to flow from industrial expansion. For many, environmentally destructive industry was accepted as a necessary evil. Everywhere, it seems, good people in their right minds are silenced when they become convinced that there is no other way to make do and that they cannot make a difference. As for me, I have always been an idealist. I was taught from an early age that my purpose in life is to make the world a better place. I am motivated by my biophilia—my profound love and respect for the non-human world. By my love for other people in other places who care about something more important than their money, their luxury pickup trucks, and the fleeting images on their cell phones. By my ceaseless rage at the bitter injustice of the world (which, I must admit, is also colored by my guilt at possessing privileges I never asked for). I no longer much care what other anthropologists think of me or about “publish or perish.” I now care mainly about perish. I look to the future, and I see difficult times ahead for my students and my own two children that I feel powerless to remedy. I can write and teach others about the struggles I document in my research, but only when it is my place to do so. I can canvass my neighborhood, but most of my fieldsites are far from home. I can spread the word, but I cannot change minds that are already made up. I cannot buy elections or turn back time. You get the picture: Sometimes I get overwhelmed. I do all I can do, but it never seems to be enough.

Conclusion: Going Forward In recent years, I have been heartened by social movement theory’s “3.5 percent rule,” which holds that no regime change campaign in which at least 3.5 percent of

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a population has been actively engaged has ever failed (Chenoweth, 2013). Whether we are working to ensure fair elections or demanding climate action, 3.5 percent seems like an alluringly realistic objective. Explaining why people take action (or, alternately, why they do not) is not merely a matter of academic interest. Elevating the anthropology of activism to anthropology as activism expedites the essential task of increasing the number of people committed to building a better world; understanding why activists act opens new opportunities to use anthropology to do good. In the spirit of launching crucial conversations, I close by offering preliminary ideas on how to make the leap from anthropological research on why activists act to anthropologically enhanced activism. If the set of core attributes shared by activists whom I have encountered in northwestern Ontario, Ohio, and northeastern British Columbia applies in other places and cases (and I am convinced that it very likely does), we can use this knowledge to encourage more people to participate in campaigns for change at local, national, and global scales. When we consider the elements noted above—passion, concern for others, long-term vision, perception of injustice, and empowerment/capacity—as continuums (on which any individual can score high or low), areas for possible intervention become clear. While we cannot expect to change anyone’s fundamental values overnight, studies of past social movements indicate that peaceful civil disobedience, public outreach, and legal strategies can incrementally shift the collective cultural frame, normalize progressive viewpoints, and invite passive supporters into the activist fold (Engler and Engler, 2016). In experimental settings, social psychologists have found that “perspective taking” exercises succeed in increasing the amount of concern that people have for others (Schultz, 2001). Such exercises could be accomplished at impressive scales through innovative forms of interaction, education, and media communication. While stimulating long-term thinking and persuading others to detect and denounce injustice (especially when they themselves benefit from asymmetrical power structures) will likely be uphill battles, these abilities can be augmented through broad training in critical, perspectival, and empathetic thinking—exactly what is encouraged at most institutions of higher learning and within the anthropology departments they contain. Finally, it seems that some of the most practical and effective work could be done to increase people’s sense of empowerment and capacity through positive role modeling and accessible training. Perhaps most importantly, visionaries and activists (including anthropologists) can come together to convince diverse audiences that change is possible. For over a century, anthropologists have endeavored to understand and inform others about radically different cultural realities, many which exemplify alternatives to ecological destruction and entrenched social injustice. While it would be irresponsible to romanticize or attempt to replicate these ways of life, the knowledge of their existence stands as an exhilarating reminder that other worlds are possible. As anthropological futurist Samuel Gerald Collins asserts, “we need—more than ever—to revisit the idea that anthropology might provide material and critique for cultural futures, for the imagination of different lifeways less premised on

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exploitation and ecological degradation” (2007: 8). In this sense, what we have been taught to call data might simultaneously and more significantly serve as inspiration. The range of accepted anthropological roles can thus move beyond the generation of knowledge and into the expansion of personal and societal possibilities. When we work to understand the world in new ways, we increase what is imaginable for ourselves and others (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink, 2009). When we turn evidence into action, we lead the way toward more sustainable and more equitable tomorrows.

Notes 1 First Nations people comprise over 12 percent of the regional population (data from BCStats, “2016 Census Total Population Results for the Northern Rockies and Peace Districts” (www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca/StatisticsBySubject/Census/2016Census/PopulationHousing/CensusDivisions.aspx, accessed April 23, 2018). 2 While books like Melissa Checker’s Polluted Promises (2005) and Auyero and Swistun’s Flammable (2009) take us on journeys through the daily lives of environmental justice and anti-toxics activists in the US state of Georgia and Argentina, respectively, they do not attempt to solve the problem of activism versus non-activism in any conclusive way.

References Alaska Highway News. 2018. “B.C. Supreme Court Dismisses Site C Injunction.” October 24. www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/site-c/b-c-supreme-court-dismisses-site-c-injunction-1.234751 76?fbclid=IwAR3Xl0xFKXClElfEHXTOwAkuyLZ5mSB2I6mnY3aLAIw-OBFHS3sXjju GbMQ (accessed April 22, 2019). Auyero, Javier and Débora Alejandra Swistun. 2009. Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown. New York: Oxford University Press. Barr, Stewart. 2007. “Factors Influencing Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors: A UK Case Study of Household Waste Management.” Environment and Behavior, 39 (4): 435–473. Booth, Annie L. and Norm W. Skelton. 2011. “‘You Spoil Everything’: Indigenous Peoples and the Consequences of Industrial Development in British Columbia.” Environment, Development and Sustainability, 13(4): 685–702. Checker, Melissa. 2005. Polluted Promises: Environmental Racism and the Search for Justice in a Southern Town. New York: NYU Press. Chenoweth, Erica. 2013. “The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance.” TEDx Boulder, November 4. www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSehRlU34w (accessed November 3, 2017). Collins, Samuel Gerald. 2007. All Tomorrow’s Cultures: Anthropological Engagements with the Future. New York: Berghahn. Cox, Sarah. 2018. Breaching the Peace: The Site C Dam and a Valley’s Stand against Big Hydro. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Engler, Mark and Paul Engler. 2016. This is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt is Shaping the Twenty-First Century. New York: Nation Books. Federal Government of Canada. 1966 [1871–1874]. Treaty No. 3 Between Her Majesty The Queen and the Saulteaux Tribe of Ojibbeway Indians At The Northwest Angle On The Lake of The Woods With Adhesions. Ottawa, ON: Queens Printer. Fumoleau, Rene. 2004. As Long As This Land Shall Stand: A History of Treaty 8 and Treaty 11, 1870–1939. Calgary, AB: University of Calgary Press.

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Gibson-Graham, J.K., and Gerda Roelvink. 2009. “An Economic Ethics for the Anthropocene.” Antipode, 41(S1): 320–346. Joireman, Jeffrey A., Terell P. Lasane, Jennifer Bennett, Diana Richards, and Salma Solaimani. 2001. “Integrating Social Value Orientation and the Consideration of Future Consequences within the Extended Norm Activation Model of Proenvironmental Behaviour.” British Journal of Social Psychology, 40(1): 133–155. Kennedy, Emily Huddart, Thomas M. Beckley, Bonita L. McFarlane, and Solange Nadeau. 2009. “Why We Don’t ‘Walk The Talk’: Understanding The Environmental Values/ Behaviour Gap In Canada.” Human Ecology Review, 16(2): 151–160. Kirsch, Stuart. 2018. Engaged Anthropology: Politics Beyond the Text. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lee, Peter G., and Matt Hanneman. 2012. Atlas of Land Cover, Industrial Uses and IndustrialCaused Change in the Peace Region of British Columbia. (Global Forest Watch Canada Report #4). Edmonton, AB: Global Forest Watch Canada. Loo, Tina. 2007. “Disturbing the Peace: Environmental Change and the Scales of Justice on a Northern River.” Environmental History, 12(4): 895–919. McAdam, Doug, and Hilary Boudet. 2012. Putting Social Movements in Their Place: Explaining Opposition to Energy Projects in the United States, 2000–2005. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schultz, P. Wesley. 2001. “The Structure of Environmental Concern: Concern for Self, Other People, and the Biosphere.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21(4): 327–339. Willow, Anna J. 2012. Strong Hearts, Native Lands: The Cultural and Political Landscape of Anishinaabe Anti-Clearcutting Activism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Willow, Anna J. 2014. “The New Politics of Environmental Degradation: Un/Expected Landscapes of Disempowerment and Vulnerability.” Journal of Political Ecology, 21(1): 237–257. Willow, Anna J. 2015a. “Collaborative Conservation and Contexts of Resistance: New (and Enduring) Strategies for Survival.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 39(2): 29–52. Willow, Anna J. 2015b. “Wells and Well-Being: Neoliberalism and Holistic Sustainability in the Shale Energy Debate.” Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 21(6): 768–788. Willow, Anna J. 2017. “Cultural Cumulative Effects: Communicating Industrial Extraction’s True Costs.” Anthropology Today, 33(5): 21–26. Willow, Anna J. 2019. “Embrace It, Accept It, or Fight Like Hell: Understanding Diverse Responses to Extractive Industry.” Environment, Development and Sustainability, online preprint. doi:10.1007/s10668-019-00529-8. Willow, Anna J., Danielle Vilaplana, David Sheeley, and Rebecca Zak. 2014. “The Contested Landscape of Unconventional Energy Development: A Report from Ohio’s Shale Gas Country.” Journal of Environmental Sciences and Studies, 4(1): 56–64. doi:10.1007/ s13412-013-0159-3. Wright, Rachel A., and Hilary Schaffer Boudet. 2012. “To Act or Not to Act: Context, Capability, and Community Response to Environmental Risk.” American Journal of Sociology, 118(3): 728–777.

6 IN OUR OWN BACKYARD Navigating Research and Activism in Southeast Florida Eileen Smith-Cavros and Patricia Widener

“As hundreds rallied for Puerto Rican victims of Hurricane Maria, I followed a carcaravan to the protest toward Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s so-called winter White House. At an intersection a man jumped out of his car, lunged toward the caravan and screamed: ‘What the fuck are you protesting…go back wherever the fuck you came from!’ A protester, hands up, approached him: ‘Hey man, just practicing our rights to be heard.’ His coolness and lack of anger seemed transcendent. Moments later, I was at the rally. A giant Baby-Trump balloon was inflated then sent skyward to jeers. My ‘Justice for Puerto Rico’ sign in one hand, camera in the other to photograph signs around me—field notes folded in my pocket. Not fully researcher, I waved my sign, snapping a selfie with Baby-Trump. Not fully participant, I stepped back to photograph protest signs and take notes. If you aren’t fully something, are you anything, I wondered.” (Co-author’s field notes, September, 2018)

As social scientists in the throes of social justice research, we examine in this chapter how our scholarship interacted with our sometimes-activism, and how we negotiated the tensions and utilized the cohesions that developed. We explore how the emotions and standpoints of activism—even our activism in its limited capacity of street-side participation—added some conflict to this research, but also informed and clarified other aspects. In addition, we consider how our vulnerabilities, our risks, and our attempts at distancing served as obstacles and opportunities alike. We also examine the effects of our physical participation on this and related research and on protest solidarities. Finally, we reflect on how considering activisms (in the plural) might encourage more and varied citizen researcher-activists in the social sciences. In Hale’s (2001; 2006) articles on activist academic research in the social sciences, he emphasizes that quality scholarship coupled with activism toward resolution of immediate problems need not be contradictory, and that indeed, activist research can enhance understandings if its inherent strains and ethical issues are clearly

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addressed (see also Willow and Yotebieng, in this volume). Other scholars have used various terms including but not limited to “activist” or “engaged” scholarship, “resistance” anthropology, or “radical” anthropology to discuss such research (e.g., Warren, 2006; Simonelli, 2007; Rabinowitz, 2014; Urla and Helepololei, 2014). In this chapter, we coin the acronym ERAA to refer to “engaged, resistance, and activist anthropology.” We acknowledge differences between terms as described by Rouse and Woolnough (2018) and Rabinowitz (2014), including various approaches to creating change, but also highlight a shared ERAA focus on activism (physical activism or activism via standpoint) in tandem with scholarship. Days after the 2016 US presidential election, we joined thousands of protesters on the streets of southeast Florida who rejected the racist, misogynist, xenophobic, and anti-science rhetoric that led up to the election. We (both coauthors) talked about researching the historic moment in terms of burgeoning social movements and started photographing protest signs, writing field notes, and documenting chants and speech content. After deeper conversations, we gravitated toward a focus on protest signs as partial narratives representing unique resident voices. We photographed as many signs as possible, reasoning that photographs would allow for narrative and event analyses as well as contrasts and comparisons of events and themes. In this chapter, however, we reflect not on sign data that we collected but on our methods as engaged participant-observers and auto-ethnographers, and the implications of both. After two demonstrations in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, we attended 68 other events between November 2016 and June 2019 that were in direct or indirect response to the rhetoric and policy directives of the Donald Trump Administration. More than a convenience sample, southeast Florida was unique: In its diverse population of immigrants, as the birthplace of March for Our Lives (a youth-driven movement to end gun violence initiated by survivors of the 2016 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School), as a center of contested/mistrusted election-swinging results, and as home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. In addition, we were citizens and resident-researchers (see Widener and Rowe, 2018). This was our home and protesters were our neighbors. We felt compelled and propelled toward this research in the way that social justice issues in other places drew us to previous environmental justice research in Mexico (Smith-Cavros et al., 2012) and Ecuador and Aotearoa, New Zealand (Widener, 2016). For both of us, long-distance research had become intensely personal over time while the local research began as personal. Thousands of photographs later, we found ourselves in a sea of data and still gathering more. Our research lies in the broader context of continuing academic reservations about the intersectionality of research and activism. Some asked us, “Why engage?” First, we had the opportunity to gather unique data through engagement to better understand some aspects of protests, as we demonstrate in this chapter. This enabled us as researchers to consider participant views from the crowd rather than solely academic-bystander perspectives. Second, we engaged in this particular moment, as social scientists and citizens, in light of an alarming global upsurge of

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nationalism, fascism (European Economic and Social Committee, 2018), white supremacy movements (Jipson and Becker, 2019), and anti-science, anti-environmental, and anti-human rights rhetoric and policies. Prominent natural scientists describe human society and natural ecosystems as nearing an environmental tipping point (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Prevention, 2019; Watts, 2019). The right to protest in democratic societies, including ours, is increasingly under threat (Cagle, 2019). So perhaps the better question is…why wouldn’t we engage? Resistance and whether or how these related protests overlap or differ demands immediate attention from those who study society. While we must proceed with caution so that the benefits of such research move beyond the selfserving (for researchers), we must be equally careful not to let our own research complacency paralyze us from experimentation, action, and citizenry. In this chapter we examine the ambiguities, tensions, and cohesions of auto-ethnographic research with a focus on our overlapping roles as citizens, participant-observers, and sometimes-activist bodies.

Literature on Engaged, Resistance, and Activist Anthropology (ERAA) Our study was guided by earlier anthropologists who disputed the “pretense” of neutrality and objectivity emphasized in “traditional anthropology” (Rabinow, 1977) and critiqued detached ethnography cleansed of emotion (Rosaldo, 1993). Literature on ERAA typically reflects on ethnographic research that involves empathetic anthropologists whose study participants are activists themselves and/or experiencing injustice. Direct conversations or interviews, long-term contact with those being researched, and intense engagement in activism or as voices for change are hallmarks of ERAA research (Rabinow, 1977; Simonelli and Earle, 2003; Anjel-Ajani, 2006; Castillo, 2006; Holloway, 2006; Speed 2006; Petry, 2012; Rasza and Kurnik, 2012). One distinction of ERAA research is the deep emotions that often unite researchers and participants and the passion of researchers for the causes that they study (Thome, 1979). Many ERAA researchers become organizers or insiders within causes or protest movements, thereby experiencing the limits, ambiguities, and/or catharses of fieldwork and alliances with affected communities. Likewise, many experience the strong emotions associated with fieldwork, as well as activism. Some researchers engage with relatives as sources (Cook, 2008) and with friends and colleagues, while others partner with communities and participants who later become researchers and authors themselves (Simonelli and Earle, 2005; Simonelli, 2007). While closeness between researchers and participants is often lauded, literature also critiques the failure of some ethnographic research to fully portray tensions and contradictions. Ortner (1995), for example, argues for thicker description and analyses of resistance. Herzfeld (1997) pushes ethnographic boundaries to explore “cultural intimacy” in which cultural elements that engender embarrassment (sometimes avoided by researchers) become integral. These debates persist

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into the 21st century as scholarship and activism make enriching, if not contentious, bedfellows. In describing how anthropologists have minimized emotion and sentimentality through theory, Angel-Ajani (2006) subsequently challenges the conception of engaged anthropologists as “witnesses” alone by arguing for the discipline’s commitment to amplifying underrepresented participants’ experienced injustices. Other literature posits that some societal injustices and structural inequalities are so great that advocacy becomes a moral obligation (Kirsch, 2002; Davis, 2006; see also Willow and Yotebieng, in this volume). In short, many scholars have expressed deep emotions associated with the causes and campaigns of those studied, while simultaneously recognizing a need to step away. Some have described this dilemma as “ethnographic vacillation” (Hage, 2009; Petray, 2010). When and why to step away and how far to step, however, has been a dilemma for decades. As a participant-observer in the Vietnam draft resistance, Barrie Thome wrote: My research role became a retreat, a justification I used to myself for avoiding risks when activism felt threatening… I also discovered ways in which academic careers tend to encourage investment in the status quo. (1979: 87) While positive ERAA intimacy and emotions have sometimes been conditionally accepted in academia, Neale (2010) notes that expressed anger in research is generally deemed unacceptable. Likewise, universities embrace student “community engagement” as buzzwords (Urla and Helepololei, 2014: 446) while engaged research remains suspect (Scott, 1985; Urla and Helepololei, 2014). This paradox continues despite Paulo Freire’s works (1970; 1985) that advocated engaged learning and research with students in partnership. His linkage of effective and radical (as opposed to traditional) modes of education to action, activism, and social transformations aligns with the ideologies and methods of ERAA. Yet Johnston notes the continued professional risks of practicing “cause-oriented” anthropology (2001: 139), and Gray affirms that social scientists “have left too much commentary, dissent and debate” (2013: 709) to journalists and economists. One solution is intensified movement beyond the academically constructed divide wherein “critical anthropology is often pitted against, or seen as opposed to, public, activist, or engaged anthropology” (Osterweil, 2013: 599). Moving beyond this divide encourages researchers to go beyond documentation and toward solutions (see Kline et al., in this volume). We were thus forewarned when we began our ERAA research that there would be murky waters to navigate. Building on ideas about the risks and rewards of ERAA practices, we asked our primary research questions concerning how our participation, emotions, and standpoints informed, enriched, hindered, and/or biased our abilities to interpret and analyze the protests that we experienced.

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Conducting ERAA Research in Southeast Florida Our research project was a dual-narrative of participants and researchers—one narrative was ours (that of the citizen, researcher, and/or activist) and was captured in our field notes; the other narrative was theirs (that of local citizens and protest participants) and was depicted in signs and sounds. We grappled with this dichotomy of participating yet separating (in order to take notes and photographs or conduct analysis). In this chapter on anthropology as activism we focus on ways we negotiated our experiences, narratives and vacillating roles as citizens, resident-scholars, and sometimes-activists. Like other engaged researchers whose work is featured in this volume (e.g., Moolenaar, Still, and Kline et al.), we found that our multiple roles, research choices, and analyses reflected a negotiation of tensions which sometimes led to cohesion (a coming-together of research elements, such as connecting and illuminating aspects of protest signs through our auto-ethnographic field notes). In placing ourselves and our research within the literature on activist-anthropology, we must clarify that we were neither anthropological anarchists nor activist-organizers. We were local residents and empathetic researchers with activist standpoints. Often we actively protested; hence our use of the term “sometimes-activists.” We also avoided intimacy and sometimes distanced ourselves from other participants through our cameras and notebooks. Sometimes, we photographed from the sidelines; at other times, we marched holding our own signs and photographed from the crowd. The events we attended took place throughout southeast Florida, from southern Everglades National Park to the northern point of West Palm Beach. Event themes varied widely and included election shock, climate change action, pro-science, anti-xenophobia, anti-racism, pro-environment, voting rights, women’s rights, healthcare for all, and pro-stricter gun control. Event themes overlapped with a wider call for “resistance.” Although events highlighted resistance toward different specific entities (including but not limited to the Trump Administration and its policies, the gun lobby, and the fossil fuel industry) there were multiple overlaps, with resistance toward inequality and hate as well as support of marginalized groups serving as common themes. At protest events, we photographed as many different signs and props as possible and took detailed field notes. It is important to clarify our identification as ranging across citizen, researcher, and activist roles. At times we were one, two, or all three of these things at once. The research was activist-oriented in that we participated through our presence and often through the use of our own signs, chants, and/or decorated cars or bodies. We empathized, stood, or marched in solidarity with the causes, attending only events whose themes we supported, therefore espousing specific standpoints or views. Most ERAA research is conducted under higher-risk circumstances, including organizer level activism by researchers and often takes place under threatening and/or violent conditions. However, we attended events that were low-risk (for us) and relatively safe (as we were protected by our citizenship, our right to protest and speak freely, and our intersectional privilege).

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We believed that it was possible to participate in and photograph events for later analyses that were informed, but not determined, by our own engagement. We practiced reflexive criticism of our processes, while aiming to avoid self-absorption. A balance of inclusion and exclusion was facilitated by our limited relationships with other protesters (we performed no interviews), our attempts not to influence or change the protest flow in any meaningful way, and our professional “shields” of cameras and notebooks. All of these intentional or unintentional mechanisms lent a level of detachment to our participation that had positive and negative implications (as described below). Warren (2006) notes that a goal of analyses in engaged anthropology should be “that our interpretations are more than the reflection of our politics, be they on the left, right, or elsewhere” (2006: 222). Our first step toward examining our research questions in this way was to document events and our multiple roles while exploring the inherent contradictions and conflicts therein. To do so, we reviewed our notes to determine when our participant-observation, activism, and/or emotions informed or hindered the data, as well as how we distanced ourselves, experienced vulnerabilities, or took risks and how these interpretations and choices interacted with the research process. The specific examples presented here were chosen to illustrate the impacts of our choices on our research processes and data analyses.

Risks and Rewards in Muddy Research Waters In writing this chapter, we asked how our multiple roles, standpoints, and emotions clarified, informed, enhanced, and/or hindered two years of data collection and analyses. We use the terms “tensions” and “cohesions” to describe the distinct experiences that arose from our comingled roles. Often, the same activist participation that created tensions or ambiguities or vulnerabilities in the field also led toward cohesions or “coming together” of some aspects of the data after we left the field. Here, we present several key examples and consider the impact of these sometimes aligned, sometimes competing positions on our overall research.

Tensions and Cohesions of Activist Research Our triplicate field roles (citizen, resident-researcher, and activist) and standpointrelated emotions sometimes interfered with research (tensions) and sometimes revealed deeper or new research issues that we might not have otherwise considered (cohesions). While our empathies and political sentiments were aligned with the activist agenda (i.e., “get out the vote” or “abortion access”), we sometimes struggled to participate in particular protest tactics with which we disagreed. This presented ethical conundrums. How would it affect our research when our values on an issue collided with our field research? Was reflection and learning possible in instances like this, or would we be too close? Below, we examine several examples.1

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For example, one of us who attended a voting rights event “stepped out” of her activism when protest leaders lay, unannounced, in the busy street outside a polling place and blocked traffic. Some participants formed a circle around those lying in the street and someone began a speech. As noted in her journal (October, 2018): “I thought it was absolutely crazy for a handful of protesters to lay in this chaotic street without a good plan…the woman in the center kept talking and people in cars were starting to honk and yell obscenities. I moved to the sidewalk—both to get a better photo and to get farther from traffic. I encouraged an older woman next to me and a young woman with a child to do the same. I was worried for the safety of those laying in the street, but my secondary concern was that blocking the street was slowing traffic of voters trying to get in and out of the polls. I got really angry after I saw a woman leaning out of her older model car [as she tried to leave the polling place] screaming desperately, ‘I HAVE to get to work…’ The march designed to get people to vote was getting in the damn way of voting! Didn’t anybody see the irony?” The author left the event immediately after—she was personally unable to continue participating and supporting, given the organizers’ choice of tactics. In this way, commitment to a cause (in this case voting rights) and strong emotions, including “negative” ones, can enhance research. Our experiences indicate that empathizing with a cause and the view from the crowd may clarify and intensify the constructive critique of organizational choices and strategies (when those choices are perceived as hampering the rights of other marginalized people and perhaps weakening the “cause” itself). Although in this instance our collected data were informed by withdrawal from participant-observation, it could also be argued that when an engaged researcher withdraws from an activity owing to emotions or disagreement with tactics, some research opportunities are curtailed. A similar participant-researcher dilemma and defense of the general public occurred at a 2018 rally against a women’s “health care” center that was identified as delaying (or surreptitiously denying) access to abortions in lieu of anti-abortion advocacy education. While committed to healthcare access, abortion rights, and women’s decision-making power, the co-author was unwilling to appear aligned against other women who were actually seeking some form of health care advice or treatment at a particularly vulnerable moment for them. While wanting to attend the event as a researcher to collect further data, the co-author believed that her presence in a small group with expected media coverage could be misinterpreted, either in real time or through permanent online video coverage, as participating in the harassment of women seeking care. A third example dealt with the tension produced by our unexpected empathy for counter-protesters. For activist researchers, there might be a temptation to see counter-protesters only as the “other.” Our view from the crowd actually allowed us to see counter-protesters from multiple angles. At a March 2018 anti-gun violence rally, one of us observed counter-protesters who screamed insults through a

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megaphone at young protesters still mourning from the Parkland school shootings. Her reaction was one of amazed anger framed by her standpoint of empathy for the young protesters. However, later, some of the young protesters verbally challenged a (different) group of two quiet, lone, older counter-protesters. While the co-author did not see the entire exchange in the midst of a dense crowd, she found her empathy (unexpectedly) directed to the two counter-protesters isolated in the middle of a thick, emotional, and younger crowd that disagreed with them. As described in the co-author’s field notes (March, 2018): “The young students spontaneously became resisting bodies all around the two pro-Trump counter-protesters singing ‘Hey, hey, goodbye…’ at them. I really felt sorry for those two uncomfortable, isolated counter-protesters. At other rallies I’d been harangued and yelled at and called names by counter-protesters. Of course this wasn’t like that. It was just being ‘sung at’ – no threat at all – but it did make me wonder how we move beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’ – and can we do it in the protest moment?” This encounter suggests that the bias risk inherent in activist research that is emphasized in academic reservations toward ERAA is not the end of the story. If researchers consciously commit to “step out” frequently, unexplored (or better) consideration of the “other” (here counter-protesters) could be a result. These examples point to our finding that the tensions of our personal and/or professional involvements deepened some professional understandings (cohesions), including our understandings of citizenry in public spaces and of interactions between protesters, those potentially affected by protests, and counter-protesters.

Vulnerability, Distancing, and Risk We also found that the experiences of vulnerability and attempts at distancing served as both obstacles and opportunities in our research. While on a lesser scale than Thome’s (1979) protective retreat, we too guarded ourselves against perceived risks. We simultaneously recognized the triviality of our risks compared to those faced by the world’s many marginalized people and to the many deeply embedded ERAA researchers in the US and abroad. An incalculably higher level of risk was experienced by many fellow participants. We stood with students who feared going to school, people of color who feared arrest, immigrants without documentation and separated from families, protesters lacking healthcare, survivors of sexual assault, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community. Nonetheless, we recognized the hostilities directed at us (together with other protesters) which we sometimes attempted to address through various distancing maneuvers. One of us was marching (at a protest in South Miami in September, 2018) against Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court when the group of women protesters was verbally assaulted with shouts of “whores.” Both of us experienced discomfort at other events as police in full riot gear watched over

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some protests and as we were video-recorded by others (including counterprotesters) for unknown purposes (see also Widener, 2016). Individually, we also experienced counter-protester trucks that slowed and revved their engines near protesters. At more than one event, one of us felt certain that a car with an angry driver swerved intentionally closer to protesters as drivers honked, shook fists, or raised middle fingers. Both of us were in attendance when a counter-protester at a rally was arrested for running at a protester with his Confederate flag. These moments provided insight on the emotional costs and physical threats of protest. As researchers, in addition to perceiving potential risks, we also considered whether distancing was appropriate or possible. We sometimes wondered, for example, “Should I get closer for that photograph?” particularly when counterprotesters were present. In previous social movement studies, one of us found her camera and notebook were mistaken as the tools of a journalist (see also Widener, 2007). We believe that identifying these distancing maneuvers is important to explain our perceived roles and how we negotiated them. At the same time, we also recognize our privileged positions at events of even being able to consider professional distancing, relative to most other participants. For example, at some events that we attended, undocumented immigrants were unable to distance themselves from potential risks such as identification or deportation. Another risk was one of exposure, in which the observer is observed. Although we were not covert in any way, we often felt anonymous. Others have been able to hide from risk behind their armor of occupation (Thome, 1979), or behind their camera’s physical barrier (Widener, 2007). Nevertheless, our perceived invisibility was not accurate. For example, during the countywide 2018 ballot recount for Florida governor, groups for the opposing Democratic and Republican candidates staged a rally near the elections office. The two opposing groups were only inches from each other when one of us was confronted directly by a demonstrator for appearing to support the Democratic candidate (the issue as perceived by us was for a countywide recount for election accuracy). This example is relevant because those who supported the Republican candidate appeared equally vocal about their proTrump and MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) stance. In this instance, “being seen” was being identified by those physically close and in stark disagreement with you as the “problem” and/or “target”. In each of these situations, risks and vulnerabilities revealed something about the tensions between being part of the protest (to recount votes as opposed to simply supporting a political party) while attempting to distance ourselves as researchers. Detachment and sometimes distancing were things that we attempted to establish—but often simply could not or would not control. Secondly, these risks and vulnerabilities seemed like obstacles (initially) then became opportunities to better understand and analyze via the unconsidered issues that we experienced (i.e., the differing protest perceptions of participants at the same event).

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Physical Experiences and Solidarities of Protest Being participating bodies in the crowd also provided insight and data in regard to anthropology and sociology of the body. Physical participation as activists gave us a clear window into the high personal and physical costs of activism for others and lent an understanding of solidarity of citizens across activities, groups, and interests beyond what we would have experienced as mere observers. For example, many protests we attended had multiple variations of signs that said: “I’m SO over this shit!” (see Figure 6.1). Our physical experience of protesting provided a crosscheck for the overwhelming tiredness, hour-long drives to seemingly endless protests, all-day protests, work conflicts, and emotional fatigue surrounding issues that maddeningly repeated themselves (i.e., school gun violence; racism; need to defend women’s and immigrants’ rights). Our roles as citizens, activists, and researchers were connected by the strains those activities had on our jobs, our families, and our bodies. Despite our exhaustion, anger, and tears, our privilege as employed professors—including schedule flexibility, childcare, transportation, family and friend support—reaffirmed our privilege as educated, middle-aged US-born white women. We acknowledged that professorship alone fails to define a single

FIGURE 6.1

The co-authors photographed thousands of protesters’ signs, props, and artistic expressions of resistance at events throughout southeast Florida from November 2016 through December 2019. Photos by the authors

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“privilege,” as many academics are adjunct and/or lack one or more of the following: Job security, fair wages or salaries, benefits, academic freedom, unionizing opportunities. Nonetheless, in our roles we were able to move “in and out” of the protests related to racism, immigration, poverty and xenophobia without having to live the daily oppressions we protested. Another example also demonstrated how our bodily participation as activists enriched analyses and insight. At a “We Believe Women, We Believe Christine” rally outside of Marco Rubio’s Miami office in 2018 to protest the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, one of us joined other protesters in using her body as a canvas.2 The protesters (including one of the co-authors), wrote “I believe” on their hands with permanent markers and held them high in the air to show support for those who had experienced sexual assault. During the rally, many women emotionally spoke of their own sexual assaults, some that took place decades ago, as painfully sharp memories. Unlike t-shirts or pins or signs that can be shed, the marker stain became a longer-term painful reminder when it could not be completely scrubbed away immediately after the rally. What it meant to use the body as canvas—and the power and emotional price of that act even days after—was realized and fully understood only through the physical experience of participation (see Figure 6.1). A final example of our physical participating-bodies enriching our data occurred when one of us joined others at a Fort Lauderdale Airport protest in January of 2017 against Trump’s “Travel Ban” on citizens of several Muslim-majority countries. In a display of comradery, activists squeezed into a small space, swayed, sang, and exchanged yells and affirmative gestures with supporters who drove through the International Terminal. Drivers and passengers often sat stuck in traffic, and some hung precariously out of car windows to film. Many others photographed protesters, honked, and expressed their support with thumbs up and waves. Many slowed down to a crawl to try to “extend” their moment of communication with protesters. Occasionally, an obscene gesture or yell expressed disapproval. One lane of traffic was inches away from protesters putting the support, and the (rarer) anger, intimately close. It was a moment of distinct realization about how passers-by from “outside” of protests can and do choose to engage in and sometimes become integral parts of protest. The (original) protesters were energized and buoyed by these collaborative solidarities and angered and sometimes threatened by the “others.” It was a give-and-take process in that protesters “fed off of” passers-by with gestures back and responses and increased sign waving. If we had photographed from the fringe or across the way (the best aesthetic vantage point) and not participated in the thick with a sign, swayed with the music, exchanged waves and made direct eye contact with passing drivers, these observations of the protest view, and in particular the capture of supporting allies, would likely have been absent or tempered. This event resembled the other author’s experience when demonstrators blocked cars immediately after the 2016 election in Miami, and drivers sat patiently, curiously, or supportively. This finding dealt with the overall physicality of our experiences in participating. While this complicated the research from exhaustion to emotions, rich new data

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about the events and solidarities of the experience would probably not have been available if we had been merely observer bodies as opposed to participating bodies.

Concluding Thoughts Despite the frequent use in the literature and in media of “activism,” we posit that there are really “activisms” in the plural. The spectrum of activisms which we studied and in which we engaged ranged from deep ethnographic activism (delving into protest narratives, themes, and overlaps via signs) to our street-side protest activism; and to the quieter activisms of letter-writing, town hall participation, social media sharing, education, and policy development and support. We make these meaningful distinctions to invite more and varied practices of citizen-researcher-activists. To be certain, ERAA models of direct engagement, event organizing, and personal intimacies have made anthropology stronger, more critical, and less hierarchal. They have assisted multiple movements/causes and amplified diverse voices (see Willow and Yotebieng, in this volume). We do not advocate moving away from this rich and intimate ethnographic research, interview-based research, or the truly embedded activisms that characterize most ERAA research. However, we assert that there is room for and benefit from an increased recognition of the various creative combinations possible through plural activisms, the social sciences, and more varied methods and methodologies. Engagement in street-side protest activisms and/or quieter or sometimes-activisms (in contrast with deep or organizing activisms) can inform research and vice versa. Our street-side sometimes-activism, for example, joined a flow rather than set a course—it was enabled by opportunities of time, place, and location. By localizing ERAA practices and recognizing the tensions, cohesions, and solidarities in resident-activist fieldwork, we advocate for more versions and documentation of the perplexities and profundities of citizen-anthropologicalactivists on the entire spectrum of activisms. This is crucial in a discipline where a crevasse remains between those researchers who “do” activisms or activistallied research and those who do not—and perhaps think they never would. We return to Davis’ (2006) and Kirsch’s (2002) ideas on anthropological obligation in regards to social injustice. Our training in the social sciences, and our engaged lives as citizens, made it clear that issues of justice, inclusion, and equity were—and are—at stake, even in our own backyard. To act (however small-scale) was not a choice for us, but an obligation and it went in tandem with our research commitments to understand why and how resistance to these injustices was forming. These protests concerned our communities and neighbors. Expanding and inviting the inclusion of more and varied research activisms (also in the plural) benefit anthropology and the social sciences as a whole. This speaks to our central question of whether “activisms” in research muddy issues and objectivity or hold the potential to enrich data collection and analyses. The answer is yes. And both. The process, our research, and we ourselves were muddied and enriched—simultaneously. We acknowledged the ambiguities that

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existed within ourselves and with our negotiation of roles before, at, and after particular events. We attempted, following Ortner (1995), not to sanitize them or suppress examination of them. We found that participating at events, even in limited scope, elucidated tensions within our research. Our auto-ethnographic case studies demonstrated how the emotions, actions, and physicality of sometimes-protesting (or even at times choosing not to) clarified data or provided additional data, often at the same time as limiting other data collection. In addition, we concurred that making room for examined anger was useful (Rosaldo, 2004), despite its being generally eschewed in research (Neale, 2010). Finally, these case studies showed how even in trying to test boundaries we often relied on boundaries in classifying ourselves as citizens, researchers, and/or activists. While we rejected intellectual boundaries in research and physical borders at protests (“No ban, no wall” was a common slogan), we occasionally embraced them as categories to manage or explain our roles or to attempt distancing. As Osterweil (2010; 2013) discusses, activist research is often assumed to consist of seamless relationships between caring anthropologists, their causes, and tightly knit participants—sometimes belying crosscutting uncertainties and contradictions which may propel new field-data connections and considerations, if not neat conclusions. “After two years of research and much soul-searching our research still surrounds us—sometimes it damn near smothers us. We were supposed to stop collecting data after a year. Then it was two years. Now we don’t know. I am tired and sweaty as I type, back from a Christmas toy drive on a relentlessly sunny Florida afternoon at a local ICE facility. Organized by people who protest there weekly in a Circle of Protection. I stopped to get toys to bring— a life-sized doll and a big truck set. Not enough. Never enough. I saw hundreds of people waiting in line to check in—immigration fate undetermined— submitting to new requirements designed to be onerous. I am cheered by people who took their time to deliver piles of presents to kids standing in line. Awed by volunteers who showed up to play elves and Santa complete with serape and sack of coal for local politicians. But I also feel great dissatisfaction. Because the obstacles are so immense, the dangers so intense. It isn’t just the shadow of this unspeakably dreary ICE center and its looming uncertainty— it’s the larger shadow that hung over every issue against which we protested. The people all around me have been taking gigantic life-changing, life-risking chances. Families separated at the border and held in detention. Dreamers deferred. Women assaulted and sharing their stories. African Americans seeking justice. Refugees barred. Sick people denied healthcare. The people of Puerto Rico left in ruins. Kids and teachers in fear at school. They can’t afford to play it safe. Can we?” (Co-author’s field notes, December, 2018)

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Notes 1 Events are not identified by organization name or exact date in order to protect protesters’ privacy. 2 Christine Blasey Ford testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 and alleged that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her years earlier.

References Angel-Ajani, Asale. 2006. “Expert Witness.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 76–89. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cagel, Susan. 2019. “Protesters as Terrorists: Growing Number of States Turn Anti-Pipeline Activism into a Crime.” The Guardian, July 8. www.theguardian.com/environment/ 2019/jul/08/wave-of-new-laws-aim-to-stifle-anti-pipeline-protests-activists-say (accessed August 29, 2019). Castillo, R. AidaHernandez. 2006. “Fratricidal War or Ethnocidal Strategy?” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale AngelAjani: 149–170. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Cook, Samuel. 2008. “You Can’t Put a Price on It: Activist Anthropology in the Mountaintop Removal Debate.” Collaborative Anthropologies, 1(1): 138–162. doi:10.1353/cla.0.0005. Davis, Dana-Ain. 2006. “Knowledge in the Service of a Vision.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 228–239. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. European Economic and Social Committee. 2018. “Fascism on the Rise: Where Does it Come From, and How to Stop it, with a Common European Response.” www.eesc.europa.eu/en/ news-media/news/fascism-rise-where-does-it-come-and-how-stop-it-common-europea n-response (accessed August 28, 2019). Freire, Paulo. 1970. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Freire, Paulo. 1985. The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey. Graeber, David. 2004. Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press. Grey, Sandra, J. 2013. “Activist Academics: What Future?” Policy Futures in Education, 11(6): 700–711. www.wwwords.co.uk/PFIE (accessed August 1, 2019). Hage, Ghassan. 2009. “Hating Israel in the Field: On Ethnography and Political Emotions.” Anthropological Theory, 9(1): 59–79. Hale, Charles. 2001. “What is Activist Research?” Social Science Research Council, 2(1–2): 13–15. Hale, Charles. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120. Herzfeld, Michael. 1997. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-State. New York: Routledge. Jipson, Art, and Paul Becker. 2019. “White Nationalism, Born in the USA, Is Now a Global Terror Threat.” Public Radio International, March 23. www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-20/ white-nationalism-born-usa-now-global-terror-threat (accessed August 28, 2019). Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2001. “Anthropology and Environmental Justice: Analysts, Advocates, Mediators, and Troublemakers.” In New Directions in Anthropology and Environment, edited by Carole Crumley, A. Elizabeth van Devnter, and Joseph J. Fletcher: 132–149. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

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Kirsch, Stuart. 2002. “Anthropology and Advocacy: A Case Study of the Campaign Against the Ok Tedi Mine.” Critique of Anthropology 22(2): 175–200. Maskovsky, Jeff. 2013. “Protest Anthropology in a Moment of Global Unrest.” American Anthropologist, 115(1): 125–131. Neale, Jonathan. 2010. “Ranting and Silence: The Contradictions of Writing for Activists and Academics.” In Taking Sides: Ethics, Politics, and Fieldwork in Anthropology, edited by Heidi Armbruster and Anna Lærke: 217–256. New York: Berghahn Books. Ortner, Sherry B. 1995. “Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal.” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37(1): 173–193. Osterweil, Michal. 2010. “In Search of Movement: Italy’s Movimento Dei Movimenti, Theoretical Practice and Remaking the Political.” PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Osterweil, Michal. 2013. “Rethinking Public Anthropology through Epistemic Politics and Theoretical Practice.” Cultural Anthropology, 28(4): 598–620. Petray, Theresa. 2012. “A Walk in the Park: Political Emotions and Ethnographic Vacillation in Activist Research.” Qualitative Research, 12(5): 554–564. doi:10.1177/ 1468794112446048. Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Rabinowitz, Dan. 2014 “Resistance and the City.” History and Anthropology, 25(4): 472–487. doi:10.1080/02757206.2014.930457. Rasza, Maple, and Adrej Kurnik. 2012. “The Occupy Movement in Žižek’s hometown: Direct Democracy and a Politics of Becoming.” American Ethnologist, 39(2): 238–259. Rosaldo, Renato. 1993. Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Rosaldo, Renato. 2004. “Grief and the Headhunter’s Rage.” In Death, Mourning and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader, edited by Antonius C.G.M. Robben: 167–178. London: WileyBlackwell. Rouse, Julia, and Helen Woolnough. 2018. “Engaged or Activist Scholarship? Feminist Reflections on Philosophy, Accountability and Transformational Potential.” International Small Business Journal: Researching Entrepreneurship, 36(4): 429–448. doi:10.1177/ 0266242617749688. Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Simonelli, Jeanne. 2007. “The Active Voice: Narrative in Applied and Activist Anthropology.” Anthropology and Humanism, 32(2): 156–170. Simonelli, Jeanne, and Duncan Earle. 2003. “Meeting Resistance: Autonomy, Development, and “Informed Permission” in Chiapas, Mexico.” Qualitative Inquiry, 9(1): 74–89. Smith‐Cavros, Eileen M., Sylvia Duluc‐Silva, Maria del Carmen Rodriguez, Ponciano Ortiz, and Edward O. Keith. 2012. “You Can’t Eat Money When You Are Hungry”: Campesinos, Manatee Hunting, and Environmental Regret in Veracruz, Mexico.” Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, 34(1): 68–80. Speed, Shannon. 2006. “Indigenous Women and Gendered Resistance in the Wake of Acteal.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 170–188. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Thome, Barrie. 1979. “Political Activist as Participant Observer: Conflicts of Commitment in a Study of the Draft Resistance Movement of the 1960s.” Symbolic Interaction, 2(1): 73–88. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. 2019. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. https://gar.unisdr.org/report-2019 (accessed August 16, 2019).

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Urla, Jacqueline and Justin Helepololei. 2014. “The Ethnography of Resistance Then and Now: On Thickness and Activist Engagement in the Twenty-First Century.” History and Anthropology, 25(4): 431–451. Warren, Kay B. 2006. “Perils and Promises of Engaged Anthropology.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 213–227. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Watts, Jonathan. 2019. “Human Society Under Urgent Threat from Loss of Earth’s Natural Life.” The Guardian, May 6. www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/06/huma n-society-under-urgent-threat-loss-earth-natural-life-un-report (accessed August 10, 2019). Widener, Patricia. 2007. “Oil Conflict in Ecuador: A Photographic Essay.” Organization and Environment, 20(1): 84–105. Widener, Patricia. 2016. “E-fears, E-risks and Citizen-Intelligence: The Impacts of Surveillance on Resistance and Research.” Surveillance and Society, 14(2): 277–285. Widener, Patricia, and Carmen Rowe. 2018. “Climate Discourse: Eluding Literacy, Justice and Inclusion by Evading Causation, Privilege and Diversity.” Environmental Sociology, 4 (1): 162–174.

7 “I’D NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE” Anthropology of Cross-Disability Activism as Activism Sarah Elizabeth Morrow, Elizabeth A. Winter and Jodi A. Allison

During a snowstorm in November 2017, adults and youth identifying as having disabilities and/or chronic illnesses gathered together in a conference room in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.1 The goal of the evening was to receive training on selfadvocacy and collective activism and to strengthen southwestern Pennsylvania’s disability activism community. The event was led by members of the Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network (PYLN), a statewide organization seeking to develop advocacy skills in populations identifying with disabilities and other marginalized identities, particularly the intersections of race, class, and gender. Participants were asked to share stories, create goals for their activism efforts, and think about ways to use their voices for change, both locally and nationally. Those in attendance ranged in age from 14 to 60 and represented a wide range of developmental, cognitive, physical, psychological, and illness-based disabilities, both visible and invisible. This diversity of lived experiences was highlighted by the PYLN team, as they had participants play games that required them to consider the adaptive needs of their peers. At the heart of the event, people were bonding across life experiences. This November meeting was the launch of a mentorship program bringing together two Pittsburgh based cross-disability advocacy groups: The adult-oriented Health Committee for Persons with Disabilities (HCPD) and the youth-oriented Children’s Hospital Advisory Network for Guidance and Empowerment (CHANGE). We (the authors) were in attendance that night: Morrow as the program coordinator for CHANGE, Winter as the mentorship program coordinator, and Allison as part of programming support. This served as the beginning of both the mentorship program and our research effort to understand the experiences and cultural models of these cross-disability activists representing different generations. This research effort became far less important, however, than understanding the complexity of the experiences of our participants and sharing in their intense passion for social change. Through our anthropological methods, we saw our

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participants rewrite their own stories of activism to include new interpretations and new self-perceptions. We played active roles in the lives of our participants, engaged with their community as peers, and valued their experiences as knowledge that needs to be shared. In the end, we came to understand the power of existing within the cross-disability community as activists and allies, not just as anthropologists.

Getting Involved We each came to our work with individuals with disabilities through differing paths. Morrow is an applied medical anthropologist, with a focus on communitybased work and social justice. Winter is a public health and psychology professional, passionate about youth engagement and disability rights. Allison is an early career medical student focused on social inequality. Despite the distance between our differing academic fields, our overlapping skills and passions highlight the importance of interdisciplinary teams. As researchers and activists, person-centered work is our shared focus. Drawing on our diverse professional backgrounds, we sought to combine community-based programming with cognitive and medical anthropological research methods in order to develop a mentorship program between youth interested in cross-disability activism and adults with a background in cross-disability activism. Activism is a central component of social interaction, personal experience, and cultural expectations within the US cross-disability community, as developed through a dynamic history of advocacy that we will describe below. It is worth noting that we are not experts in disability studies. While the overlap between disability studies and anthropology is growing, it continues to be an underexplored topic area from an anthropological perspective (Kasnitz and Shuttlesworth, 2001; Rapp and Ginsburg, 2012; Ginsburg and Rapp, 2013). We hope that this chapter will serve as one of the emerging bridges between the two by highlighting activism as an important aspect of both anthropology and engagement in disability studies. Our project began in the summer of 2017 when Winter approached Morrow to work with the CHANGE program to complete her Master’s in Public Health degree. At that time, Morrow was coordinating the CHANGE program, and Allison was serving as an AmeriCorps member supporting CHANGE. Allison opted to join the research project outside of her service hours as an AmeriCorps member, not unlike many professionals and scholars interested in activism. As noted in the introduction to this volume, activism and service are often unrecognized, yet expected aspects of anthropology and academia in general. Our project is no exception. With our professional positionality in mind, we were more than just participant-observers; we were embedded community members. We were supporting the activism of our participants through research and through our roles as leaders within different cross-disability programs. Over time and significant engagement, we also became friends with our participants.

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This chapter elaborates how advocacy is conceptualized by those within the cross-disability community, with a focus on the adult participants who came of age before the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the implementation of biomedical policies to support autonomy for those adolescents identifying with disabilities. When these adults shared their personal narratives, an unexpected form of reflexivity and self-efficacy developed. In responding to our questions, they began to reevaluate and reframe their histories, accomplishments, disappointments, and goals around their personal and systemic activism efforts. The use of anthropological methodology directly impacted how our adult participants perceived themselves. This pushed us to reevaluate our roles and to see that they had shifted to friendships, and that using an anthropological lens helped us to create a space in which participants felt safe enough to self-reflect. We found a space in which the act of doing anthropology became activism. We each see the importance of placing the personhood of our participants at the forefront. This led us to explore cross-disability activism using cognitive anthropological methods which examine both the individual and the group. Using these methods did not bring us to a statistically verifiable cultural model, however. Instead, we began to untangle the narratives of the individuals whom we came to know. Thinking through the construction of the cognitive narratives in question, the contexts in which they were shared, and the subtle and overt activism of anthropology in this situation challenged us to reconsider our research framework and the community-based programming that we were supporting. To better understand the world in which these older adults became activists, this chapter explores the history of cross-disability activism and legislation in America, the context of cross-disability activism in the Pittsburgh area, the impact of anthropological methods, and our roles as social scientists and individuals who actively participate in activism dialogues. Our anthropology came to exist as its own form of activism.

Disability Activism in the USA Cross-disability activism has a long history in the United States and was a key catalyst for federal cross-disability policy changes. While we will not attempt to encapsulate all of this history here, there are a few key moments and sharp generational divides that are important to highlight. One of the first key moments would be the founding of American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) in 1974, one of the US’s longest-standing, direct action, cross-disability activism groups (Shapiro, 1993). Activists in ADAPT are known for highly organized, nonviolent collective actions. Their involvement in transportation advocacy had a significant impact on the advancement of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), and their role in developing legislation and demanding action around what became known as the Community Choice Act (often referred to as the “Money Follows the Person” program) were instrumental in raising awareness at a national level.

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Many individual disability activists were key players in lobbying for the ADA, particularly Justin Dart Jr. As Dart and other public figures began to develop relationships with political players like George H.W. Bush, powerful people were feeling a direct connection to those in the cross-disability community. In turn, highlighting the disability experiences of relatives and good friends of key politicians became an approach to personalizing the issues surrounding disability, creating space for empathy in the major arena of politics that traditionally excluded people with disabilities (Shapiro, 1993). Dart also founded the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) in 1990. AAPD is still a key lobbying group in Washington, DC. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and its 2008 amendments increased the public visibility of individuals with disabilities, both in everyday life and in the political sphere. The impacts included increasing civil rights protections for those identifying with a disability status (Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; ADA Amendments Act of 2008). Lastly, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed in 1990, replacing legislation from 1975, which aimed at educating children with disabilities (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act 1990). IDEA increased requirements for schools in terms of meeting the educational needs of children with disabilities, requiring individualized education plans, prioritizing evaluation by appropriate professionals, and championing classroom inclusivity. This change greatly increased the visibility and support of children with disabilities in public school settings. Outside of the direct disability activism sphere, biomedical changes have also had a significant impact on those living with a disability. These shifts are particularly important when considering how the lives of older adults in the cross-disability community differ from their younger counterparts, who are now navigating a very different biomedical system. One such development within pediatric care was the identification of the need for additional supports for youth with disabilities as they age out of pediatric care. This liminal time period for complex medical patients is referred to as “medical transition” by biomedical providers, meaning the transition from pediatric to adult healthcare. For pediatric biomedical providers, the focus on this period of change for adolescents and young adults began only in the 1990s and early 2000s. Before this paradigmatic shift, providers’ expectations for complex cases of disability and chronic illness usually involved ongoing parental involvement, institutionalization and institutional support, and, for many diagnoses, a drastically shortened life span. These are the biomedical expectations that older adults in the cross-disability community came of age under. As both the field of medicine and the federal legislation around disability inclusivity have advanced, providers were forced to reconsider what living a full life with a disability would look like for their patients. Today, the American Academy of Pediatrics pushes for providers to identify adult subspecialty providers and to find medical homes (also known as primary care providers) for youth with disabilities beginning at least at the age of 13 (White et al., 2018). In this sense, the biomedical policy shift to emphasize medical transition is another sharp generational divide in the cross-disability community and deeply connected to how and when individuals are expected to be advocates.

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Pittsburgh and Cross-Disability Activism The Pittsburgh region is home to a diverse group of organizations focused on disability, activism, and lobbying. The organizations represented in this project are part of that larger community and draw on the efforts of their peers. Pittsburgh sits at the intersection of the traditional North, South, and Midwestern regions of the US, and the metropolitan area consists of a ten-county radius. According to the 2017 American Community Survey, 14.8 percent of people living within the city of Pittsburgh identify as having a disability (US Census Bureau, 2017). This is compared with a rate of 14.1 percent for the state of Pennsylvania and 12.7 percent for the US overall. In understanding the context of cross-disability activism here, it is important to understand the ways in which other, often older, disability organizations are embedded within the region. Located in the Pittsburgh area, the Western Pennsylvania School for Deaf Children and the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children, founded in 1869 and 1887, respectively, are two of only four accredited charter schools in the state serving children identifying with such disabilities. The Children’s Home, originally founded in 1893 to place homeless children into permanent home settings, today also serves medically complex children through assisted foster care services and day programs. Founded in 1902, the Children’s Institute (formerly the Memorial Home for Crippled Children) began by serving children recovering from Polio and today serves individuals with physical disabilities across the lifespan.2 With roots going back to 1910, the Blind and Vision Rehabilitation Services of Pittsburgh (BVRS) is an agency focused on workforce development and independent living skills for those with vision impairments. The United Way’s 21 and Able program assists young people with disabilities (who age out of pediatric Medicaid support at the age of 21) to find careers and advocate for workplace inclusivity. With further regional efforts coming from legal advocates at ACHIEVA, educational advocates at the PEAL Center (formerly the Parent Education and Advocacy Leadership Center), and youth camps from the Woodlands, Pittsburgh has a long history of cross-disability activism and service. At the same time, it is worth noting that most of these organizations (apart from BVRS) do not have many individuals in leadership roles who identify as having a disability. While organizations and services are plentiful the closer one lives to certain parts of the city, systemic issues (like transportation, physical accessibility, and safety) often impede many of those living with a disability from accessing services. Solutions to these issues are often sought out by community-based groups of cross-disability activists, like those who participated in our research project. HCPD is a well-established group in the Pittsburgh area, with roughly 15 years of group experience advocating to politicians, communicating with media outlets, and conducting public demonstrations around cross-disability issues. Individual members largely identify as being lifelong activists or advocates, some with more than 40 years of organizing history. A handful of HCPD members also participate in ADAPT. Central tenets of the HCPD group include that “90 percent of activism is showing up” and “nothing about us, without

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us.”3 Members are encouraged by their leadership to bring ideas, topics, and campaigns to the group for support and collaboration. HCPD members have played key roles in the fight for state funding for those displaced by the closures of state mental health hospitals and the push for dental provisions to be returned to Medicare plans in Pennsylvania. Their lifelong group focused form of activism made us very interested in understanding how they viewed their own activism and what qualities make a good activist in the cross-disability community. Children’s Hospital Advisory Network for Guidance and Empowerment (CHANGE), is a group of 14 to 26 year-olds who identify as having a disability or chronic illness. Originally formed to begin addressing the concerns of the “medical transition” period, CHANGE focused on skill building for youth to take control of their medical care. By developing self-advocacy skills in the medical setting, however, members began to look for other topics around well-being and community living. Members of this group were seeing health as a broader, more holistic experience than just a biomedical encounter, and they became quite interested in the anthropological perspective when it was introduced. Through skill building and advocacy efforts, members reshaped the group to reflect more than just the lived experience of disability within the clinical setting. Members chose to push the boundary of what self-advocacy meant for this group by seeing themselves as activists existing within a broader spectrum of interrelated and interconnected social issues. With their form of activism initially stemming from the biomedical shift, these young cross-disability activists developed their perspective differently than their older adult counterparts.

Researching Activism Together HCPD and CHANGE, with their unique contributions to the region’s landscape of disability organizations as groups focused on collective action, were looking for an opportunity to work together for a few years. When Winter approached Morrow to work with the CHANGE group and to better understand the ways in which they thought about advocacy, the idea of the mentorship program began to develop. Mentorship programs for youth interested in cross-disability activism are largely absent in the larger body of literature. We, the authors, all participated in meetings and activities for both HCPD and CHANGE before, during, and after this project and outside of the needs of the research study. All three authors also participated in social events, with members’ activities ranging from dinners to baseball games to visits at home. We gave rides, asked for advice on activism, met families, and, to an extent, were adopted within these groups as members in our own right. The mentorship program sought to offer monthly group activities and mentormentee interactions to create an extended support system for youth engaging in activism. Participants were asked to give feedback throughout the development of the program in order to ensure that it met their individual and group goals. Monthly topics included themes like advocacy and public speaking skills, bodily autonomy and decision making in relationships, op-ed letter writing, and tactics for

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how to talk to politicians. Participants showed a lot of excitement around planning and implementing the mentorship program. Taking an anthropological approach, we privileged the opinions and knowledge of our participants and made them collaborators in the development of the mentorship program. While we, as researchers, have a strong preference for this approach to begin with, it would have also been impossible to engage cross-disability activists without foregrounding their perspectives. It would have been antithetical to the missions of the organizations and arrogant on our parts to not include them throughout the process. Despite our shared enthusiasm, the mentorship program struggled, owing to the amplified constraints of everyday life when living with a disability. Whether these constraints are health, time, transportation, or resource based, even the most dedicated advocates were affected. This led to the mentorship program not meeting its initial goal of connecting youth and adults over the long term, but it did succeed by bringing together these two groups at events to build skills around activism and advocacy.

Surprises in Data Collection The second part of the research project was to explore any cultural models of advocacy that members of each group shared.4 As both disability and activism are underexplored in the anthropological literature, we wanted to develop a basic understanding of how cross-disability activists view their efforts. The content of the identified cultural models will not be heavily addressed here. Instead, we will be looking at the process of data collection with our older adult participants and how sharing their lived experiences with us impacted both their perceptions of their own narratives and their activism. Through free-lists and subsequent pile-sorts, two questions were explored: “What is advocacy?” and “What skills would an advocate need?” Free-lists were completed in small groups, as members of HCPD were still developing a comfort level with us and expressed more confidence in groups of peers. The most frequently mentioned items for each question were placed on notecards. After greater rapport building, we met individual participants at a location they deemed best. Participants were asked to complete a pile-sort for each of the initial questions and describe the content of each pile. Through the group conversations during free-listing and the personal narratives shared during pilesorting, unexpected ethnographic details surrounding the stories and experiences of individual activists made us question any objective approach to understanding cross-disability activism.

Shared Stories Going Untold We met members of HCPD to complete free-lists after a disability-based book club at a local library. As noted above, HCPD members were used to speaking about activism as the shared goals of the whole and were not confident in exploring their activism alone. Our free-listing groups became storytelling groups, at first around ideas of advocacy, but then about individual experiences as activists. We

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were underprepared for the depth of information that was offered during these sessions and found ourselves chasing down stories that we were desperate to hear. By elaborating on their lifelong activism, participants shared stories with which their peers were not familiar. One example of this with our adult participants was with Molly, a disability advocate with cerebral palsy and limited physical mobility, and Ellen, a disability advocate who was born blind.5 Both women have been active and visible members of the regional disability activism community for many years and have worked together on a variety of efforts. Molly professed to Ellen that should Molly ever write a book, she would like Ellen to read the book on tape, due to her verbal composure, clarity, and expressiveness. Ellen laughed at the idea that she would be the best candidate and noted Molly’s keen intellect and broad vocabulary as potentially challenging for her. As Molly and Ellen discussed their experiences around growing up with a disability and how those experiences shaped their activism, they continued to surprise each other. They both shared experiences of having few educational or employment advocates in their respective youths. Each felt surprised by the resources which were not available to the other, owing to their respective disability statuses or diagnoses, identifying the complexity of their peer’s experience as having more primacy and deservingness than their own. Molly did not know that Ellen worked as a telephone operator for 40 years and was deeply in awe of her taking on that role with her vision impairment. At the same time, Ellen did not know that Molly was instrumental in disability inclusivity policy changes in local community colleges, fighting for onsite resources and increased accessibility. Ellen wondered how Molly found the strength to take that on with a significant physical disability. They expressed admiration and awe for each other’s accomplishments, accomplishments that were never previously shared. What makes this interaction so interesting to us is that these two women had collaborated on activist efforts for over a decade. They respected each other, sought to work with each other, and identified each other as being powerful actors in advocacy. However, they did not know each other’s stories. Their respective emphases on the outcome of advocacy being for the betterment of the group seemed to have stopped them from focusing on sharing their own stories with each other. This was something of a shocking revelation to us, as we interacted with Ellen and Molly at group meetings for many months prior and witnessed how much they respected each other. In this small, group-focused setting, things began to change between them. We began to wonder if personal narratives of disability and advocacy were not expressed directly within the larger group and what impact these conversations could have on our adult participants. An important aspect of the style of cross-disability activism utilized by Pittsburgh area disability activists (regardless of age) is the prioritization of intersectionality. Topics for disability activism do not have to be inherently or exclusively “disability” topics. Instead, a focus on seeing the cross-disability community as being integrated within the larger community leads cross-disability activists to engage

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broadly and diversely, both in terms of topics and in terms of collaborating with other groups. CHANGE members have participated in broad collective actions around youth behavioral health, public demonstrations with Black Lives Matter, the University of Pittsburgh Graduate Student Association’s fight to develop a union, and supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual, and other (LGBTQIA+) events as part of the larger community. HCPD members regularly organized and led actions for affordable housing across the city, transportation equity to low income areas, state union bargain issues, and many trips to the state capital of Harrisburg to directly address lawmakers on any and all issues that affect marginalized voices. In this sense, the approaches across the two generations were similar. Despite these similarities, we did not see a lack of sharing of personal stories in the younger participants from CHANGE. This was a sharp distinction. Our older participants began to articulate a narrative of not sharing their own stories, of not highlighting themselves in activism with peers, and of not consciously realizing their own perceptions until probed. Conversely, our youth participants highlighted group action and personal activism as part of community development. For them, sharing of themselves through their own stories was a form of direct action. Even after many years of exposure to activism, our older adult participants were not very comfortable constructing their personal narratives in a group environment.

Jane and “The Individual in the Collective” Individual pile-sorting sessions illustrated a way in which our participants’ personal narratives changed in response to anthropological methods, particularly in the case of Jane. Jane is a disability activist in her early fifties, identifying with learning and mental health diagnoses.6 She lives independently in a subsidized housing complex just outside of the city limits. She is a common face not only at group meetings, but at advocacy events of all kinds around the city area. The cross-disability activism community views her as reliable, dedicated, and willing to fight for and alongside others. Morrow went to visit her in her home to complete pile-sorting. Jane gave Morrow very specific directions to her housing complex. When Morrow failed to follow them to the letter and was a few minutes late for the appointment, she found Jane waiting outside and shaking her head. Jane walked Morrow through a maze of buildings to her apartment. It became clear that Jane was very anxious about having someone in her home, despite the setting being her choice. Jane and Morrow had worked together off and on for roughly a year. Morrow was surprised to learn that Jane was, by her own definition, “a hoarder.” She had every room covered to the point that her bed was not accessible. She slept upright in her “sleeping chair” each night with her loyal cat in her lap and said that she felt most comfortable this way. To someone who did not know Jane, it could have been concerning. Morrow realized that her living situation matched Jane’s outward personae—that of an advocate ready for anything at a moment’s notice. Walls of organized supplies were memories and preparation for her future activism. Her

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home was organized and functional in a way that worked for Jane, so that she was most ready to help others who needed her at any given moment. As Jane showed off her supply of prepared signs and t-shirts geared toward different advocacy events that could arise, she spoke about feeling tired and uncertain about her next steps as an activist. Through her community organizing efforts, she led her neighborhood in restoring a bus line that was needed in order to access groceries. This success had led others to ask for her help. She always said yes to assisting with other efforts until she had pushed herself to the limits of her time and energy. Sitting down in the living room together, with Morrow in the sleeping chair and Jane in a small folding chair, it was decided that the best approach for pile-sorting was for Jane to sort her cards on the floor as the table was inaccessible. As Jane completed her first pile-sort, she was completely silent. The first pile that she discussed included concepts like “courage,” “advocacy becomes part of life,” and “fighting for others.” Also in this pile sat the card “advocating for self.” In talking it through, Jane said, “I’d never thought about this before. I mean…I have, but not like this. No one asks.” She went on to say that she believed that this pile represented a central aspect of what advocacy is and that she needed to remember to advocate for herself, a reflection which was triggered by the cards. Being an advocate for others had overtaken her ability to be an advocate for herself. She illustrated this with a story about visiting the state capital with only an hour and a half notice of the departure time and the profound stress she experienced around this. From hurrying to the bus with her cane to helping to keep those with cognitive impairments together around the state capital, Jane came back from the trip overextended. In another pile, Jane singled out the card “avoiding loneliness” as a key component of her definition of advocacy. She also related this to overextending herself. By the start of the second pile-sort, Jane became even quieter than usual. She turned inward while selfreflecting during her pile-sorts, punctuating her descriptions of each pile with, “that’s all,” to signify that she wanted to move on. In her final pile of cards representing skills an advocate needs, she spoke about “standing up for yourself” and “self-confidence.” Again, she wanted to increase her skills in this area. “Especially about protecting myself. Sometimes I got to not pick up the phone. Cause I can’t. I can’t keep it up,” she said. She added that this was particularly true regarding her sister, who stopped by during our session. Another member of the cross-disability community, Jane’s sister had more difficulty navigating the social systems of the world and tended to lean on Jane. “Even with my sister,” Jane said, “sometimes I got to just not pick up the phone.” Despite being a leader and a point of support for so many in the cross-disability community, Jane’s feelings of isolation crystalized through her pile-sorts. After Jane completed pile-sorting, she told Morrow that she was going to a nearby day program for adults with classes on crafts, household skills, and job skills. Morrow offered to drive her there on the way back to work. Although Jane was skeptical at first, she accepted the ride. She teased Morrow about the state of her car, comparing the array of stuff to her own apartment. Morrow noted that she was not as organized as Jane. Leaving the complex, Jane pointed out the still-in-use

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bus stop that she was instrumental in saving for her neighborhood. It was a simple stop with a small sign, placed on unsheltered, cracked pavement. It looked barren, yet it represented life changing access and autonomy. Up a steep hill near her complex, she told Morrow to slow down so that she could point something out. On the side of the road was another bus stop. This one had a shelter and an accessibility ramp built into the sidewalk, but this one had been abandoned, overgrown with grape vines. This was the stop for an even larger route, which accessed more of the city. This route, however, had not been reinstated, even though the community protested its closure as well. Jane still feels that disappointment. It is a time that she feels that she failed her community, and she attaches her self-perception as an activist to this perceived failure rather than to her many successes. Arriving at her day program, she said that she had fun. “It was good to think about these things,” she said. “Don’t know what to do about them. Good to think about.” In debriefing afterwards, we were struck by the many things that we had not known about Jane, that she had not shared with the group. At the same time, Jane’s response to the structure of pile-sorting was to reshape her narrative of her experiences. By offering these opportunities to engage in new ways around the topic of activism, our anthropological methods were making an impact on our participants that we had not anticipated. From our group discussions to our individual sessions, we saw patterns of isolation and sacrifice—patterns that would not have been clear without the use of anthropological methods.

Living and Acting Together Reflecting on our experiences and the stories that were shared with us changed how we thought about the project. It became far less about evaluating a cultural model and far more about how we go about our work in a way that supports and empowers our participants. How do we exist as participants and observers without also becoming advocates? The answer, of course, is that we cannot exist in these spaces without taking up the mantle of activism as well. How could we listen as personal stories of advocacy flowed from our participants for the first time in decades, and not support their work? The answer for us is that you cannot be a participant-observer without becoming an advocate in this setting. And that is a good thing. By denying the role of advocate, we would be denying a part of the human experience that comes with the anthropological endeavor. It would be an act of separating ourselves from our participants, treating them as objects of intellectual inquiry instead of as thinking and feeling equals. There is no benefit or ethical defense to exoticizing their activism as something which we can impartially observe and evaluate. With this in mind, we would like to offer a final anecdote around our own experiences with activism in the cross-disability community. The mass shooting on October 27, 2018 at the Tree of Life Synagogue (L’Simcha Congregation) in Pittsburgh was directed at the Jewish community.7 It shook the city of Pittsburgh

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to its core. Although not the initial target of the attack, it was deeply felt by the cross-disability community. Of the 11 worshipers killed that day, brothers David and Cecil Rosenthal were not just members of the Pittsburgh Jewish community; they were members of the Pittsburgh cross-disability community, identifying with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. The Rosenthal brothers were known for their active participation in their temple, a place that was considered safe and welcoming to them. This tragedy was now all the more personal for those with disabilities. A meeting of the CHANGE group was dedicated to discussing this event, the feelings of the members, and the actions they wanted to see happen. For Morrow, it highlighted the fact that the lines between herself as a so-called objective participant-observer and the vital activism within this community were inconsequential. To actively participate within this community is to become an activist within this community. As the youth members asked questions about what had happened and why it had happened, some began to cry. “My professor wouldn’t let us ask questions. He said things like this happen all the time,” said one college aged member through their tears. “Mine turned it into a debate about gun control…the day after the shooting. I don’t even understand why we had class,” said another. Parallels between the Rosenthal brothers and a set of relatives in the CHANGE program were obvious to all. Dedicated members of their own house of worship, the safety of these two members was destroyed at the moment that the shooter had entered Tree of Life. The shooting was personal to all members as an assault on their community from multiple angles. A decision was made to write a letter to the family of the Rosenthal brothers, to speak and to grieve as a community. The members requested that Morrow deliver the letter to the family. Morrow and her mother attended the memorial service for the Rosenthal brothers to deliver the letter and marched in solidarity with the city. There was no way to ignore or compartmentalize this experience. More to the point, there was no need to compartmentalize this experience. It was personal, shared, and activist participant-observation. This community, which was part of our own community, had welcomed us, and it was our responsibility as human beings to share in this grief.

Anthropology as Vulnerability and Transparency Traversing multiple identities and multiple roles in the disability space requires shifts to our thinking, as Shuttleworth (2001) expresses as both a researcher of and a community member within the cerebral palsy community. We see these shifting identities as part of being an anthropologist in this setting as well. We must accept that we possess interconnected identities that influence our work, regardless of any academic allegiance to impartiality. Complicated realities are something that we are often discouraged from engaging with too strongly in academia; both the realms of disability and activism are complicated. We have the opportunity to represent the primacy of activism to the anthropological discourse and it is an opportunity worth taking. Anthropology has had a difficult time engaging with disability and with

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activism. Both areas of study require us to be flexible and to view participants as partners and friends, first and foremost. At the same time, these fields call on us to be transparent, as people and as researchers. We must be vulnerable, and we must be honest (Behar, 1996). A researcher who wishes to engage with these populations successfully and respectfully will need to develop a level of comfort in being vulnerable. Anthropology has long relied on the idea that participant-observation is somehow more meaningful when a detached narration is produced. That detachment does not lend itself to engagement with disability studies or activism (Rapp, 1999). These two areas require that we reflect on our power, how we advocate, and how the personal and the professional weave together in a messy and beautiful way. What makes anthropology so special as a field is our connection to the human experience. To see an opportunity for ourselves to be active players in supporting change and to shrug it off in the name of a scientific endeavor is to shrug off a piece of our humanity. Our work became less about a cognitive anthropological study of finding shared cultural models and became far more about sharing experiences, telling and hearing stories, and learning how to be advocates—not just for others, but for ourselves as well. These interactions helped to support the authors, as individuals, in grasping our own complex health statuses more firmly as well. We hope that this is a step toward meeting the calls of Rapp, Ginsburg, Kasnitz, Shuttleworth, and others to treat disability as an integrated and vital topic of anthropological inquiry. At the same time, we hope that by situating ourselves as active and engaged participants, this chapter highlights how anthropology and activism can and must work together to challenge and question what is at the heart of anthropology and whether a division between anthropology and activism makes sense in today’s engaged age.

Notes 1 “Cross-disability” will often be used in this chapter to describe this diverse population of individuals. Each agency and individual have their own preferred terminology for group identification; cross-disability is a term accepted by all of those who are identified within this work. 2 “Medically complex” is a specific categorization of disability (for both medical and legal purposes) that identifies those who require lifelong supports such as shift care nursing, multiple assistive devices to stay alive, and/or other intensive medical treatment related to the anticipation of a shortened lifespan. 3 “Nothing about us, without us,” is a traditional disability activism motto. It has roots in collective action throughout history but came into common use through South African disability activists and author James Charlton’s book “Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment.” 4 See Dressler’s “Culture and the Individual: Theory and Method of Cultural Consonance” (2018) for a detailed background on these and related methods. 5 All names have been changed to protect the anonymity of participants. 6 It should be noted that we did not collect information systematically around participants’ diagnoses. If they chose to share them, they were documented. However, both groups support a model of cross-disability inclusivity that does not require an individual to identify, explain, or justify their status.

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7 On the day of the shooting, the L‘Simcha Congregation of the Tree of Life Synagogue was preparing to worship. In solidarity with the pain experienced by all who worship there, whether present that day or not, we would like to note that the Tree of Life Synagogue is also home to both the Dor Hadash and the New Light Congregations.

References The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (Public Law 110–325). Washington, DC: United States Congress. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-336), 104 Statute 328. Washington, DC: United States Congress. Behar, Ruth. 1996. The Vulnerable Observer. Boston: Beacon Press. Ginsburg, Faye and Rayna Rapp. 2013. “Disability Worlds.” Annual Review of Anthropology, 42(1): 53–68. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (Public Law 101–476), 104 Statute 1142. Washington, DC: United States Congress. Kasnitz, Devva and Shuttleworth, Russell. 2001. “Introduction: Anthropology in Disability Studies.” Disability Studies Quarterly, 21(3): 2–17. Rapp, Rayna. 1999. Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America. New York: Routledge. Rapp, Rayna and Faye Ginsburg. 2012. “Anthropology and the Study of Disability Worlds.” In Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures, edited by Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell: 163–182. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Shapiro, Joseph P. 1993. No Pity: People with Disabilities Forging a New Civil Rights Movement. New York: Three Rivers Press. Shuttleworth, Russell. 2001. “Exploring Multiple Roles and Allegiances in Ethnographic Process in Disability Culture.” Disability Studies Quarterly, 21(3): 103–113. US Census Bureau. 2017. “American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.” https://factfinder.census. gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk (accessed January 15, 2020). White, Patience H., W. Carl Cooley, Transitions Clinical Report Authoring Group, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Family Physicians, and American College of Physicians. 2018. “Supporting the Health Care Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood in the Medical Home.” Pediatrics, 142(5): 1–20.

8 “YOU MUST TELL OUR STORIES!” Moving Toward Applied Anthropology and Beyond in the Groningen Gas Field Elisabeth N. Moolenaar

I was not trained in an applied anthropology department, nor did I intend to become an applied anthropologist. However, life brought me to the Groningen gas field in the Netherlands, and my research agenda—originally focused on identity and regional affiliations—turned toward researching the impacts of conventional natural gas extraction.1 This changed everything. As Groningers struggled to hold on to their homes and livelihoods in the wake of induced seismic events, I felt compelled to do something. This chapter describes an ongoing professional journey that began when I arrived in Groningen, a border province of the Netherlands, in 2012 to commence ethnographic research on the salience of regional affiliations in a transnational context. Shortly after my arrival, I witnessed an earthquake that altered many facets of life in the province. This professional journey entailed refocusing my research to include how belonging and earthquakes are intertwined, studying extraction and the power over and through energy, and learning about the local community’s opposition to extraction. And ultimately, it also involved taking my data to political fora, other communities confronted with extraction, and those who (hope to) work in extractive industries. Using some of my data and conclusions as guidelines, this reflective chapter recounts how working on the topic of conventional natural gas extraction positioned me as an applied anthropologist and a socially engaged actor. Organized around three phases that I passed through, it describes the dynamic interplay between research population and researcher and, in conclusion, addresses the implications and responsibilities of ethnographic research. As I describe these phases, I also contemplate on and borrow from previous anthropologists’ efforts to reconcile being an anthropologist with responding to societal struggles. At times I worked with ideas from the 1970s like Ellen Jacob’s “every person” (a type of culture broker or social ombudsman that does not take sides) and “action anthropologist” (an anthropologists who aligns with a cause or

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group of people and is involved in actual processes to bring about change) (Jacobs, 1974). I was inspired by key figures in public anthropology, particularly Catherine Besteman (2013) and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (2009). And, more recently, I have sparred with the “activist research” described by Charles Hale (2001; 2006) and Stuart Kirsch (2002), which asks researchers to align with an organized group of people to accompany them toward their political goals and collaborate with them throughout the research process. At times I use overlapping terminology (such as applied, engaged, and action/ activism) as it relates to finding my way as an anthropologist while responding to events in the gas field and, as needed, explain what those terms mean to me. Participating in the conversation that became this volume was itself in a way a part of my journey, as I had to reflect deeply on not merely what terms and concepts to use, but also on how to position my work among other approaches to anthropology of/as/ and activism. Through this personal account, I aim to illuminate how researching events that heavily impact the lives of local people can change one’s direction and outlook as an anthropologist.

Phase One: Filling the Void and Becoming a Voice for Others In 2012, while conducting fieldwork on expressions of regional affiliation among the populations of 19 municipalities in Groningen (with special attention to tensions between the local and the global, and urban-rural and center-periphery antagonisms), the earth ruptured and so did my research. As I explain below, I found that the experience of identity in Groningen had become complexly intertwined with the experience of earthquakes resulting from local gas extraction. Groningen is home to some of the Netherlands’ poorest people. It has historically been a rural province that developed very differently than the cultural, political, and economic center of the country in the West, called the Randstad. Groningen’s overwhelmingly rural character—combined with its distance from the Randstad—has been the basis for its populations’ economic, political, and social marginalization. In mainstream media, Groningers are often portrayed as poor and stupid, similar to how Appalachians are sometimes caricatured as “hillbillies” in the US (Scott, 2010). However, the province is located over one of the largest extractable natural gas fields in the world, which has been exploited since the late 1950s. Since the Napoleonic Wars (1803–05), mining laws have promoted exploration and the deep layers of the soil (and the products extracted therefrom) have belonged to the national government of the Netherlands. The government thus holds all mineral rights and is the primary beneficiary of all proceeds. Groningen gas is extracted by the national oil company, the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM). In 1963 the government established joint ventures with companies such as ExxonMobil and Shell to sell the gas (which could be extracted and sold cheaper than coal). The government started a national gasification program in the early 1960s, and between 1963 and 1965 a pipeline system was built to provide the whole country

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with gas. By 1965 all coalmines in the Netherlands had closed. Groningen gas was sold on the international market as well, providing continuous revenue for major infrastructural projects and social programs. The gas was considered a national treasure. NAM was considered a good employer for local laborers and a “good neighbor” within the community that financially contributed to events, schools, and local sport clubs. Yet most of the gas revenue did not directly benefit the province the gas came from; instead, the bulk of the benefits went to the Randstad. Small earthquakes have been occurring in Groningen since the late 1980s, with a notable one in 2012 measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale. Centered in the village of Huizinge, it was larger than any former quake in the region. This was the earthquake that shook my research project. For many years, locals suspected that the tremors were related to gas extraction, but their claims were not taken seriously. In general, people who warned of the negative effects of gas extraction were ignored or ridiculed in the press (Brandsma et al., 2016: 70–75). The earthquake in Huizinge led to the official acknowledgement by both the Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut (Royal Dutch Meteorological Institute) and the government that the quakes were, indeed, related to the natural gas extraction in the province. Groningen’s gas is contained in sandstone. As gas is extracted significant subsidence takes place and tension occurs along breaks in subsurface layers which over time causes movement (Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut, 2019). Groningen’s quakes are small on the Richter scale (between 1 and 4), but occur near the Earth’s surface. As a result, they travel far and are felt more vigorously than earthquakes of the same magnitude caused by natural fault lines. With epicenters near the gas wells in the Groningen gas field, earthquakes are increasing in frequency, from less than 20 per year in the early 1990s, to between 20 and 50 per year in the first decade of the 2000s, and between 80 and 125 per year since 2011 (Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut, 2019). In this area, many structures are at least a hundred years old and have never been secured to withstand earthquakes of any intensity. Many people reported damages after the 3.6 quake in Huizinge. I was an Executive Committee member of a political party (at the provincial level) at the time of “the big quake” and remember local, provincial, and even national politicians attempting to put a handle on the situation. Public officials were predominantly concerned about whether or not there would be more of these quakes and (knowing that they had to publicly take some sort of responsibility) with how to deal with damage compensation. The government’s first action was to order research on economic consequences and on the technical specifics of extraction-induced earthquakes. Yet there was no research on the earthquakes’ sociocultural impacts. I felt compelled to fill this gap, as the earthquakes were the “talk of the town” and, moreover, impacted the daily lives of the people who lived over the gas field. An informant used social media to make this case in 2013, tweeting that the earthquakes are not just a technical problem but rather a “societal problem.” As I redirected my research, I came to understand that the materiality of cracks and fissures bears witness to deeply embedded social, economic, and political divisions.

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Over time, the earthquakes have changed the architectural character of Groningen’s villages and damaged people’s homes. From participant-observation, interviews, and perusing media reports, blogs, and social media, I learned that quite a few people now feel uprooted, displaced, or alienated from their environment. To some extent, this is similar to the distress caused by environmental change more generally—what Albrecht et al. (2007) call solastalgia—but it is intertwined with specific concerns over safety, (family) history, and material culture. My data show, moreover, that underdeveloped damage compensation schemes, unclear compensation procedures, and non-disclosure agreements for those who do receive compensation have led to a distancing between neighbors and tense social relations. Moreover, people’s differing finances set those who could easily bounce back from damage apart from those who were unable to pay for repairs. Even within families, personal relationships have come under stress, as seen in contention between spouses who want to leave the area and those who wish to stay. Perhaps most importantly, Groningers’ relationship with the government and their ideas of the nation and their place within it have been affected. My research indicates that people’s sense of self and subjectivity are formed by exposure to economic and natural risk, emphasizing the historically developed rural-urban and foremost center-periphery antagonisms. In their peripheral position vis-a-vis the Randstad, some Groningers feel that national politicians have no interest in them or the region. They feel underrepresented or disenfranchised and struggle to come to terms with the state’s responsibility for the gas extraction and, thus, the related seismic events (see Moolenaar, forthcoming). Narratives by affected locals reveal feelings of disempowerment, exploitation, and victimhood; for some these have even become central to what it means to be from Groningen. “In the rest of the country they don’t care about us remote farmers,” the shared discourse goes, and, “if there were earthquakes in the Randstad the politicians would have taken action immediately” (see also Moolenaar, forthcoming). As locals experienced disenfranchisement, marginalization, and powerlessness, they sought to bring attention to their plight and make their voices heard. Few people in the rest of the country appreciated the gravity of the situation early on. Protests and opposition to extraction were initially very much geared toward being heard, seen, and taken seriously. As Groningers sought media attention by organizing protest marches and speaking on talk shows, blogs about the earthquakes and the damage they caused popped up around the Internet. Videos to document seismic activity and political cartoons were made, and playful attentiongrabbing actions (such as knitting a big blanket to cover a historic home in the area) were organized. In addition to them relaying their experiences, informants thought it was important that I tell their stories, amplifying their voices and bringing attention to the situation in places (like the halls of academia) that they might not be able to reach. Kelly Yotebieng describes in Chapter Nine that her informants were tired of telling their stories with limited results; they hoped that her telling the stories might instigate change. I imagine that my informants similarly hoped that having others

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repeat their stories would bring about positive change. By writing my first pieces for academic conferences and journals on these new subjectivities in the wake of the seismic events and addressing exacerbated marginalization, disenfranchisement, and disrupted lives (and announcing my efforts on Twitter), I simultaneously gave voice to those who felt they had no voice. Initially, these were solely academic efforts among peers. Nevertheless, they seemed to please my informants and other locals (who learned about them on Twitter and then approached me) who wanted scientists to concern themselves with the social impacts of gas extraction. I complemented their efforts on an academic platform. For the first time, I intentionally used my data to identify and assess social problems—an undertaking that I understood to be within the realm of applied anthropology. My work on extraction had led me to become an applied anthropologist. However, I was very much what Ellen Jacobs (1974) calls an “every person.” I was community-oriented but mostly politically neutral and served as a facilitator for information exchange.

Phase Two: Getting a Bad Rep and a New Identity Many other research reports followed the government’s and NAM’s initial investigations into safety and technical specifics (mentioned above) and their studies of economic impact and financial mitigation (Commissie Duurzame Toekomst Noord-Oost Groningen, 2013). Initially, residents were compensated for damage on a case-by-case basis, but as the earthquakes continued, damages became too numerous for this approach. As the government worked to develop a compensation protocol, it consulted a private research company to determine who could apply for compensation. Newly created maps clearly demarcated regions where people could apply for damage compensation, as well as areas that did not qualify. Informants with damages strongly opposed these maps, stating that earthquakes and their effects do not stop at borders drawn on maps. Many new institutions were created to deal with damages (such as the Dialogue table Dialoog Tafel), the Damages Window Schadeloket), and the Center for Safe Living (Centrum voor Veilig Wonen)) and a national coordinator was installed. Political debates raged over damage compensation procedures and how much money should be allocated for the region. The relationships between the local, provincial, and national governments grew increasingly tense; while the national government is responsible for gas extraction, the local and provincial governments wanted adequate funds and solid protocols. Also, the government and its joint venture partners could not agree on who was financially responsible and to what extent. According to my informants, these governmental interventions and debates remained inconsequential to their daily lives. On the five-year anniversary of the quake in Huizinge, a resident told local investigative reporter Bas van Sluis: “Everything has changed and nothing has changed.” While life now differs greatly from life before the earthquakes, there is still no established way of dealing with the earthquakes or their effects (Van Sluis, 2017).

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As my research progressed, I examined the newly created institutions, political policies, and debates through the frameworks of energopolitics (i.e., the power over and through energy and the fundamental impact of energy and fuel on political power—Boyer 2011; 2019) and governmentality (i.e., the ways that the Dutch government attempted to shape, guide, or affect the conduct of people in relation to gas extraction—Foucault, 1977). My informants pointed out that the government endlessly ordered new research, continuously created hard-to-navigate new institutions, did not follow their own plans, and took no action to reduce the rate of gas extraction or prevent additional earthquakes. The government was trying to control the unruly underground with techno-political measures (Barry, 2013). For some informants, navigating the necessary institutions and getting compensated has taken up a considerable part of their lives. Moreover, the lack of clarity regarding the underdeveloped damage compensation schemes has caused frustration and stress among many affected Groningers. The narratives that I collected reveal an increasing erosion of trust. Some narratives include phrases such as “gas mafia” (indicating the government and their extraction partners), claims that the area is treated like a colony or banana republic, and charges that Groningen is being sacrificed for the rest of the country (see Moolenaar, forthcoming). As a form of expressive activism, one local shared a poem online that stated: “the walls are allowed to tear, my future is allowed to be destroyed” and “I am a disposable Groninger, my life has no value” (Verbeek, 2018). As more people spoke to me about immaterial damages, I took inspiration from Kai Erikson’s work (1994) and began to explore social scientific conceptions of trauma. In A New Species of Trouble, Erikson examines communities that have faced disasters caused by humans (such as nuclear disasters and pollution from industrial activity). Emphasizing informants’ daily life experiences, he shows that these disasters have eroded their trust in society, government, and life in general. This is experienced and expressed as collective social trauma. The kind of trauma that Erikson described rang true in Groningen. One local grassroots activist commented during a meeting of the provincial House of Representatives that action should be taken before someone dies (either from a heart attack or suicide caused by stress or from being hit by falling structures). During community meetings about the earthquakes, attendees spoke of the insomnia, headaches, and anxiety that they endured as a result of the stress of always feeling unsafe or dealing with deficient compensation procedures. In the media and on social media, people similarly spoke of sleeping problems, dizziness, headaches, and anxiety. A local couple who had been trying to get compensation for many years recounted how their neighbor died of a heart attack. They believed that it might have been related to the trouble he was having getting his house fixed by the government. Not long after these public complaints about health issues, the government deployed special psychologists to the area and started working with a research team from the University of Groningen specializing in psychological distress and wrongdoing. I was reminded of Aiwah Ong’s work on spirit possession in factories in Malaysia (1988). According to Ong, spirit possession among the labor force during

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work hours is an expression of—and a way of dealing with—rapid changes in multinational production processes. In Malaysia, multinational companies hire exorcists to combat the possession in a culturally appropriate matter but fail to address the production process that underlies it. The symptoms that people are suffering in Groningen can likewise be understood as social trauma, with a different yet still culturally specific symptomology used to express distrust, unsafety, uncertainty, and social rupture. Making psychologists available helps people to cope, but it also allows extraction to proceed unhindered and separate from discussions about residents’ suffering (see Moolenaar, forthcoming). By 2017 I felt that more data collection was crucial, but the circumstances in Groningen had changed. Many locals were increasingly desperate and angry. In the media and in their communications with me, Groningers expressed that their quality of life had not changed in the last five years; damage compensation protocols were still not established, and the creation of so many new institutions had woven a “Kafkaesque web” (as several informants called it) that people found hard to navigate. They had grown tired of research and suspicious of researchers overall—particularly any with ties to energy, gas, and Groningen. Years of research had been carried out by the government and its extraction partners without any improvements in damage compensation, financial help, or earthquake mitigation. Informants came to see research as biased and believed that it was simply conducted to appease the locals. Moreover, an increasing number of researchers were working in Groningen. Besides the government, NAM, and the University of Groningen team, there were now Master’s students from other universities and even high school students. Some seemed to parachute into the region with surveys and questionnaires for school assignments without building relationships or rapport with the local population and sometimes with little knowledge of the local historical or social context. One informant shared how strange it seemed that everyone had their own research project instead of joining forces; as a result, locals were being approached by several researchers all investigating the effects of gas extraction/induced earthquakes. On Facebook groups created by and for the people suffering from the earthquakes, commenters would talk of “exploitation by researchers” who flocked to Groningen. This exploitation was considered cumulative to the exploitation of natural gas. I did not want to contribute to their exploitation and felt compelled to become a different kind of researcher: One who advocates for the local population rather than extracts data and departs. Others in this volume (see Yotebieng, this volume.) describe similar considerations. I wanted to reveal what was going on in Groningen, but my role as researcher had become tainted. It had become increasingly difficult to recruit informants for my research. As people grew more frustrated by the lack of change in their life situation, their desire to participate in research projects waned. Some considered it futile. That I lived in the region, had knowledge of the dialect and customs, did not work for a university that was tied to natural gas extraction through its research funding,2 and was not funded by the government (in contrast with many other earthquake researchers)—all considered as in my favor before—no longer mattered to people.

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Catherine Besteman, in Three Reflections on Public Anthropology, describes anthropologists’ inimitable long-term relationships with their research populations and the ethical structures of obligation they forge as a result (Besteman, 2013). In their work on activism and research, Charles Hale (2006) and Stuart Kirsch (2002) (together with Anna Willow, Eileen Smith-Cavros and Patricia Widener in this volume) write about how the commitment that anthropologists experience vis-àvis their research populations often inspires their advocacy and/or activism. I felt (and still feel) a deep commitment and need to reciprocate with the people who are both suffering from earthquakes and opening their homes and lives to me. The desire to be a different researcher and the realization of having become an applied anthropologist inspired me to attend my first Society for Applied Anthropology meeting and join the society’s ExtrACTION topical interest group. I actively contemplated if applied anthropology required new theoretical frameworks or different methodologies and approaches that I was not yet aware of, as I was not trained in applied work. What struck me was that the theoretical frameworks were similar to those that I already used, but that many of the scholars I met were very involved in activities that support activists (e.g., drive them places and help to make flyers) or called themselves activists. In addition, the aim of improving the lives of those we study and of serving those we study was seamlessly woven into their scholarship. I considered that “applied” meant that I needed to work toward a particular goal or for a certain population. I had become increasingly convinced that my work needed to change. However, I still thought that I needed distance from my research population in order to do “good” research.

Phase Three: Becoming an “Action Anthropologist”? As I write, it has been almost eight years since the 3.6-magnitude earthquake in Huizinge. The situation in Groningen is now widely known. Several prime-time talk shows have devoted time to the topic, and major national newspapers report frequently on Groningen and on the ongoing national political debates regarding natural gas extraction and damage compensation. Internationally, The New York Times devoted articles to the case (e.g. Tagliabue, 2013; Reed, 2015), as have several other major media outlets outside of the Netherlands. Opposition to extraction has grown significantly and changed in nature. Initially, resistance to gas extraction consisted of individual or small grassroots actions. There was an emphasis on expressive activism (such as the poem noted above), gaining attention, and giving evidence. Drawing on Groningers’ marginalization, grassroots groups emphasized a regional identity, using dialect and reauthoring the image of the farmer as an image of resistance—similar to the reauthoring of that image for community activism in Appalachia (Seitz, 1998). A small number of groups opposing extraction are working with elected officials to change policies. The Groninger Bodem Beweging (Groningen Soil Movement), for instance, went to the Human Rights Committee of the UN in 2017 to address the violation of human rights in Groningen. Many of Groningen’s resistance

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groups are also very active on social media. They share a wide variety of information with affected Groningers—news articles regarding the current state of affairs, research findings, the occurrence of seismic events, and protest opportunities. Additionally, they use social media to offer words of comfort and support. It was not long until this (local) community of resistance joined forces with environmental groups. For a long time, Milieudefensie (Environmental Defense) had been one of the most active environmental protection groups in the area. This group brought not only professional organizers, public relations funds, and connections, but also four Dakota access pipeline protesters and nine people from countries along the Niger Delta impacted by oil extraction by Shell to Groningen for support and inspiration (Sorgdrager, 2017; Transnational Institute, 2017; Dagblad van het Noorden , 2018). One of the latest collaborative protests with climate action group Code Rood called on environmental activists from other countries in Europe to come to the area to support Groningers’ protest against gas extraction and fossil fuels in general. Several hundred people attended the protest in August 2018 (Veenstra, 2018). Extinction Rebellion, “an international movement that uses non-violent civil disobedience in an attempt to halt mass extinction and minimize the risk of social collapse,” has joined protests related to the earthquakes more recently and now has a Groningen chapter (Extinction Rebellion, 2019). These alliances with environmental groups have boosted local opposition to extraction. The earthquakes and the more recent alliances with environmental protection and environmental justice groups have raised awareness about the impacts that extraction and energy production can have on people and the environment (and on people as part of the environment). In their opposition to extraction, Groningers have become concerned about energy consumption and climate change. Extraction is now seen as not merely destructive, unjust, and unfair, but also as dirty and polluting. Many Groningers are convinced that it should be stopped. In the quest to protect their landscape, homes, and families, some of them have become activists fighting for a fossil-fuel-free country. In addition, my data show an increased concern for environmental and social justice and human rights. The number of activist groups has grown from a small handful to so many it is hard to keep track. As well, the style of activism has become more organized and, at times, more militant (see, for example, Rijlaarsdam, 2018). Activists frequently say that if their previous actions did not change anything, then it must be time for different kind of action. In 2018 [Groningen resident] Jan Holtman went on a hunger strike in front of the Center for Safe Living (noted above) to demand concrete action from the government. Holtman’s hunger strike inspired others and turned into a “relay hunger strike,” with different individuals starting to fast when someone else stopped. Over the past two years, some groups started to block entrances to well pads and protested at Shell and NAM headquarters (Sorgdrager, 2019). With Groningen’s resistance growing and developing in new ways, I feel more compelled than ever to write about it, both because of my intellectual necessity to contribute to scholarship and because of my obligation to Groningers to relay their struggles and complement their activism and efforts to affect change.

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About two years ago, a professional organizer expressed interest in having me join them in their activism. I was unsure about doing research and taking a stance and never followed up with him. After all, I was trained to be more of a cultural broker and an “every person.” Moreover, as an adjunct professor on the academic job market at the time, aligning myself seemed unwise, as I had heard rumors at conferences about universities not hiring people who openly opposed oil and gas activities either personally or through their scholarship. Furthermore, the opposition to extraction in Groningen appeared to be becoming increasingly anti-government and extreme. I did not—and still do not—feel comfortable with that orientation. I thus researched activist publications, signs, blogs, art, videos, and (social) media. However, working within the resistance could give me privileged information (Hale, 2006), and could lead to collaborative research that could be used to achieve policy changes and improve the quality of life for the people who live over the gas field in significant and concrete ways. After connecting and exchanging ideas with many anthropologists and other social scientists researching extraction around the world, I started to feel a sense of urgency and obligation toward people everywhere who are negatively affected by natural resource extraction. Various types of extraction in different sites have altered landscapes and social relations, leaving locals feeling uprooted, alienated, distressed, and disenfranchised (e.g., Scott, 2010; Willow and Wylie, 2014; Baird, 2017; Pearson, 2017; Szolucha, 2018). Knowing this, I assumed a position between “every person” and “action anthropologist” (to circle back to Jacob’s classifications). I have increasingly found ways to use my data and expertise to effect social and political change. In 2017 I started speaking at City Council meetings and political gatherings and using my research (along with my knowledge of others’ work) to illustrate the negative socio-cultural impacts and environmental injustices of extraction. My work on natural gas extraction led me to teach at a mining-oriented engineering school in 2018–19. I saw educating engineers who may one day work in extractive industries as a great opportunity to impress upon them the ways that extraction impacts people’s daily lives. Through public speaking engagements, I now also encourage people who do not personally face the impacts of extraction to connect with and support those who do. I urge lawmakers, politicians, and engineering students (many of whom want to work for the oil and gas industry) to understand, for instance, the social implications of laws on setbacks (the distance a well-pad and drilling operation can legally be from houses and schools) and the real-life implications of Corporate Social Responsibility plans. I have not made the leap to overtly aligning myself with groups and collaborating with informants in their efforts to create change—at least not yet. Kirsch (2002) describes how injustice and structural inequalities can be so great that advocacy becomes a moral obligation. As the years have passed, I now experience this moral obligation more than ever; I now endeavor to even more actively and publicly advocate for and unambiguously align myself with those who oppose extraction. This will be the next step.

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Reflections on Research, Extraction, and “Activism”: Turning to “Ethnographic Activism” As illustrated above, I passed through different phases as a researcher based on what was happening at my research site and on my interactions with my research population. These events and interactions also spawned different reflections on my work, audiences, and objectives, as well as how my work fits in to the wider world of anthropology. As mentioned before, I was not explicitly trained to identify, assess, and solve social problems with anthropology—what I call applied anthropology in this chapter. Nor did I start from a particular theoretical and/or methodological position that was aimed to advocate for the people I studied or to affect social change through (actively) aligning myself with certain struggles or activist groups. Rather, I adjusted my research and the way that I write and speak about it (and where I speak about it) in a dynamic interplay with developments at my field site. As Pierre Bourdieu states in Acts of Resistance, “those who have the good fortune to be able to devote their lives to the study of the social world cannot stand aside, neutral and indifferent, from the struggles in which the future of that world is at stake” (1998: 11). Kirsch similarly points out the experience of obligation when encountering injustice and social inequalities in research (2002). Elsewhere in this volume, Willow finds that it is a concern for others and the sense of injustice that makes people act. Smith-Cavros and Widener (in this volume) also speak of moral obligation toward research populations and their well-being. I found that working on extraction required me to become a different kind of anthropologist from the newly minted PhD who worked on belonging and cultural heritage tourism. The impacts of extraction on people’s identities, subjectivities, and social relations—combined with the absence of scholarly attention to sociocultural impacts—first positioned me as what I call an applied anthropologist. Confronting heart-wrenching struggles over home and livelihood compelled me to reflect on my responsibilities as a researcher. Moreover, learning about injustices in other places as a result of extraction and the many manifestations and/or interconnectedness of negative impacts of extraction brought a new urgency to my work. I have often pondered: What does activism require of a scholar/researcher? What does it look like? As inspired by the desires of my research population and informed by scholarship such as that of Besteman and Scheper-Hughes, my work in the Groningen gas field up to now has been largely acting as an amplifier of voices, translator of experiences, and culture broker. As I identify, assess, and aim to solve social problems, I consider this both applied anthropology and a form of activism. My views are motivated by Neil Sutherland’s book review essay on “Social Movements and Activist Ethnography,” which posits a type of activism that has roots in feminist research methodologies, emphasizes lived experiences, and conducts research in order to contribute to social justice agendas (Sutherland, 2013: 627).

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My ethnographic activism consists of different facets and changes over time. I have expanded my roles over the past two years to include offering testimonies at City Council, social media sharing, educating others on the impacts of extraction, and developing policy regarding energy and sustainability. Activism in Groningen is multifarious and dynamic, and it may or may not look like activism in other places. Similar to the Groningers who felt they needed to shift their opposition to more persuasive methods and actions, I too feel I need to change course, especially if I want my work to be “useful” to the community of resistance in Groningen and strengthen Groningers’ activist efforts. This volume shows that there are many definitions of activism and diverse ways of conceiving of what activist research is. For some, it must be collective and collaborative (see others in this volume and Hale, 2006), or even revolutionary and transformative. Hale’s guidelines for activist research, for instance, indicate that we must align with an organized group of people in struggle and involve them in formulating our research question(s), in our methods, in our data collection, and in the dissemination of the results (Hale, 2006: 97). Whether it is collaborative research or not, we must always keep in focus who we write for and to what end. If we align ourselves with struggles and speak on behalf of someone, we must realize we need to be accomplices and recognize our privilege as researchers. This position could be easier when we collaborate with our informants in every step of the research, but I think being conscientious accomplices is not exclusive to collaborative projects. I have worked as a lone wolf rather than with groups from Groningen. I was trained to keep myself at a distance. However, the question arises: Can one truly be an activist without joining other activists? Charles Hale would most likely encourage me to work with the community of resistance or one of the grassroots groups opposing extraction. I also pondered the following, especially as opposition to extraction in Groningen changes: How does one excel at research while simultaneously contributing to the research population, especially as the research population sees no redeeming qualities in more research? I am now confident that to remain “useful” to my informants I need to take on a new role that emphasizes action within the resistance, collaboration, and letting others set the agenda. Another question that has concerned me is whether activism and intellectual work are compatible. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, in Making Anthropology Public (2009), mentions the problem of universities not valuing the goals public anthropologists often have outside of the academy, which leads to difficulties in obtaining institutional tenure. Can our advocacy and/or activist goals exist side by side with what is expected from us within the academy? Echoing Stuart Kirsch, I found that ideas can grow out of concrete intellectual engagement with the problems of aggrieved populations confronting systems of oppression (Kirsch, 2002: 8). Nevertheless, I am still attempting to balance how to become more securely embedded in academia while addressing the negative socio-cultural impacts of extractive practices, the latter some institutions or departments perceive as problematic. As non-tenured faculty, I am easily replaceable and want to meet expectations in

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order to increase my job security. This differs from the issue that Scheper-Hughes and others (see Introduction) raise about activism not counting toward tenure, but it is at root a related problem. My own version of activism consists of things I know how to do well. Things that are very much in line with the advantages inherent in anthropology’s ability to advocate for people, such as communicating or translating other perspectives, building bridges, and addressing power imbalances (see Besteman, 2013). Extraction is frequently steeped in technical discourse and imbued with the gravitas of economic merit and necessity. Our research reveals the ever present but often ignored socio-cultural context in which extraction—and other imposed change—occurs. Our scholarship can bring attention to sociocultural struggles, power dynamics, and environmental justice. As ethnographic activists, we can bring attention to these not only through our scholarship, but also through our teaching, and publicly through written and social media, public speaking engagements, and testimonies. Furthermore, I think there is special merit in sharing our research findings with those who control extraction practices and who are open to our research findings. We must reach out and learn to effectively communicate our findings across disciplinary boundaries to reach those who work in extractive industry. We can impress the importance of anthropology and of understanding the real-life worlds of people who are impacted by extraction outside of our disciplinary silos, for instance those in technical institutions and/or regulatory roles. And finally, we can share insights from our research that may help communities facing similar problems. Perhaps to some, the things that I do and the trepidations that I experience in working with activists or aligning myself with certain groups and causes make me less of an activist, but I find this to be a rather narrow definition of activism. My scholarship—in all three phases—has aligned itself with people who are suffering from earthquakes and foregrounds their lived experience. Even if I fall short of some scholars’ criteria for activism, ethnographic activism is a tool to support those whom we work with and generate social and political change, perhaps in ways that others cannot. It is a tool that takes many shapes.

Notes 1 The extraction addressed in this chapter is conventional gas drilling as opposed to hydraulic fracturing or “fracking,” which is commonly associated with induced earthquakes in the United States. 2 Some universities in the Netherlands receive funding from Shell. The Socialist party in the Netherlands has raised concerns and held many protests in recent years to address how this may compromise the unbiased nature of research.

References Albrecht, Glenn, Gina-Maree Sartore, Linda Connor, Nick Higginbotham, Sonia Freeman, Brian Kelly, Helen Stain, Anne Tonna, and Georgia Pollard. 2007. “Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change.” Australasian Psychiatry, 15(S1): S95–S98.

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Baird, Melissa F. 2017. Critical Theory and the Anthropology of Heritage Landscapes. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press. Barry, Andrew. 2013. Material Politics: Disputes Along the Pipeline. Malden, MA: WileyBlackwell. Besteman, Catherine. 2013. Three Reflections on Public Anthropology. Anthropology Today, 29(6): 3–6. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1998. Acts of Resistance. Against the Tyranny of the Market. New York: Greenwood Press. Boyer, Dominic. 2011. Energopolitics and the Anthropology of Energy. Anthropology News, 52(5): 5–7. Boyer, Dominic. 2019. Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Brandsma, Margriet, Heleen Ekker, and Reinalda Start. 2016. De Gaskolonie. Van Nationale Bodemschat tot Groningse Tragedie. Groningen: Uitgeverij Passage. Commissie Duurzame Toekomst Noord-Oost Groningen. 2013. Vertrouwen in een Duurzame Toekomst: Een Stevig Pespectief voor Noord-Oost Groningen. Groningen: Provincie Groningen. www.provinciegroningen.nl/fileadmin/user_upload/Documenten/Downloads/Eindadvies_ Commissie_Duurzame_Toekomst_Noord-Oost_Groningen.pdf (accessed October 29, 2019). Dagblad van het Noorden. 2018. “Afrikanen Betuigen Steun Aan Groningen In Strijd Tegen Shell.” April 19. www.dvhn.nl/groningen/Afrikanen-betuigen-steun-aan-Groningers-instrijd-tegen-Shell-23108264.html (accessed October 29, 2019). Erikson, Kai T. 1994. A New Species of Trouble. The Human Experience of Modern Disasters. New York: Norton and Company. Extinction Rebellion. 2019. “About Us.” www.rebellion.earth/the-truth/about-us/ (accessed September 10, 2019). Hale, Charles. 2001. “What is Activist Research?” Social Science Research Council, 2(1–2): 13–15. Hale, Charles. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120. Jacobs, Sue-Ellen. 1974. “Action and Advocacy Anthropology.” Human Organization, 33(2): 209–215. Kirsch, Stuart. 2002. “Anthropology and Advocacy: A Case Study of the Campaign Against the Ok Tedi Mine.” Critique of Anthropology, 22(2): 175–200. Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut. 2015. KNMI-rapport met nieuwe seismische analyse van Groningen. www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/nieuws/knmi-rapport-met-nieuweseismische-analyse-van-groningen (accessed October 29, 2019). Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut. 2019. Aarbevingen door gaswinning. https:// www.knmi.nl/kennis-en-datacentrum/uitleg/aardbevingen-door-gaswinning (accessed July 12, 2019). Moolenaar, Elisabeth. (Publication forthcoming). “The Earth is Trembling and We Are Shaken: governmentality and resistance in the Groningen Gas Field.” In Ethnographies of Power: A Political Anthropology of Energy, edited by Tristan Loloum, Simone Abrams, and Nathalie Ortar. EASA Series. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books. Ong, Aihwa. 1988. “The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia.” American Ethnologist, 15(1): 28–42. Pearson, Thomas W. 2017. When the Hills Are Gone: Frac Sand Mining and the Struggle for Community. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Reed, Stanley. 2015. “Earthquake Dangers in Dutch Gas Field Were Ignored for Years, Safety Board Says.” New York Times, February 18. www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/busi ness/international/groningen-dutch-gas-field-safety-earthquake.html (accessed December 21, 2019).

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Rijlaarsdam, Barbara. 2019. “Klimaatactivisten opgepakt na ordeverstoring Tweede Kamer.” NRC, June 11. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/06/11/klimaatactivisten-opgepakt-na-ordever storing-tweede-kamer-a3963263 (accessed October 29, 2019). Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 2009. “Making Anthropology Public.” Anthropology Today, 25(4): 1–3. Scott, Rebecca R. 2010. Removing Mountains: Extracting Nature and Indentity in the Appalachian Coalfields. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Seitz, Virginia Rinaldo. 1998. “Class, Gender, and Resistance in the Appalachian Coalfields.” In Community Activism and Feminist Politics: Organizing Across Race, Class, and Gender, edited by Nancy A. Naples: 199–213. New York: Routledge. Sorgdrager, Matthijs. 2017. “Actievoerders VS in Kolham: Moeder aarde ligt overal ter wereld onder vuur.” Dagblad van het Noorden, June 16. www.dvhn.nl/groningen/Actie voerders-VS-in-Kolham-Moeder-aarde-ligt-overal-ter-wereld-onder-vuur-22257417.html (accessed October 29, 2019). Sorgdrager, Matthijs. 2019. “Actiegroep Code Rood kondigt nieuwe blokkades aan in Groningen.” Dagblad van het Noorden, August 23. www.dvhn.nl/groningen/Actiegroep -Code-Rood-kondigt-nieuwe-blokkades-aan-in-Groningen-24758589.html (accessed October 29, 2019). Sutherland, Neil. 2013. “Book Review: Social Movements and Activist Ethnography.” Organization, 20(4): 627–635. Szolucha, Anna (ed.). 2018. Energy, Resource, Extraction and Society Impacts and Contested Futures. London: Routledge. Tagliabue, John. 2013. “Parts of Low Country are Now Quake Country.” New York Times, March 26. www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/world/europe/more-earthquakes-in-lopp ersum-the-netherlands.html (accessed October 29, 2019). Transnational Institute. 2017. “Water Protectors Urge Dutch Activists to Join Global Struggle against Fossil Companies: ‘Strong hearts to the front.’” June 12. www.tni.org/en/article/wa ter-protectors-urge-dutch-activists-to-join-global-struggle-against-fossil-companies (accessed October 29, 2019). Van Sluis, Bas. 2017. “Door Huizinge Veranderde Alles en Tegelijk Niks.” Dagblad van het Noorden, August 17. www.basvansluis.nl/door-huizinge-veranderde-alles-en-tegelijk-niks/ (accessed July 12, 2019). Veenstra, Tom. 2018. “Zitblokkade Code Rood: “Massaal Protest Laat Urgentie in Groningen Zien”.” OOGTV, August 28. www.oogtv.nl/2018/08/code-rood-massaal-protes t-laat-urgentie-in-groningen-zien/ (accessed October 29, 2019). Verbeek, Ingrid. 2018. “Wegwerpgroninger.” www.aardbevingengroningen.net (accessed September 10, 2019). Willow, Anna and Sara Wylie. 2014. “Politics, Ecology, and the New Anthropology of Energy: Exploring the Emerging Frontiers of Hydraulic Fracking.” Journal of Political Ecology, 21(1): 222–236.

COMMENTS ON ANTHROPOLOGY AS ACTIVISM Barbara Rose Johnston

The four chapters in this section consider the relative meanings of doing anthropology as collaborators and citizens with an overt aim to transform problematic conditions and, thus, to achieve an activist agenda. In exploring the distance between those idealistic aims, imperfect realities, and eventual outcomes associated with professional praxis, explicit attention is given to the complex encounters that both challenge and reinvigorate a sense of meaning in the anthropological endeavor. Collectively, these chapters tease out strands of social complexity, obligations, and roles associated with doing problem-focused participatory action research. This focused discussion of ethical praxis begins with Anna Willow’s “All I Can Do: Why Activists (and Anthropologists) Act.” Building her chapter around the question of “how and why do grassroots activists challenge extractive industrial development and devastation,” Willow offers practical insight from activist research conducted over a temporal arc that began with PhD dissertation research and evolved over the years into critical attention to the environmental and sociocultural costs of hosting extractive industry in the region that she came to call home. Concerned with both the study of and activist engagement with challenging the logging, oil and gas, and hydroelectric industries that threatened environmental health and wellbeing in three North American extraction zones, Willow’s reflexive discussion of her own anthropological lifepath makes visible a complex learning curve where meanings of work and self-identity evolved through the challenge of doing activist research with an aim to understand, educate, and more broadly support environmental activist agendas. One of the fundamental truths revealed in this work is that professional personae, agency, and efficacy—matters presumed to be concretely defined—can be increasingly amorphous and fluid when the issues involved require confronting realities that affect one and all. Eileen Smith-Cavros and Patricia Widener further explore the role of reflexivity in anthropology as activism via the ethically complex challenges of activist

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anthropology in recounting their effort to study and support resistance in the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential election. “In Our Own Backyard: Navigating Research and Activism in Southeast Florida” chronicles ethical challenges encountered while working as activist-anthropologists documenting and, at times, materially participating as protestors in citizen-action events. With a candid and reflexive voice, they recount several occasions when activists’ actions pushed social boundaries to potentially incendiary extremes. Thus, vulnerability and responsibility as citizens and scholars is very much the subtext in this account. Strategic takeaways include the usefulness of an eyes-wide-open approach to issues, methods, and engagement. Flexibility in the documentarian versus citizen-activist roles allows the potential for generating a rights-protective space, and anticipatoryaction research is an essential element in Smith-Cavros’s and Widener’s socially responsible engagement. Issues of positionality and social responsibility are further explored in the account of Sarah Elizabeth Morrow, Elizabeth A. Winter, and Jodi A. Allison about the varied lessons learned in a cross-disability capacity-building project. Their chapter, “‘I’d Never Thought about This Before’: Anthropology of Cross-Disability Activism as Activism,” details how and why a capacity-building project failed to achieve some of its primary goals yet, through the process of expansive engagement and intense interaction, achieved unexpected outcomes that strengthened the social fabric of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s multi-generational cross-disability activist community. Their critical discussion of the distance between project ideals and actual results from direct engagement in and relationships with the disability activist community reminds the reader that consciously shaping, doing, evaluating, and communicating anthropological work as a means to strengthen capacity and outcomes in activism is a presumptive process based upon assumptions that could be more ideal than real. A flexible approach to defining goals, methods, and priorities opens the door to unanticipated insights and outcomes. Thus, the researchers’ realization that sharing spaces and experiences with those who are both research participants and collaborators in the broader struggle for a just and humane life could, in itself, be both a primary method and significant indicator of project success. In many ways paralleling Willow’s section opening chapter, Elisabeth Moolenaar’s narrative presents the maturation of a scholar over time and ponders the relative understandings of what it means for her to be an anthropological citizen. Moolenaar’s knowledge of her research site and its history—the Netherlands’ Gronigen Gas Fields and the connections between extractive industry, earthquakes, and subsidence—is more than a basis for a scholarly writing and professional standing. With this knowledge comes the social responsibility to make visible that which is increasingly denied: the degenerative consequences from extractive industry and related governance failures to address varied harm to environment, property, rights, lives, and livelihoods. How best to help? This is an infinitely relative question. In Moolenaar’s case, as with other cases in this book, this core question is not easily answered.

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Answers are relative. They evolve over time and—if this collective retrospective expression of endeavor is any indicator—emerge through problem-focused, participatory, socially responsible, action-oriented work. The social contract that structures such work is a product of negotiation and collaboration, ideally producing partnerships based on equity, shared understandings, respect, and friendship, all of which drive and refine a sense of citizenship. The ethical quandaries that we experience in our conduct as citizen scientists—especially when lines between documentarian, scholar, advocate, citizen, neighbor, and activist blur—are not merely academic matters. They can involve very real life and death issues, as illustrated in my work documenting crimes against humanity associated with nuclear testing and human radiation experimentation in the Marshall Islands and my work on the linkages between international hydrodevelopment financing and a military dictatorship engaged in massacre and genocide in Guatemala (see Johnston 2015; 2017). Doing this research, working with surviving communities, and documenting consequential damages of rights-abusive history has taught me well the importance of crafting and maintaining rights-protective space. And, in the varied response to such matters, anthropological action can potentially exacerbate or help to address very real human problems (Johnston, 2010). The contributors to this collection remind me and all of us who undertake anthropology as activism to keep our eyes wide open. They remind us to maintain a persistent commitment to anticipatory and reflexive assessment of the relative meanings and potential outcomes from our presence and varied roles in the action-oriented enterprise.

References Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2010. “Social Responsibility and the Anthropological Citizen.” Current Anthropology, 51 (Supplement 2): S235–S247. Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2015. “Nuclear Disaster: The Marshall Islands Experience and Lessons for a Post-Fukushima World.” In Global Ecologies and the Environmental Humanities: Postcolonial Approaches, edited by Elizabeth DeLoughrey, Jill Didur, and Anthony Carrigan: 140–161. London: Routledge. Johnston, Barbara Rose. 2017. “Action-Research and Environmental Justice: Lessons from Guatemala’s Chixoy Dam.” In Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, edited by Ursula Heise and Jon Christensen: 174–184. New York: Routledge.

PART III

Anthropology AND Activism

9 WE ARE TIRED OF TELLING OUR STORIES Finding Our “Situated Usefulness” Through Activism in Anthropology Kelly A. Yotebieng

On Being a “Useless American” Leaving the field is always hard. I was coming to the end of my 12 months of fieldwork, which took place in Yaoundé, Cameroon, over three years of experiencing the ups and downs of daily life with my research participants. After this intense experience, I was visiting them to say goodbye during my last week in the field. My research focused broadly on hope, aspirations, and risk-taking practices among urban refugees from Rwanda who were living in Cameroon. Over the course of my research, my research participants shared with me some of their most intimate experiences, desires for the future, and often emotional accounts of the barriers and opportunities towards achieving their self-defined better futures. The discussions that we had on these topics naturally brought me deeper into their lives, with the stakes in terms of what “to do” with the knowledge that I was gathering becoming increasingly steep with each interview. Many of my research participants’ challenges revolved around negotiating their place in a society that was increasingly pushing them away with changing immigration policy and xenophobia (see also Yotebieng et al., 2018a; Yotebieng et al., 2018b). Checker and Fishman argue that some of the “most pressing social issues… often present themselves to individuals in the form of identity questions” (2004: 7) like this. In this situation, how could I not commit to becoming an activist, rather than documenting, publishing, and filing away their experiences? Every day when I returned home after fieldwork I asked myself hard questions about what I was going to do about or with the knowledge that I had the privilege to gather. After all, it was clear that my research participants, as close as some of our relationships had become over the course of my fieldwork, were not divulging their intimate stories with me purely to help me to finish my dissertation. There were always other expectations hanging over my head—expectations that I was never sure were completely dissuaded by repetition of language from my informed consent scripts.

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I first met Jeanette (a pseudonym) in 2016 when I began my dissertation research. In order to meet the community, one of my key informants helped me to organize a focus group with a group of Rwandan urban refugee women. After the hour-long focus group, I realized that nobody was in a rush to leave, and the women organized themselves around different tables in the small school where we had secured the space for this meeting. The room was buzzing with conversation, both related to what we had just discussed (their personal aspirations and barriers to achieving them) and to catching up on what was happening within each other’s households. Jeanette and I were sitting at the same table and began talking. When I introduced myself and my interest in women’s aspirations and the sociocultural and contextual factors that hindered their ability to achieve them (particularly limiting structures and changing immigration policy), she insisted that I come to her house so that she could share her story. She explained that she understood my research, and that as a social worker back in Rwanda, she had worked with women who had survived gender-based violence. At that, she clenched her jaw and told me how everything ended the day she became a rape survivor herself—the same day that her husband was brutally murdered in front of her and she was separated from her children as they fled the country in different directions. In only a few sentences, Jeanette shared the enormous tragedy that she had lived through. I told her that, of course, I would be able to come to her house. We decided that I would come on the next day. She explained to me where to take a taxi and gave me her phone number, asking me to call her when I arrived. As anthropologists, our research depends on the willingness of our research participants to engage with us. Therefore, I was naturally excited by the enthusiasm to work with me that I found in this women’s group. However, I was also hesitant about the expectations that the women I had just met had of me and my interest in their community for my research. Thinking about the expectations that often hinged on me simply visiting, I made sure in each discussion that my research participants understood that I was not working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or another agency. I encountered significant confusion early on when I introduced myself and my background to potential research participants. This included explaining that I used to work in the humanitarian sector, but I was now conducting research as I was dissatisfied with the impact—or lack thereof—that humanitarians were making. I told my research participants that I wanted to research the observed disjuncture between the desires of program participants and the activities of humanitarian programs. It had been several years since I had worked in Cameroon, and I barely knew anybody working with any of the humanitarian agencies anymore, given the high turnover in the humanitarian sector. However, when refugees heard about my previous work as a humanitarian, I was often under the impression that they thought this meant that I could do something to improve their situations. I, like many, who work with refugees, encountered a sense of heightened expectations (Birman, 2006). Despite (what I thought to be) clear informed consent and explanation of what I could and could not offer, everybody seemed to think that talking with me would

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bring them something. During my first trip to the field, my phone rang non-stop with refugees who wanted to meet me. To be clear, this is in no way a critique of the hopes and aspirations of my research participants, or their expectations of me. Rather, it is a critique of how we, as researchers, often brush off these hopes as adequately explained by informed consent. I am not sure that we ever can adequately explain this. Furthermore, these reflections beg the question as to the ethics of not engaging as an advocate, activist, or some other form of applied actor. As I am certainly not the first nor the last anthropologist to be working with populations facing considerable challenges and global injustices, how could the work I do contribute towards grassroots movements to effectuate real change to their living conditions? On the following day I took a taxi to the main intersection where Jeanette asked me to meet her. When I arrived, I tried to call her, but her phone went to voicemail. I waited for 15 minutes, and when I began to think that she must have decided that she did not want to talk to me, I saw her walking slowly up the hill to meet me. She came over and gave me a hug, held my hand, and started leading me back into the informal settlement where she lived, situated behind a gare routière (bus station) where travel agencies fought over passengers. Once inside her home, she shared with me the story of how she and her sons fled Rwanda in 2006 after her husband was assassinated in front of her and she was brutally raped by her husband’s murderers. Her sons fled in a different direction, towards Kenya, while Jeanette fled towards Uganda. Subsequently, they spent ten years away from their mother before the Red Cross was able to reunite them (for more on their story, see Yotebieng, 2018b). I met Jeanette just a few weeks before she was officially reunited with her sons, accompanied her to the airport to meet them when they came, and spent significant time with all of them over my 12 months of fieldwork. Their stories and lived experiences were foundational to my dissertation findings (Yotebieng, 2019). While I am unable to describe these findings in detail here (for more see Yotebieng, 2017a; Yotebieng, 2017b; Yotebieng, 2017c; Yotebieng, 2018a; Yotebieng, 2018b; Yotebieng et al., 2018a; Yotebieng et al., 2018b; Yotebieng et al., 2019; and Yotebieng and Forcone, 2018), I will expound on some of my reflections and interactions in the field that underline the importance of a more intentional, and obligated, relationship between our findings and activism through effective micro-level actions and reflections on our research practices. In 2018 Jeanette and her sons were one of the last households I visited before leaving, as I wanted to spend more time with them, given the depth of our relationship. I arrived where I usually stopped my taxi, and before I headed up the street towards her house I heard Jeanette call my name. I looked over to find her and her two sons sitting at a bar on the main street. I was surprised, as they do not drink alcohol, and most of my interactions with them had occurred at their house. When I sat down with them, Jeanette asked me if I knew why I was not meeting them at her house and then launched into how her landlord had asked her why the “useless American woman” kept coming around. Her landlord emphasized that over the three years that I had gotten to know them, their situation had not

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improved, and the legal situation of one of her sons was still in limbo. She tried to reassure me that she did not feel this way about me or our relationship, but I was left with doubts. After discussing this with another anthropology PhD student whom I spent time with periodically in Yaoundé, she agreed with me that Jeanette’s words could have been a polite way of expressing some of her own frustrations with unmet expectations that came out of our relationship. Needless to say, this made me feel terrible as a former humanitarian professional and an anthropologist who wants to do applied work. However, I realized that no matter how many times that you explain your research, its purpose, and its anticipated benefits, there is always hope hinging on telling one’s story to another person, particularly an American who had previously worked in the humanitarian sector. I was quite uncomfortable with the notion of research divorced from any application. Wilkinson and Kleinman (2016) underline the moral imperative for researchers working in the context of social suffering to examine and act on the applied implications and potential of our work.

Emic Perspectives: Telling and Re-Telling Stories as Exploitation While my interaction with Jeanette at the end of my fieldwork was the only explicit discussion that I had with a research participant about the “usefulness” of my role or my work, it was a constant question that I grappled with implicitly, and one that arose frequently in my fieldnotes. Over the course of my research, I constantly revisited ethical considerations related to asking refugees to tell their often painful stories, and how I represented these stories and my own position in my research. The reality was that even without asking, I found that many of my research participants would situate their responses through illustrations of the trauma that they had experienced over their lives. I would often leave our discussions feeling emotional and wondering what I could possibly do to make the mere act of talking to me about these experiences “worth it” to my research participants. I was sensitive to earlier experiences, prior to starting my PhD program, when I watched members of refugee communities roll their eyes as “another researcher” came into what one of my refugee counterparts called “over-researched, underserved communities.” Further compounding my discomfort with the chasm between sharing these stories and actions to make it “worth it” for my research participants, on many occasions my refugee research participants, often complaining about the UNHCR, would ask me, “How many times do I need to tell my story to a stranger while crying in order to be deemed worthy to be a refugee?” Refugees must often prove their needs and situations beyond a doubt in order to be given refugee status and corresponding services that they request (Shuman and Bohmer, 2014; 2016). Cognizant of this, I tried to revise my methodology and questionnaires to focus on only asking my research participants about their aspirations and keeping our discussions very focused on these desired futures. While in this context I did not ask people to tell their entire life histories, they often came out with force as soon

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as I sat down. I realized that refugees were so used to having to prove themselves and their worthiness of their status on first encounters with foreigners, that there was no way of avoiding letting them first tell their stories. They insisted that their stories provided the contexts in which the eventual responses to my questions needed to be understood. When I returned to the field in 2017 for my second phase of fieldwork, I met Ernestine (pseudonym), a widow and mother of one daughter, alone in a small store with a makeshift bedroom attached to the back. She burst out crying when I asked her how things had been since the last time that I saw her six months earlier. She explained to me that she had just gotten back from the UNHCR office and that she did not understand the way that they operated, lamenting, “we are tired of telling our stories every year to prove we are worthy of being a refugee.” As my research participants constantly reiterated different versions of this same complaint to me, I kept asking myself, to what extent was I part of that problem? What were the best ways that I could underline to humanitarian agencies that the process of having to tell and re-tell stories was re-traumatizing (Shuman and Bohmer, 2016; 2014). Anastasie (pseudonym), another widow and mother of two sons in their twenties, explained to me that, “we have to cry and beg to be seen as legitimate refugees in the eyes of the UNHCR; at least you see us as people with legitimate rights to be refugees without us having to do that.” But I took this as little solace as I pored through my transcripts and fieldnotes, noting that my research participants were also telling and re-telling me their stories. As anthropologists, are we not also guilty of extracting people’s stories? And if we are, what then should we offer in return, in terms of tangible and direct benefits (other than the typical research incentives of either cash, gift cards, or taxi fare)? Many refugee women whom I engaged with also reiterated to me that they often felt used by humanitarian agencies. This is another area where I constantly reflected on what ways in which I could best advocate for a change in practice. Besides having to tell and re-tell their stories, I found that my research participants began to categorize themselves by the labels given to them by non-governmental organizations (NGO). including “malade chronique” (chronically ill), “personne vivant avec le VIH” (person living with HIV), “orphelin ou enfant vulnerable” (orphan or vulnerable child), “personne âgée” (elderly person), among others. I found this shocking at first, but I also found many parallels across my research participants categorizing themselves in this way and Fassin’s (2009) concept of biolegitimacy, where having certain health conditions serves at times to legitimize services to address the suffering that refugees or asylum seekers claim. In this way, the categorization become something akin to physical evidence. Although none of my research participants explicitly brought up the ways they were categorizing themselves into dehumanizing labels as a problem, they did lament that they felt they were often lumped into groups based on certain attributes in a way that they perceived to be advancing humanitarian agendas while doing nothing for them. They had to tell and re-tell their stories as a form of capital to access services, and once they did, they would be lumped into and begin

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to identify with the category that the service provider associated them with. In this way, the humanitarian practice of providing services based on some proved need or belonging to a “priority group” led my research participants to internalize their identities as inseparable from these labels. As Ange (pseudonym), a single mother living with HIV, explained to me, “I am just waiting to be resettled as I know I am a single woman, mother, and living with HIV, so I should be prioritized.” It turns out that Ange and her daughter were among the lucky few remaining Rwandan refugees who were indeed selected for resettlement, further underlining to the rest of the community that adhering to these labels could lead to promising returns.

Situated Usefulness: Insight from Anthropology Driving Micro-Level Activism Although I had applied intentions from the beginning in my research design, in practical terms I still grappled with what that looked like. Which of my findings were most relevant, and what were the best ways to communicate my research and ensure its situated usefulness within the humanitarian sector? Furthermore, I realized that I could not ignore some of the unexpected areas, noted above, where I observed issues in the humanitarian process that undermined the dignity and personhood of my research participants. Despite these not being central questions to my research, they were still important to bring up in some form, as a way to make suggestions for improved humanitarian processes, as well as initiating a dialogue with myself and other researchers to ensure that we were not replicating some of these bad practices (in encouraging refugees to tell and re-tell their stories, or leaving refugees feeling as if they were being used for fundraising purposes). Because of the nature of the neoliberal ideologies that underpin humanitarian programs, these programs and project participants alike are cast as a static, or stuck, list of problems (and problems, as mentioned above, that they internalize as part of their identities) that can be addressed in simple ways (Ferguson, 2010; Hage, 2016). A shift from a focus on the problems of the past and present to a focus on the future and linked actions to achieve aspirations allows humanitarians and project participants alike to move towards actively and collaboratively working towards better futures. I identified numerous areas over the course of my research where this focus on the future could help to identify areas of effective joint advocacy between researcher and research participant. In my previous work as a humanitarian professional, all our research and programs were focused on identifying suffering, anguish, and vulnerability, and finding ways to address it. We never stepped back to explicitly ask about or understand the source of anguish as potentially lying in concerns about the future. In my experience of more than a decade, I cannot recall one instance where we stepped back and first asked our project participants what they hoped for in the future and tried to understand the gaps between their hopes and current realities and how they could be bridged. This is a missed opportunity, as understanding these gaps can also serve to forge more respectful relationships between humanitarian actors and those who participate in their

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programs by identifying points where joint activism can occur, allowing for project participants to be more empowered as joint change agents in the broader humanitarian system. Because of this, we were analyzing anguish and suffering from our own points of view as humanitarians, defined by our expectations (which were often shaped by international standards devised out of context) of what the lives of project participants should look like. In doing so, I contend that we were stripping them of their dignity and ability to articulate their needs and desired services. This also created a sense of dependency on agencies, as well as frustration when the services offered did not match those that project participants wanted. However, even in these stories of anguish, if we had been paying better attention, we could have identified and built on sparks of hope. In a recent book reflecting on the important role that ethnographic research brings to bear on humanitarian and development policy, Cernea and Maldonado assert: “The first step is for social analysis to delve beneath the ethnographic surface to identify and conceptualize theoretically the processes happening on the ground and their actual impacts on people, positive or negative, in order to address these impacts in an organized way as development planners and implementers. This asks for pre-existing field investigations and social analysis” (2018: 12). The aim of increasingly large numbers of humanitarian programs are focused on resilience building to mitigate and reduce the disparities that place some communities at higher risk of adverse outcomes. However, many of these programs are arguably “cultureless,” devised in ways that examine a host of variables without thinking about some of the sociocultural and emotional aspects of resilience building, including the aspirations from the perspectives of research participants. Anthropology can become activism through its insertion in this process as anthropological perspectives applied to humanitarian focused research and policy development ensure that “program beneficiaries” become central stakeholders rather than passive recipients of services that they might not understand or agree with. Their stories, lived realities, and desired futures can become foundational to policies that will affect their lives (see Willow and Yotebieng, in this volume). Although anthropology’s critique of humanitarian practice, discussed above, was a driving force for my research, over the course of my research, I also tried to situate my experience and reflections within the broader anthropological literature. This often occurred in the context of seeking guidance and direction in terms of ethical obligations that accompany fieldwork. The distinction between emic (insider) and etic (outsider) knowledge, and to what extent an anthropologist has to be an insider or outsider to garner this knowledge, is an area of continuing debate within anthropology (Headland et al., 1990; Abu-Lughod, 1991; Awah, 2017). Other anthropologists have written reflections on long-term fieldwork at a single site over many years and multiple trips, and the ways in which the different societal roles that both the researcher and their informants take on (including from student

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to professor, or from single to married with children) change their relationships over time (e.g., Austin, 2015; Awah, 2017). These reflections led me to consider to what extent I was an insider or outsider, and how engaging as an activist with my research participants led to anthropological shapeshifting. While I am not a Cameroonian, a Rwandan, or a refugee, I noticed considerable reflections in my early field journal entries that analyzed my role in coming back to the field as an anthropologist. This was particularly poignant, as I had worked in Cameroon initially as a Peace Corps volunteer, returned as a humanitarian worker for three years, and continued to cover Cameroon as a humanitarian professional based in the regional office of a NGO based in the Democratic Republic of Congo for an additional five years. Over this time, I had evolved from a young single woman, to a woman married to a Cameroonian intellectual, and now to a mother of two children. My insider-outsider musings included questions to myself as to what extent I could or should really divorce my current identity from my applied humanitarian past. This straddling of my identity as a former humanitarian, a mother, as well as a foreigner in Cameroon resulted in partial overlapping identities with the humanitarian professionals whom I hoped to reach with my research, the Cameroonian host community, and the refugees, who were also outsiders in Cameroon. I also identified with many of the women whom I was working, because of previous life experiences including exposure to violence, chronic illness, and the stress of managing motherhood alongside a host of other demands. I recognized my privilege in gaining almost immediate access to the humanitarian professionals in Cameroon whom many of my research participants waited hours, weeks, or months to meet. I also understood the system and what agency and person to go to for different issues that arose over the course of my research. Mindful of this, I tried to be as transparent as possible with my research participants, continually reminding them of the purpose of my time in Cameroon and also continuously reflecting on how I could somehow use my research and my position of power and privilege to give back in the way that other anthropologists I admired had (Smith, 2016). Not wanting to fall into the trap mentioned above of assuming that I knew what my research participants wanted of me, I constantly asked them what their expectations of me were, and how I could “give back” to their households and communities. Most of the time, my research participants would underline the importance of sharing their stories, which they felt were grossly misunderstood by the international community. Others would ask me to help them to explain their issues to humanitarian staff whom they felt had misunderstood their concerns and therefore refused them assistance. As noted earlier, at times, this included contacting the UNHCR in situations that seemed dire, or where something seemed to have gone awry in communications between my research participants and the humanitarian agencies from which they were receiving or requesting services. At other times, it involved bringing up health or security issues that I thought were being neglected to the humanitarian agencies. And finally, at times it meant providing information on services that I learned about that my research participants did not seem to know about but could be of interest to them.

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Periodically I even accompanied research participants to these services. I did this in the hope that any small push that I could make would help to raise the profile of a situation that seemed dire to me. I guess that in my own way, I was trying to prove, to myself and my research participants, that I was not a “useless American woman” after all. I saw engagement at this micro level, even though it could feel uncomfortable or as if we are overstepping our reach as a researcher, as a moral imperative. We get involved in our research as anthropologists because of a driving passion to answer important questions. We should not let our discomfort get in the way of doing what we can to improve situations that we observe to be unjust. In fact, on several occasions, I had humanitarian professionals thank me, pointing out that they wanted to do better, and in pointing out discrepancies or people who were falling through the cracks, they felt that they were improving. Smith (2016) argued that anthropologists working on applied issues have multiple roles, including playing the part of advocate when needed.

Engaging with Humanitarians and Policymakers I had the opportunity to engage with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) regularly during the last year of my dissertation, as I was awarded a Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar award to further my work on translating my research to effective policy change. USIP recognized that anthropological insight was crucial to understanding how to build a just peace, but that because of the gap between research and action (a gap that activism can help to bridge!), our findings were often not as transformative as we wanted them to be. Early in my fellowship year, USIP brought me to a Peace Scholars Conference at their headquarters in Washington, DC, where I met the other scholars in my cohort, presented my research to policymakers, and discussed how my findings could be useful for them. This, to me, was an important glimpse into the policymaking world and its realities. Importantly, policy drives most of the programs that I had implemented for over a decade as a humanitarian, as well as the research that I was currently working on. However, what became clear from my discussions was that the chasm between research and policymaking is enormous. Researchers, policymakers, and activists all too often speak different languages, do not always read the same things, and sometimes do not communicate well with each other. At first the challenge in front of me seemed overwhelming, as I began my PhD precisely with the aim of influencing policy so that I could do my part to improve humanitarian programs. The reality of fieldwork for many, and most certainly for me, was that the more time that I spent with my research participants, the more I felt obligated to somehow translate my research to policy change that would improve their lives. By the end of the USIP conference, I left with the resolve that we need to do better than we currently are, and that perhaps the best way for anthropologists to communicate our knowledge to policymakers is through concerted activism. We need to make noise at their doors, as they, sadly, will often not

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knock on ours, or necessarily immediately grasp the nuances of our writing (with many journal articles requirement payment to be accessed by those not affiliated with a research institution). The ethical dilemma should be focused less on whether engaging in activism taints our research and more on the ethical implications of not engaging as an advocate, activist, or other forms of applied work when we are working with marginalized communities. Faas (2016) astutely underlines that anthropologists to date have been weary about engaging in policy discussions. I argue that it is critical that we find ways in which we can bring the voices of those affected by forced migration and other humanitarian situations around the world to the forefront. When I decided to return to school after over a decade of working in the humanitarian and development field, this is what I intended to do. This is why I chose to return to anthropology rather than public health for my PhD. I felt that our efforts as humanitarians had been well intentioned, but were often implemented with little consideration of complexity, local contexts, and perspectives of those whom we were hoping to support. As anthropologists, we can identify, put forward, and test promising practices that can better support communities that we are working with in ways that can have real impacts on their lives. In the case of refugees, the act of having to tell and re-tell stories can be exhausting, and we need to be careful not to play into this dynamic as another person extracting stories and letting our research participants down. With this knowledge, we need to plan from the beginning the ways in which we will engage in dissemination outside of the academy. Otherwise, we might have to accept our positions as “useless” providers of knowledge, sympathizers of the plight of the world’s marginalized, but unwilling to do anything about it. Given Jeanette’s comment, if we disengage our work from activism that influences practice, perhaps it truly is “useless” knowledge.

References Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1991. “Writing Against Culture.” In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present, edited by Richard G. Fox: 137–162. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press. Austin, Timothy. 2015. “Finding Your Island: To Return or Not to Return.” Practicing Anthropology, 37(2): 8–11. Awah, Paschal Kum. 2017. “Tackling Strangeness While Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork by an Anthropologist in Africa: A Narrative From Cameroon.” Journal of Historical Archaeology and Anthropolical Sciences, 1(5): 28. doi:10.15406/jhaas.2017.01.00028. Birman, Dina. 2006. “Ethical Issues in Research With Immigrants and Refugees.” In The Handbook of Ethical Research With Ethnocultural Populations and Communities, edited by Joseph E. Trimble and Celia B. Fisher: 156–177. New York: SAGE Publications. doi:10.4135/9781412986168. Brun, Cathrine. 2016. “There is No Future in Humanitarianism: Emergency, Temporality and Protracted Displacement.” History and Anthropology, 27(4): 393–410. doi:10.2214/ AJR.09.3938. Cernea, Michael M. and Julie K. Maldonado. 2018. Challenging the Prevailing Paradigm of Displacement and Resettlement: Risks, Impoverishment, Legacies, Solutions. London and New York: Routledge.

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Checker, Melissa, and Maggie Fishman (eds). 2004. Local Actions: Cultural Activism, Power, and Public Life in America. New York: Columbia University Press. Faas, A.J. 2016. “Continuity and Change in the Applied Anthropology of Risk, Hazards, and Disasters.” Annals of Anthropological Practice, 40(1): 6–13. Fassin, Didier. 2009. “Another Politics of Life is Possible.” Theory, Culture and Society, 26(5): 44–60. doi:10.1177/0263276409106349. Ferguson, James. 2010. “The Uses of Neoliberalism.” Antipode, 41(S1): 166–184. Hage, Ghassan. 2016. “Questions Concerning a Future-Politics.” History and Anthropology, 27(4): 465–467. doi:10.2214/AJR.09.3938. Headland, Thomas N., Kenneth L. Pike, and Marvin E. Harris. 1990. Emics and Etics: The Insider/Outsider Debate. Washington, DC: SAGE Publications. Shuman, Amy and Carol Bohmer. 2014. “Gender and Cultural Silences in the Political Asylum Process.” Sexualities, 17(8): 939–957. Shuman, Amy and Carol Bohmer. 2016. “The Uncomfortable Meeting Grounds of Different Vulnerabilities: Disability and the Political Asylum Process.” Feminist Formations, 28(1): 121–145. Smith, Sarah. 2016. “Global Reproductive Health and Migration: The Role(s) of the Anthropologist.” Practicing Anthropology, 38(4): 40–42. Wilkinson, Iain and Arthur Kleinman. 2016. A Passion for Society: How We Think About Human Suffering. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2017a. “Questions of Refugee Deservedness: The Anthropologist as an Ally.” Society for Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology Column in Anthropology News. www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2017/02/24/questions-of-refugee-deserved ness/ (accessed May 1, 2018). Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2017b. “Urban Refugees: The Hidden Crisis.” Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Blog. http://carfms.org/blog/urban-refugees-thehidden-crisis-by-kelly-yotebieng/ (accessed May 1, 2018). Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2017c. “Health, Well-Being, and Urban Refugees and Asylum Seekers: An Agenda Paper.” Migration Letters, 14(3): 343–354. Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2018a. “Violence Overshadowing Hope Among Refugees?” Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter, Gender Based Violence Topical Interest Group Column. http:// sfaa.net/news/index.php/2018/feb-2018/committees-and-tigs/gender-based-violencetig/ (accessed June 15, 2019). Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2018b. Hope on the Brinks: Dreams and Nightmares Crossing Borders. London: Austin Macauley Publishers. Yotebieng, Kelly A. 2019. The Capacity to Aspire Among Rwandan Urban Refugee Women in Yaoundé, Cameroon. OhioLink Published Dissertation, Ohio State University. Yotebieng, Kelly A. and Tannya Forcone. 2018. “The Household in Flux: Plasticity Complicates the Unit of Analysis.” Anthropology in Action, 25(3): 13–22. doi:10.3167/ aia.2018.250302. Yotebieng, Kelly A., Paschal Kum Awah, and Jennifer L. Syvertsen. 2018a. “‘Is Wellbeing Possible When You Are Out of Place?’ An Ethnography of Resilience Among Urban Refugees in Yaoundé, Cameroon.” Journal of Refugee Studies, 32(2): 197–215. doi:10.1093/ jrs/fey023. Yotebieng, Kelly A., Jennifer L. Syvertsen, and Paschal Kum Awah. 2018b. “Cessation Clauses, Uncertain Futures, and Wellbeing Among Rwandan Urban Refugees in Cameroon.” Journal of Refugee Studies, 32(3): 436–455. doi:10.1093/jrs/fey037. Yotebieng, Kelly A., Nathan Fakult, Paschal Kum Awah, and Jennifer L. Syvertsen. 2019. “Precarious Hope And Reframing Risk Behavior From The Ground Up: Insight From Ethnographic Research With Rwandan Urban Refugees In Yaoundé, Cameroon.” Conflict and Health, 13(1): 18.

10 ANTHROPOLOGY AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION Promises and Dilemmas of Worldview Translation Brenda Fitzpatrick

The “Site C Clean Energy Project” (to use its official but controversial name) is a hydroelectric dam now under construction by the provincial BC Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro) on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. The multi-billion-dollar project has been hotly disputed since its inception (see Willow, this volume) and remains subject to a court challenge. If completed, it would flood approximately 13,590 acres of wilderness, farmland, and First Nations’ territory under treaty to provide 1,100 megawatts of “green” power. For my dissertation, I investigated favorable and unfavorable perspectives on the project, as well as how they were contested through the Environmental Assessment (EA) process. I saw my work as a form of activism, not in service to any particular group, but as a possible contribution to just environmental conflict transformation, both in the Site C case and in general. My research drew not only on anthropology, but also on Peace and Conflict Studies (the discipline of my Master’s degree). The applied field of Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS) aims to promote constructive conflict resolution and social justice, but has strangely neglected the role of cultural factors in causing and resolving conflict. Anthropology offers deep explorations of how people belonging to various identity groups relate to the world, but this knowledge has rarely been directed for use in resolving conflicts or integrated into conflict resolution theory or practice. Thus, I developed two research goals. The first was to carry out an ethnography of the conflict; that is, to listen in good faith to Site C supporters and opponents in order to understand what was important to them, what this project meant for them, and why. I asked: What were the values and assumptions underlying arguments for and against the dam? More specifically, what understandings of the proper relationships between humans and the non-human world motivated these arguments? I also considered how people with differing affiliations interacted. Were there stylistic differences in how they communicated? Finally, what role did societal power dynamics play in this issue? I hoped that considering pro- and anti-Site

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C perspectives concurrently would enhance my own and others’ understanding of the conflict and perhaps produce openings for resolution. My second goal was to explore the intersections between anthropology and PACS, more specifically between ethnography and “conflict transformation.” Both, for instance, involve the translation of perspectives. Conflict intervenors work in various ways to improve mutual understanding between parties when differing viewpoints contribute to animosity. Ethnographers develop insight into perspectives other than their own through participant-observation, then use their role as liaison between their protagonists and their audience to create an empathetic, accurate representation. Understanding without judging is also central to each of these endeavors; “empathic,” non-judgemental listening is not only the “most important attribute” of successful conflict intervenors (Salem, 2003), but parallels the cultural relativism fundamental to anthropology. I wondered, therefore, how ethnographic insights could support peaceful conflict resolution. I found that combining the deep cultural perspective of anthropology with an applied conflict transformation orientation, while not uncomplicated, offers potential for promoting equitable solutions to environmental conflicts. Although the combination presented methodological and ethical challenges, it was fruitful: Considering multiple perspectives through a culturally relative conflict transformation lens and using ethnographic investigative techniques allowed me to uncover insights about substantive and relational issues in the Site C conflict that would otherwise have been difficult to obtain. This combined approach also revealed the direct and structural violence (Galtung, 1969) underlying the conflict, forcing me to reconsider my activist role. Could I serve both as a translator of perspectives, honoring competing viewpoints and needs, as I had hoped, and call out structural violence? In this by no means definitive chapter, I reflect on the possibilities and dilemmas that I encountered at the research, analysis, and action stages.

Conflict, Worldview, and Translation “Conflict transformation,” as conceived by John Paul Lederach, is an approach to social change that goes beyond the more familiar “conflict resolution” to address the root causes of social conflict (2003: 5). He argues that avoiding conflict recurrence and promoting just social relations demands that conflict transformation efforts consider not only the content of the conflict, but also the relational context in which it is embedded and the sociohistorical structure underlying the issue. Lederach, among other authors, considers conflict to be a “socially constructed cultural event” (1995: 9). While cultural differences in themselves rarely cause conflict, culture (whether associated with occupational, class, religion, ethnic, geographical, or other affiliations) “is always the lens through which the causes of conflict are refracted” (Avruch, 1998: 30, emphasis in original). The PACS field as a whole remains wary of “culture,” but sees it “as a vague, political, and notoriously difficult term,” (Brigg, 2010: 329, in Bräuchler 2018: 17). A view of culture that emphasizes dynamism and relatedness over static categories and difference is seen as particularly challenging (Brigg, 2008; Bräuchler 2018: 19).

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On the anthropology side, conflict, in the form of specific disputes, or “repression…domination and subordination,” has long been a “favorite” subject of study (Davidheiser and Treitler, 2007: 12), but has rarely been tackled in applied work. Early legal anthropology concerning conflict resolution across cultures influenced the development of Alternative Dispute Resolution in the 1970s, but legal anthropology has since been “mostly marginal” to conflict resolution (Avruch, 2007: 13). Several factors could account for this disconnect, including the difficulties of translating anthropological nuance into practiceoriented literature and a widespread neo-Marxian perception of conflict as potentially progressive (Davidheiser and Treitler, 2007). The concept of “worldview conflict” highlights the contributions anthropology could make to culturally informed transformation, especially of environmental conflicts, in which the parties often appear “to be speaking different languages and occupying different realities” (Docherty, 2001: 28). Docherty explains that such worldview conflicts result from “a clash” of symbolic, but “very real” “inner worlds” that incorporate ontological, epistemological, and ethical elements (Docherty, 2001: 25). Although much conflict resolution writing assumes that participants in conflict resolution processes partake of a single shared reality, in many cases reality itself must be “negotiated” before concrete issues can be dealt with, as worldviews cannot be simply altered or bargained over (Docherty, 2001: 53). Nevertheless, few theoretical or practical models exist for working with worldviews. Docherty, however, suggests observing language and actions of people in conflict and exploring “carriers” of worldviews, such as stories, metaphors, and “institutionalized practices” to arrive at a tentative and imperfect “worldview analysis” (2001: 72). “Worldview translators” who understand or partake of conflicting worldviews could then assist in mediating between them (Docherty, 2001: 298). Worldview differences could be implicated in conflicts of all kinds; however, environmental disputes, which occur “at the intersection of complex economic, social, legal, political, and ecological issues, [and] evoke deeply held values that lie at the core of many individual and group identities,” are particularly fraught sources of such conflict (Blechman et al., 2000: 5). Blechman et al. hypothesize that “profound and largely unrecognized” worldview conflict underlies much environmental conflict. Differing worldviews expressed, for example, through metaphors such as “FOREST IS A FARM” or “FOREST IS A WILDERNESS,” lead to very different forestry practices, holding great potential for discord (Blechman et al., 2000: 10, capitalization in original). Thus, worldview translators might be particularly valuable in addressing environmental conflicts. Anthropologists are ideally suited to the task of environmental worldview translation. Not only is “exploring context, nuance, phenomenology, and symbolic analysis to translate perception, experience, subjectivity, alterity, and ways of knowing”(Besteman, 2013: 4) a raison d’ệtre of the discipline, but anthropologists have studied environmental conflict in terms of religion, identity, knowledge, morality, discourse, and power relations. A large body of work demonstrates that human individuals and groups enact an infinite variety of worldviews, work that could be illuminating in situations of environmental conflict. Yet although differing ideas of

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the relationship between “nature” and “society” are often implicated in environmental conflicts, Terre Satterfield’s (2002) study is exceptional in investigating the implications of “Identity, Knowledge, and Emotion” (the subtitle of her book, Anatomy of a Conflict) on both sides of the Oregon forest conflict in the 1990s. In any case, conflict practitioners have rarely made use of such work to supplement their expertise in conflict resolution processes. Furthermore, PACS scholarship regarding environmental conflict has focused on environmental conflict as a variable in the outbreak or duration of armed hostilities (LeBillon and Duffy, 2018) or on resolution processes and models (Elliott and Kaufman, 2016), but has rarely considered cultural factors in these conflicts. In sum, the promising synergy of anthropology and PACS is underdeveloped. The concept of worldview translation, however, offered me a distinctive and untried approach to the Site C conflict. As I began my research, I naïvely hoped that by investigating both pro- and anti-Site C perspectives ethnographically and empathetically (and subsequently sharing my results) I might contribute to improved mutual understanding that could lead to creative problem-solving.

Double-sided Ethnography My research entailed participant-observation in the Peace River region from June 2013 to October 2014. During this time, I attended approximately half of the 28 days of public hearings held as part of the Site C Environmental Assessment. I conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 opponents and 14 supporters of the project. In so doing, I discovered the challenges of data collection and participant-observation across conflict lines. The participant-observer role is always a delicate one and is made even trickier, if not impossible, when multiple antagonistic constituencies are involved. I did not manage even-handed participant-observation, as I explain below. In fact, my double-sided focus—on Site C supporters and opponents—in some ways limited my participation: I held back from associating too closely with either side, thereby reducing my overall depth of engagement. For example, under other circumstances, I might have volunteered with the Peace Valley Environment Association (a nonprofit organization founded to fight Site C), but I could hardly have volunteered simultaneously for the pro-Site C equivalent, even if there had been one. In the absence of any neutral Site C-related role that would serve as an entry point, I attended events concerning Site C directly, including government consultation meetings with First Nations, Regional District meetings, and protests. I canoed the relevant stretch of the Peace River independently and as a participant in the Paddle for the Peace (an annual rally and canoe flotilla). I also lived in Fort St. John, the closest community to the planned dam. I shopped at the grocery store, exercised at the indoor track, read the newspaper, listened to local radio, and went to the coffee shop. I attended festivals, joined Book Club and Knit Night, volunteered with the Restorative Justice Society, and ushered at the Cultural Centre. However, I was “disqualified” from the many community events centred around children, hunting, or horses. Moreover, I was not up to

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hanging out in a bar alone, and so I missed experiencing this major part of Fort St. John’s identity. At the events I did attend, most of the people I met opposed Site C, so that I initially drew a correlation between community involvement and Site C opposition. I gradually realized, however, that many Site C supporters were also community contributors, but in spheres that were either not available to me or were off my radar, such as schools, recreational sports, service clubs, and charity fundraisers. Had I been involved in these domains, rather than others, my experience of Fort St. John and my perception of the Site C controversy could have been very different. Thus, my own demographics—gender, age, socioeconomic background, lack of children—as well as my personality, influenced my gathering of information. Conflict dynamics further limited my access to the pro- and anti-Site C constituencies. The most active Site C opponents—who spoke at the EA hearings, fundraised to hire expert consultants, posted on social media, ran for office, and more, in addition to holding classic “protests,” (marching with signs)—were organized and visible. They were easy for me to identify and interact with and, seeking to get their message out, were often eager to be interviewed. Many of them were retired, and I met them in their homes over tea on a relaxed timeline. Several lived on land that would be affected by flooding and made a point of showing me “where they were coming from,” in more than one sense. In several cases I returned, not only for follow-up interviews, but also for a chat or meal.

The Peace River at Site C. Photo by Robin Susanto

FIGURE 10.1

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Even the strongest Site C supporters, in contrast, mostly left promotion of the project to BC Hydro. Many supporters and passive opponents believed that the dam was a “done deal,” no longer subject to public influence. Perhaps for this reason, supporters rarely seemed to feel the need to speak out publicly, so it was not obvious who they were. I met some pro-Site C interviewees at networking events for prospective Site C contractors; others were the rare few who had publicly advocated for Site C at some point.1 They were friendly and helpful, but seemed more interested in doing me a favor than in getting the word out about Site C. Most were working people, and I usually interviewed them in their offices; in tone and pace these meetings resembled business appointments rather than visits, and we seldom interacted further. As for BC Hydro, apart from three community relations employees based in Fort St. John and Prince George, Site C staff were based in Vancouver and not available for informal interactions (although I did interview two members of the team). My access to First Nations’ perspectives was similarly dependent on public hearings. I conducted few interviews with First Nations members because staff and elders were overloaded with the monumental Site C consultation process (as well as a multitude of other EA processes), and I could not justify taking their time. Overall, therefore, my contacts were weighted toward Euro-Canadian Site C opponents. Together with issues of access, my own biases inevitably affected my research. Drawing on Latour (1993), Docherty proposes that worldview analysis must be based on a “symmetrical anthropology” that does not privilege dominant worldviews, but treats both (or all) worldviews in conflict as “functionally equivalent worldmaking stories,” (2001: 69, emphasis in original) that are equally valid and equally contingent. She points out that to do this effectively, the analyst must be aware that their own perceptions and actions are also shaped by a particular worldview (Docherty, 2001: 280). Looking at the worldviews I brought to my exploration of the Site C controversy, on the one hand—as a Euro-Canadian city dweller with a post-secondary education—I likely share some educational and social background with the Site C team. Small-town northern society was new to me, and I had had little previous contact with First Nations communities. On the other hand, many of the Peace Region residents with whom I felt the most at home, those who had a higher-than-the-local-average level of education—educators, agriculturalists, scientists with post-secondary degrees—might also have shared some ontological and epistemological assumptions with BC Hydro staff, but other values and beliefs led them, and me, to very different conclusions about Site C. During my research, I avoided taking an overt position on Site C. As a multi-generational resident, voter, treaty person,2 and electricity user in British Columbia, I have a stake in the ongoing conflict’s outcome, but I did not want to set up an adversarial relationship whereby interviewees felt that they needed to convince me of a position. I found that empathic listening created a rapport that drew me into the speaker’s narrative, even if I did not share their opinions, so that the boundary between “mmhmm (I understand what you are saying)” and “mmhmm (I agree),” sometimes blurred,

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even in my own mind. My objective was to investigate and understand the perspectives that motivated arguments regarding Site C, not to evaluate its merits. As I lived in the area, interacted with residents, and became more informed, however, I (perhaps inevitably) formed an opinion: that the environmental and agricultural costs, as well as the costs to First Nations rights and culture, outweighed the potential benefits of the dam. Moreover, like many opponents of Site C, I became angry and frustrated with the injustice of the decision-making process.

Consultation as Structural Violence Even as my opinions crystallized, I strove to listen empathically to pro- and anti-Site C perspectives alike and to collect rigorous and defensible data. I found that the combination of anthropology and PACS led to conflict insights that had not been previously publicly articulated: I reached a greater understanding of the divergent views of the human place within the natural environment that underlay the Site C conflict and, furthermore, concluded that the conditions of the encounter were not equitable. Site C supporters’ vision of the future was one of perpetual “growth;” they saw Site C as a source of non-combustion power to sustain this growth and allow for continuing “progress” without exacerbating climate change. While supporters believed that it was right and natural for humans to change the environment for their benefit (as other organisms and processes do) and that some impacts of the dam might even be positive for humans and animals, opponents rejected the concept of progress, seeing industrial development, including Site C, in terms of “degradation” and “devastation.” While both sides professed general attachment to the land, Site C opponents expressed commitment to specific places because of the land’s particular attributes—combined with their own personal, family, and cultural histories. At public hearings, this commitment was reflected in opponents’ personal, locally grounded, and sometimes emotional communication. “When I drive through the valley and think about what could be under water if Site C is built, it makes me want to cry,” commented one speaker (Canada Environmental Assessment Agency/British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office, 2013b: 68). Non-resident BC Hydro representatives, in marked contrast, were business-like and impersonal. Their use of abstract, deductive arguments, “objective” decision-making mechanisms like computer analysis, and passive linguistic constructions distanced them from the consequences of the project. Actorless, actionless, victimless, placeless phrases such as “a determination that a significant residual adverse effect is likely was made for four valued [ecological] components” (Canada Environmental Assessment Agency/ British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office, 2013a: 52) did not inspire vivid visualization of what Site C would really mean and contrasted with anti-Site C residents’ accounts of a landscape where real people’s interactions with ancestors and animals were at risk. Whereas the EA process seemed to separate ecosystems into collections of components, anti-Site C speakers insisted on seeing the Peace Valley as a whole

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human and environmental system. BC Hydro put forward mitigation and compensation measures, such as wetlands enhancement, as a strategy to reduce the negative consequences of a project that they defended as necessary and beneficial. However, critics rejected plans that depended on human ability to improve or even recreate ecosystems. They believed that such plans, which were designed to replicate individual ecological functions, missed the essence of an ecosystem.. For example, according to a West Moberly First Nations’ elder, medicinal plants grown in a nursery instead of the valley would “lose their healing potency because they’re not going to be growing in an environment where they were meant to grow by the Creator. Sure we can preserve those plants,” he said, “but their strength will never be the same” (Canada Environmental Assessment Agency/British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office, 2013b: 187). Similarly, instead of regarding Site C in isolation, opponents saw it in the context of past, present, and future development, including existing dams on the Peace River (Loo, 2007) and intensive, expanding oil and gas development (Lee and Hanneman, 2012). The repercussions of these differing perspectives were not neutral. “Rendering technical,” or framing a problem (in this case the consequences of energy generation for ecosystems and communities) in terms amenable to a technical solution, forestalls politico-economic analysis (Li, 2007: 7). Focusing on details—which areas and species will be most affected and how these effects might be mitigated—distracted from bigger questions of who loses from Site C, and who really benefits, and by what right. Presenting energy and jobs as unquestionable universal benefits (although not all would benefit or sacrifice equally), and treating the interests and values of First Nations, environmentalists, and farmers as minority concerns worth sacrificing for the “common good” of “economical” and “clean” power masked the decision to discount consequences of marginalized people. Numerous authors have recognized the inequities of Canadian EA processes; Baker and Westman argue that by demanding participation in “emotionally draining” processes that ultimately fail to “register the dissent of those…most impacted,” consultation itself constitutes an “extractive industry” (2018: 145), while Booth and Skelton describe the longstanding, unresolved failings of First Nations consultation as “institutionalized sociopathy” (2011: 395). As the case of Site C illustrates, worldviews do not compete in a power vacuum, but within sociocultural structures that influence control over material, political, and other resources. I came to realize that justice-minded worldview translators must therefore also account for “structural violence”—violence that does not require an individual act or intention, but which is “built into the [social] structure and shows up as unequal power and consequently as unequal life chances,” potentially causing as much harm as “direct” or “personal” violence (Galtung, 1969: 171). If completed, Site C would rupture some valley residents’ bond with personally and culturally valued places. The project threatens their history (by flooding heritage sites, sacred places, and ancestral graves), their future livelihoods, and their cultural existence. Not surprisingly, opponents used images of

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death, destruction, and rape to describe the dam. Furthermore, by using a “clean energy storyline” to justify the expansion of hydroelectricity (Dusyk, 2016: 77), the provincial government seemed to be actively avoiding public debate on the project (Dusyk, 2011) and appeared to have decided in favor of the dam before the EA process even began. Site C opponents therefore found the process itself disempowering and exploitative. The serious potential consequences of the dam, combined with its opponents’ sense of being unable to influence the result (despite the time, money, and effort that they expended in participating) gave rise to a sense of unfairness, voicelessness, and futility. The financial, political, and procedural resources were all on the side of the proponent, and the project was approved despite the numerous serious impacts that the process brought to light. By appearing to consult affected people and by “rendering technical,” the EA process served largely to justify and dissimulate the violence of the project. Viewing the Site C conflict through a conflict transformation lens, considering systemic and relational context as well as the issues in dispute, revealed the structural violence of the EA process, whereby not only resources, but also the “power to decide over distribution of resources is unevenly distributed” (Galtung, 1969: 171).

Worldview Translation in Structural Conflicts How, then, can these findings be put into action? Researching Site C made clear to me that the possibilities for anthropologically informed conflict transformation depend on the type of conflict. Where the parties to a conflict are relatively equal in power, the ultimate integration of ethnography and conflict transformation might involve the ethnographer (possibly in partnership with a conflict specialist) working to mediate a solution. There is considerable potential for anthropologists to contribute to culturally nuanced conflict facilitation. Despite the importance of worldview analysis and translation in conflict, these areas have been neglected, in part because they are so intimidating for conflict practitioners. Worldviews are “messy,” spilling across identity boundaries, (Blechman et al., 2000: 28); they defy standardized methods for training practitioners to work across them (Davidheiser: 2008). Anthropologists, however, have the conceptual tools and training to cope with the “dynamic and diffuse nature of worldviews,” and their emic, elicitive, ethnographic approach is well suited to the “replicable yet adaptive [conflict transformation] practice modality” that Davidheiser suggests is the most “promising” (2008: 79). In structural conflicts, where power is unequal, however, facilitation may not be the only or best approach to resolution; in the Site C conflict, there seems to be little hope of engaging the provincial government—which is both the project proponent (via BC Hydro) and the decision-maker—in genuine dialogue. Activism is called for, and this puts the ethnographer of conflict (whose research participants span the issue), in a quandary. In general, as outlined in the introduction to this volume, activist anthropology has a long history within the discipline and is now increasingly accepted. The practice of engaged anthropology continues to raise

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many dilemmas, however, and these are only intensified when double-sided ethnography is the goal. According to the current American Anthropological Association’s Statement on Ethics (2012), when ethical obligations to colleagues, employers, donors, or research participants conflict, obligations to participants take precedence. I suspect that research participants’ interests are less homogeneous (and more often internally conflicted) than the Statement acknowledges; certainly this is a given when the research design purposely includes participants who are in active, explicit conflict with each other. Moreover, from a PACS perspective, neutrality expectations for intervenors in conflict are more stringent: “An elementary principle of conflict resolution practice” demands that facilitators be nonpartisan (Rubenstein, 2017: 137). Thus, a commitment to consider the positions of competing sides symmetrically, combined with a conflict transformation orientation, may actually rule out some types of engagement, including “activist research” as Hale defines it—that is, based on “political alignment with an organized group of people in struggle” (Hale, 2006: 97; see also Willow and Yotebieng, in this volume). Besteman also considers collaboration to be a defining feature of engaged anthropology but, as she acknowledges, “collaboration with one group may imply or require opposition to another” (2013: 3). Thus, collaborating with one group in conflict against their opponents might well preclude ethnographic research aimed at understanding and translating the opponents’ motivations. Double- or multi-sided ethnography similarly complicates attempts at researcher reciprocity; what I have to “give back” as a contribution to improving environmental conflict resolution in British Columbia may satisfy some of my research participants, but likely not those who are satisfied with the status quo. In carrying out my analysis, I was acutely aware of Riesman’s concern that to take a moral stance is to “give up trying to understand the situation as a human reality” and concentrate only on changing it (Scheper-Hughes, 1995: 416). In trying both to honor competing perspectives and to view their interactions in a structural perspective, I walk a precarious line between being too critical (i.e., not sufficiently understanding the human reality—in this case, of Site C supporters) and not critical enough (i.e., failing in my analysis, and failing to speak truth to power). My commitment as an activist scholar seeking to contribute to just environmental conflict transformation is to take all parties’ accounts in good faith and to present what I heard, accepting logical inconsistencies and without imputing ulterior motives or looking for political manipulation. Yet I cannot be sure that all parties were actually operating in good faith. Anti-Site C activists may have framed their arguments in the most advantageous way for their cause, but I am fairly sure that their motives were transparent. I have no way of knowing, however, whether institutional representatives and politicians were as sincere and forthcoming as they seemed during our interviews. To what extent should I be holding their feet to the fire? BC Hydro and its employees have been tasked by society with the legitimate responsibility of keeping the lights on for the province, but there has been ample evidence of the harms that this project will cause, and the buck must

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stop somewhere. Although structural violence is the result of structural arrangements, not individual intentions (Galtung, 1969), structural arrangements are the cumulative result of individual actions, and they change only when individuals question and resist them. Furthermore, the Site C project has been criticized from so many angles that it is difficult not to wonder if political interests, not to say corruption, played a role in its approval. Should non-judgemental listening mean turning a blind eye to questions of political economy or even legitimizing malfeasance? I waver between the impulse to take political action based on what I have learned and the fear that doing so would undermine my scholarly credibility, which may be the most important contribution that I can make. Engaged scholarship may be accepted in anthropology, but not necessarily in the public sphere— where worldview translation matters the most. Although I am confident in my conclusions, as Henriksen points out, the personal involvement with research participants that anthropologists so value makes our research “biased” and therefore less credible to “proponents of the state” (Henriksen, 2004: 67). Anthropologist and PACS scholar Cynthia Mahmood observes that anthropologists have had the greatest success promoting pro-peace, pro-human rights policies when “their expertise (‘culture’)” rather than their moral passions [were] front and center” (Mahmood, 2003: 8). Thus, I often reluctantly refrain from prototypical “activism” (such as demonstrations), so that my findings can carry greater weight. Having studied the issue of Site C in depth, I feel more qualified than most to form a strong opinion and feel a responsibility to speak out; yet the stronger my opinion, the greater the risk to my “expert” status and thereby to any influence I might have on the issue, especially as a graduate student without an established academic reputation. Furthermore, I highly valued the freedom to encounter holders of a variety of viewpoints on Site C without being pre-identified with a particular constituency myself. This is a rare position to be in, and one that allowed me to make connections and gather material to which I might not have had access as an open supporter of either side. My greatest fear is that I can do this kind of research only once; that after publishing a position, I will no longer be able to claim the neutral scholar role. But research that I cannot publicize makes no contribution at all. Being implicated in the conflict as a member of the public, irrespective of my research, only deepens these dilemmas, making me less objective but more accountable. To return to Riesman’s concern, balancing the task of understanding human realities with that of striving for change on moral grounds, even when angry and frustrated, is the work of conflict transformation. These aspirations are not antithetical; the field is founded on the goal of understanding human viewpoints and motivations as a means of reducing violence and abuses of power. Mahmood’s (1996) study of Sikh militants demonstrates that an ethnographer can be sensitive— and in some ways sympathetic—to her interlocutors, and yet maintain a critical distance. Although she “can’t defend them,” she tries to “explain them,” in hopes of interrupting the spiral of terrorism and retribution (Mahmood, 1996: 266).

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Even in conflict resolution practice, greater attention to the structural roots of conflict is challenging the assumption that those who intervene in conflict must be neutral. Although the “strong bias of the profession [remains] toward facilitation” rather than advocacy, Rubenstein (2017: 145) suggests that the aim of systemic transformation requires greater political awareness and action on the part of conflict practitioners and even that in the presence of a “violence-generating system,” the practitioner is “obliged to recognize” its existence and to “practice her trade in a way that reflects this recognition” through participation in various forms of political advocacy (Rubenstein, 2017: 137, author’s emphasis). To me, this means making active efforts to understand and respect the worldviews and needs of all parties, while drawing attention to structural violence and working towards justicebased solutions. Worldview translation, drawing on anthropology’s strengths in cultural relativism combined with political analysis, can thus be an important form of advocacy. I still hope to contribute to just conflict transformation, but now believe that justice favors Site C opponents. By laying out key worldview differences, by analyzing the way in which the EA process discursively and structurally privileges some worldviews over others, by naming structural violence, and by doing so in a publicly accessible manner, I hope to offer leverage to the campaign against Site C. By writing honestly about how I reached my conclusions after deliberately researching pro- and anti-Site C perspectives, and by remaining respectful of conflicting perspectives, I aim not just to “preach to the converted,” but to reach a broader audience and even change a few minds.

Conclusions Anthropology and PACS/conflict transformation are in many ways complementary, even overlapping. “Worldview” (as Docherty [2001] uses the term) and a nuanced view of culture are virtually synonymous. Conflict transformation contributes a prescriptive orientation, an avenue for activism, and suggests the importance of considering the perspectives of multiple conflict parties equally, as well as the interactions between them. The attention to “content/context/system” that defines conflict transformation supplies a simple but comprehensive framework for open-ended ethnographic research, a guide for the examination of culture in societal context which is also typical of anthropology. At the same time, emic ethnographic approaches are ideal for eliciting a subtle understanding of the interplay of worldview, history, and structure in a particular conflict. Anthropologists are also equipped to work with the “potentially limitless” diversity of worldviews (Davidheiser, 2008: 77) that may arise and interact in conflict. In the conflict over the Site C dam, the combination of a conflict transformation framework with cultural immersion proved rewarding, despite its complexities. Deliberate, double-sided ethnography and close attention to systemic context, in combination with non-confrontational outlets for hearing people’s thoughts, produced rich insights: Notwithstanding asymmetrical information gathering and my own

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partial perspective, I found that very different relationships to the environment and notions of development were reflected in communication at the EA public hearings and that technical discourse served to depoliticize concerns about the project’s impact. Furthermore, the concept of structural violence (Galtung, 1969), which is both foundational to PACS and well integrated into anthropology (Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois, 2004), exposed the violence of the official environmental decision-making process and highlighted the contingent, chosen nature of social structures and processes that repeatedly disadvantage the same groups of people. These findings raise questions regarding the appropriate response(s) for a would-be activist anthropologist of conflict. I had originally hoped that my contribution would lie in improving mutual understanding among the conflict participants. However, although anthropologically informed conflict facilitation does offer potential that merits further exploration, it did not seem appropriate or sufficient in the asymmetrical Site C conflict. Faced with the structural violence of Site C, I had to reconsider my own activist position and how best to act on my findings. Reconceptualizing worldview translation from a conflict facilitation tool to an advocacy tool allows me to navigate this dilemma. This means translating conflicting worldviews and calling out structural violence. It means using my findings to bolster the case against Site C and drawing on cultural relativism to avoid alienating readers not already opposed to Site C. The results remain to be seen.

Notes 1 Because so few Site C supporters engaged in visible advocacy, I am being deliberately vague about the forms this advocacy took in order to protect interviewees’ anonymity. 2 Meaning that I am subject to the Treaty Eight agreement between the Government of Canada and several dozen First Nations.

References American Anthropological Association. 2012. “Statement on Ethics.” http://ethics.americana nthro.org/category/statement/ (accessed April 27, 2017). Avruch, Kevin. 1998. Culture and Conflict Resolution. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. Avruch, Kevin. 2007. “A Historical Overview of Anthropology and Conflict Resolution.” Anthropology News, 48(6): 13–14. Baker, Janelle Marie and Clinton N. Westman. 2018. “Extracting Knowledge: Social Science, Environmental Impact Assessment, and Indigenous Consultation in the Oil Sands of Alberta, Canada.” Extractive Industries and Society, 5(1): 144–153. Besteman, Catherine. 2013. “Three Reflections on Public Anthropology.” Anthropology Today, 29(6): 3–6. Blechman, Frank, Jarle Crocker, Jayne Seminare Docherty, and Steve Garon. 2000. Finding Meaning in a Complex Environmental Policy Dialogue: Research into Worldviews in the Northern Forest Lands Council Dialogue, 1990–1994. Fairfax, VA: ICAR Working Paper.

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Booth, Annie and Norm W. Skelton. 2011. “‘We Are Fighting for Ourselves’— First Nations’ Evaluation of British Columbia and Canadian Environmental Assessment Processes.” Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management, 13(3): 367–404. Bräuchler, Birgit. 2018. “The Cultural Turn in Peace Research: Prospects and Challenges.” Peacebuilding, 6(1): 17–33. Brigg, Morgan. 2008. The New Politics of Conflict Resolution: Responding to Difference. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Brigg, Morgan. 2010. “Culture: Challenges and Possibilities.” In Palgrave Advances in Peacebuilding: Critical Developments and Approaches, edited by Oliver P. Richmond, 329–346. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Canada Environmental Assessment Agency and British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office. 2013a. “3rd Revision (Certified) Hearing Transcript Volume 1: December 9, 2013, Fort St. John, British Columbia.” https://ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p63919/ 96844E.pdf (accessed December 12, 2013). Canada Environmental Assessment Agency and British Columbia Environmental Assessment Office. 2013b. “Final (Certified) Hearing Transcript Volume 8: December 16, 2013, West Moberly Community Session.”https://ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documents/p63919/ 97132E.pdf (accessed January 7, 2014). Davidheiser, Mark. 2008. “Race, Worldviews, and Conflict Mediation: Black and White Styles of Conflict Revisited.” Peace and Change, 33(1): 60–89. Davidheiser, Mark and Inga E. Treitler. 2007. “An Analytic Introduction and a Call for Interdisciplinary Engagement.” Anthropology News, 48(6): 12–13. Docherty, Jayne Seminare. 2001. Learning Lessons from Waco: When the Parties Bring Their Gods to the Negotiation Table. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Dusyk, Nichole. 2011. “Downstream Effects of a Hybrid Forum: The Case of the Site C Hydroelectric Dam in British Columbia, Canada.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 101(4): 873–881. Dusyk, Nichole. 2016. “Clean Energy Discourse in British Columbia, 1980–2104.” BC Studies, 189(Spring 2016): 77–99. Elliott, Michael L. and Sanda Kaufman. 2016. “Enhancing Environmental Quality and Sustainability through Negotiation and Conflict Management: Research into Systems, Dynamics, and Practices.” Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 9(3): 199–219. Galtung, Johan. 1969. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research, 6(3): 167–191. Hale, Charles R. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120. doi:10.1525/can.2006.21.1.96. Henriksen, George. 2004. “Consultancy and Advocacy as Radical Anthropology.” In Expert Knowledge: First World Peoples, Consultancy, and Anthropology, edited by Barry Morris and Rohan Bastin: 67–79. New York: Berghahn Books. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern (translated by Catherine Porter). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. LeBillon, Philippe and Rosaleen V. Duffy. 2018. “Conflict Ecologies: Connecting Political Ecology and Peace and Conflict Studies.” Journal of Political Ecology, 25(1): 239–260. Lederach, John Paul. 1995. Preparing for Peace: Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Lederach, John Paul. 2003. The Little Book of Conflict Transformation. Intercourse, PA: Good Books. Lee, Peter G. and Matt Hanneman. 2012. Atlas of Land Cover, Industrial Uses and Industrial-Caused Change in the Peace Region of British Columbia. Edmonton, AB: Global Forest Watch Canada.

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Li, Tania. 2007. The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development, and the Practice of Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Loo, Tina. 2007. “Disturbing the Peace: Environmental Change and the Scales of Justice on a Northern River.” Environmental History, 12(4): 895–919. Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 1996. Fighting for Faith and Nation: Dialogues with Sikh Militants. Philadephia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Mahmood, Cynthia Keppley. 2003. “Agenda for an Anthropology of Peace.” Anthropology News, 44(5): 8. Rubenstein, Richard E. 2017. Resolving Structural Conflicts. New York: Routledge. Salem, Richard. 2003. “Empathic Listening.” In Beyond Intractability, edited by Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Boulder, CO: Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado. www.beyondintractability.org Satterfield, Terre. 2002. Anatomy of a Conflict: Identity, Knowledge, and Emotion in Old-Growth Forests. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. 1995. “The Primacy of the Ethical: Propositions for a Militant Anthropology.” Current Anthropology, 36(3): 409–440. Scheper-Hughes, Nancy and Philippe Bourgois. 2004. “Introduction: Making Sense of Violence.” In Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology, edited by Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Philippe Bourgois: 1–32. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.

11 CHALLENGES OF “COMMUNIVERSITY” ORGANIZING IN TRUMPLANDIA Mark Schuller

The current moment should be a wake-up call for white progressives, including anthropologists, who tend to dismiss Donald Trump’s election as US President somehow an anomaly or dismiss the role of white supremacy (Rosa and Bonilla, 2017). Seen from history, particularly through a vantage point of people of color, Trump’s election was foretold. Although there is nuance in all income brackets and across women and men, a majority of white people voted for Trump. As Ta-Nehisi Coates (2017: 347) argued, “from beer track to wine track, from soccer moms to NASCAR dads, Trump’s performance among whites was dominant.” Furthermore, even in the bluest of blue states, Trump never secured less than 40 percent of white voters. Drawing parallels with the end of Reconstruction, Coates argued that Trump was the “tragedy” and the predictable retrenchment of white supremacy following eight years of a Black president, Barack Obama. As Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (2017: 1) pointed out, although 94 percent of Black women voted for Hillary Clinton, fewer of them showed up to the polls than in 2012 when they overwhelmingly elected Obama to a second term. As she reported, “the overall turnout for Black voters declined for the first time in a presidential election in twenty years, falling to 59 percent from its historic high of 66 percent in 2012.” Despite it being a popular pundit punching bag, if anything, the Democrats lost the White House in 2016 because they did not pay enough attention to identity politics, taking Black and Latinx voters for granted. As anthropologists and other faculty within the public university system, we interact with marginalized groups. Increasingly, these groups—undocumented, transgendered, Muslim, African American, and women survivors of sexual assault— are in crisis and undergoing trauma. In this chapter, I discuss my efforts as a member of the “Communiversity” to engage in organizing connecting students to community efforts. Lessons that I learned through my experience highlight the need to update community organizing models to address contemporary struggles.

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While many anthropologists, myself included, make our careers and reap rewards for our work “overseas”—including our “activism”—it is also important to engage in critical reflection about our work “at home.” While I might consider myself an activist, I am employed as a full-time, tenured, professor at a public university in a rural, small city in the Midwest. The public university system is part of society, its fate intertwined with that of the larger public. Global capitalism, particularly in its current neoconservative, imperialist variant, has made systematic assaults on public institutions while driving global inequality. Activists and scholars alike are grappling with solutions. Rather than playing a constant game of whack-a-mole, where can we dig in our heels and turn the tide against forces of increasing inequality and hate now fully out in the open with a rise of right-wing nationalism (see also Kline et al., in this volume)? Anti-immigrant xenophobia and white nationalism have found validation in Trump-era policies and rhetoric. The tag quote for Robin Kelley’s 2016 Boston Forum discussion is: “The university is not an engine of social transformation. Activism is.” Public universities in particular are battlegrounds for a range of issues. It is high time a town-gown coalition bridging the community and the university—what I call the “Communiversity”—finds common cause not just for activism but organizing, mobilizing particular groups and communities to transform relations of power. Organizing within and around the university—the Communiversity—has its own unique challenges. Long-term organizing for justice is not easy work, and it necessitates collaboration. This requires attention to reciprocity, and those of us within the academy need to not only work against the tendency toward accumulation and status, but actively disrupt institutional power dynamics and hierarchies. Jaskiran Dhillon (2018) proposes “reflexive relationality,” which she defines as “extending and reframing what counts as scholarly labor and research.” Aimée Cox (2018) similarly suggests unconditional relationality, which “is rooted in the belief that we are responsible for and accountable to one another” and as such, knowledge needs to be produced collaboratively. Collaborations by their nature tend to be fragile, requiring shared commitment and upkeep. And collaborators must always check their privilege and “saviorism” at the door. This is often hard for scholars, and particularly white male scholars, for whom privilege tends to line up. This moment calls upon people to move beyond being allies—where privilege remains intact—to becoming accomplices, acknowledging selfinterest and putting one’s own body on the line, disrupting and dismantling privilege. Radical Puerto Rican scholar/activist/educator Jessie Fuentes said at a community training program described below that one should always enter spaces as a learner. For long-term organizing work to succeed, those trained as scholars indeed have much to learn. Especially since only 21 percent of anthropology PhDs are employed as tenure track faculty, skills such as writing grants or understanding and navigating multiple bureaucracies are critical. Writing for different audiences, such as blogs, letters to editors or policymakers, and even tweets, is imperative. Experience and preparation for “public engagement” such as facilitating meetings,

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conducting needs assessments, understanding how power works, strategy and issue identification, organizing constituent groups, antiracism, uncovering and dismantling privilege, working across unequal identity groups, and coalition building. In short, community organizing offers the potential to address the very inequalities that have been systematically undermining both the “public” and education. In other words, the failures of anthropology and the systematic undoing of public higher education could have the unintended consequence of shoving more people with an anthropological imagination into the world well beyond the ivory tower. Building on the introduction and other chapters in this volume, this chapter pluralizes what is meant by activism, discussing the ways in which anthropology is and is not activism. Particularly, I discuss organizing, which is based in relationships between individuals and communities, and altering relationships of power. I take as my case my own work within what is branded as the “get involved major” at Northern Illinois University (NIU). The centerpiece of my involvement concerns a class which trains and deploys students as organizers on a range of local efforts. The results are mixed. I conclude the chapter with a series of lessons that might be useful to other anthropologists organizing within the Communiversity.

Organizing Activism comes in many forms, from the simple (to borrow the NYPD phrase) “if you see something, say something” to generations-long struggles for structural change in society, if not revolution. Activism has taken on qualities of identity, informing one’s own self-defined role: Many people claim an “activist” identity. This attachment to being an activist risks eclipsing the results of activism. True, it is often hard if not impossible to measure the outcomes of activism, certainly in periods of entrenched and growing reactionary violence against marginalized groups. However, it is especially important that scholars, including anthropologists, remain vigilant about keeping the focus on the results, having self-awareness about being given (or taking) credibility to write about our experiences, which risks displacing the voices of others, including those we work alongside. Documenting these unfortunately not widely discussed dilemmas, my colleagues and I published a series of essays discussing the perils, limitations, and even failures of our activism (Checker, Davis, and Schuller, 2014). This chapter focuses on a subset of activism: Organizing. At its core, organizing centers around relationships between people and communities and mobilizing these communities to transform relationships of power. There are many types of community organizing, from labor unions to civil rights. Radical labor activist Saul Alinsky formalized some of the “best practices” and principles from his experience in his masterwork, Rules for Radicals (Alinsky, 1971). He is known for sometimes outlandish tactics such as threatening to shut down the world’s busiest airport by having everyone go to the bathroom at once. Alinsky is certainly not without his critics: the organization he founded, Chicago’s Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), empowered white ethnic communities whose unchallenged racism led to segregationist practices that hurt African American and Latinx communities.

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Also in Chicago, the Midwest Academy, founded in 1973 to train community organizers, offered an approach that embraced civil rights leaders, organizations, and approaches. The Midwest Academy formalized lessons in a specific user-friendly manual (Bobo, Kendall, and Max, 2010) used in trainings of organizers, which unlike Alinsky focused on strategies rather than tactics. One of the Midwest Academy’s most useful tools is its strategy charts, which outline and ask organization members to be specific in identifying motivations and power of a range of groups: The constituents, allies, targets/ decision-makers—both primary and secondary—as well as opponents. According to the Midwest Academy, direct action organizing at its core is about altering the relations of power. Choosing the issue for an organization to work on is among the most important and challenging steps. The Midwest Academy has over a dozen criteria for a “good” issue, but the primary considerations are that it must result in a real improvement in people’s lives, give people a sense of their own power, be deeply felt, widely felt, and winnable. These criteria offer useful grounding for those of us who find ourselves within academic institutions. The Midwest Academy also has its critics. Rinku Sen, a journalist/activist who worked with Color Lines and the Center for Third World Organizing, takes issue with the Midwest Academy’s focus on issues, particularly that they must be winnable and especially widely felt (Sen, 2003). A “people’s organization” includes people who are undocumented, queer, and/or stuck in the prison industrial complex. As the introduction and other chapters in the volume demonstrate, there are many ways of activisting. Having as a criterion that an issue will be important to the most people continues the processes of marginalization. This “least common denominator” approach serves to disempower. In its place, Sen proposes that members of an organization deliberate about what criteria are the most important to them and use these values within their decision-making processes. As an illustration, Maria Torres, an alumna of NIU, who spent several years as a community organizer for two organizations—a faith-based social justice coalition and a group focusing on undocumented rights—brought this home in her presentation to current students in a training in spring semester 2019. Chicago is large and (perhaps unfairly) is often singled out as the most segregated city in the US. The membership base of Maria’s faith-based coalition was scattered between the predominantly white North Side and the predominantly Black South Side (and the West Side, where Mexiricans1 are being displaced through processes of gentrification). Most of the members—those with time and money to contribute to the organization—lived on the North Side. For them, the issue of “peace” during the longest war in US history in Afghanistan, which began almost immediately after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, spilling over into Syria a decade later, called to them. However, the way that the issue was defined whitewashed the ways in which the Chicago police department militarized communities of color, particularly the South and West Sides. The process by which the issue was chosen was “democratic,” as members voted, but in the end it gradually but surely pushed out core constituencies. In her presentation, Torres showed a clip of Dean Spade, listing several organizations and their criteria for choosing issues. Spade is a law professor at Seattle

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University and author of Normal Life (Spade, 2011), a radical critique of the ways in which the legal system and nonprofits collude to enforce normative identities. Spade is also trans and the co-founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, named after the transLatina who was among the original protesters at Stonewall that kicked off the modern gay rights movement (I am choosing that term deliberately)2. Spade discussed a black-brown coalition who call themselves prison abolitionists, referring to the clause in the 13th Amendment that legalizes slavery in cases of someone being duly convicted of a crime. One of the criteria the Seattle group used to select an issue was whether a given strategy added more resources to the police, and another was whether it had elite support. If the answer was yes, this organization chose a different path. Contemporary activists expand what counts as organizing, arguing for a new way of thinking about organizing. Furthermore, this generation of activists engaging current struggles need to lead this discussion. Charlene Carruthers, co-founder of Black Youth Project 100 (BYP 100)—founded alongside Black Lives Matter in 2013 when Trayvon Martin’s killer walked free—argued that “in this post-Obama era, it is crucial that we read about how to organize and how to build a movement from those who are actually doing it” (Carruthers, 2018: 40). Carruthers outlined what she called the Chicago Model: Intergenerational, shaped by feminist and queer threads in the Black radical tradition, local-national-global, and coalitional. Like Black Lives Matter, BYP 100 was co-founded by not just Black feminists but Black queer feminists, whose vision for community organizing begins with the 1977 statement from the Combahee River Collective, “until we all get free” none of us will (Taylor, 2017). Not only deliberately intersectional in a Black feminist analysis, Carruthers strikes at the heart of conservatism within the Black radical tradition, the appeasement of the mainstream by policing who gets to represent the movement, “respectability politics.” Carruthers argues that as a critical ingredient to effective organizing and activism, the Black queer feminist (BQF) lens allows people “…to bring their full selves into the process of dismantling all systems of oppression…by using it we can more effectively prioritize problems and methods that center historically marginalized people in our communities” (2018: 10). Carruthers’ Unapologetic is a community organizing text. In it, Carruthers discusses her journey being trained within an Alinskyite IAF affiliate. Carruthers begins, like most understandings of community organizing: “What does community organizing entail? I believe that two essential elements of it are developing leaders and strategizing to take action [and]…relationships between individuals working toward the same goal” (2018: 89). Also like the Midwest Academy, Carruthers points to the importance of self-interest: “Selflessness is problematic because it is devoid of someone’s vision for the world and their place in it. Self-interest, on the other hand, situates you, your vision, and your values in relationship with other. Identifying self-interest is essential because it allows individuals to work not simply as allies but as accomplices in our collective liberation” (2018: 66–67).

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In other words, anthropologists, and those working within academic institutions more generally, need to be more transparent about our motivations and our interests. Why do we choose to get involved? What additional cultural capital do we claim when choosing to engage? How do official disciplinary reward structures work to guide, limit, encourage or discourage, frame, shape, or co-opt our individual initiatives? What do we get out of “activism” personally and professionally? The BQF lens, unapologetic, deliberately argues that organizations and movements for transformative justice must be self-consciously inclusive: “If marginalized people are not in the movement to offer critical analysis and perspective, our movement will not succeed” (Carruthers, 2018: 68). A refrain that reverberates with many millennial activists is self-care. Given the trauma that the social media age constantly re-inflicts on individuals whose bodies and identities are targeted by the state, organizers must engage in constant self-reflection: Given the trauma, are we able to do this work? Melissa Harris-Perry (2017) pushes back, arguing for Squad Care, communities of accountability. Carruthers’ text is challenging, as it should be. While Carruthers offers a way out of what Indigenous Action (2014) termed the “Ally Industrial Complex,” in the role of accomplice, she is clear about the need for a reparations framework, not just from the government, foundations, and nonprofits, but from individuals. “White liberals and progressives hold too much control over political institutions, resources, and policy—and consequently too much power over our very lives. That power should be relinquished” (Carruthers, 2018: 138). Anthropologists who position ourselves as “allies”—myself included—would do well to heed this warning. Putting into practice being an “accomplice” requires a lot of self-work and particularly self-education about what spaces are appropriate to enter and what roles are being asked of us…and importantly what are not.

Organizing in the “Communiversity” Like others such as Karen Brodkin, Dána-Ain Davis, Hillary Haldane, Susan Hyatt, Vincent Lyon-Callo, Jeff Maskovsky, Leith Mullings, Ida Susser, and Jennifer Wies, I came to anthropology via community organizing. I worked for four years in the Twin Cities as a community organizer, including two and a half years at the St. Paul Tenants Union. As I have written elsewhere (Schuller, 2012), these experiences—especially being laid off after being forbidden to organize to protect 50 units of transitional housing—were foundational to my interest in anthropological work studying the impact of funding on nonprofit organizations. My anti-racist work led me to Haiti, particularly to interrogating the silences of Haiti’s contribution to the US through the Louisiana Purchase and the liberation of humanity through the Haitian Revolution. While conducting dissertation research I accompanied Haitian social movement organizations in campaigns to cancel Haiti’s debt, promoted solidarity with Haitian factory workers, and co-directed a documentary film which centers on the latter, particularly women (Bergan and Schuller, 2009). Before being informed of the language of “accomplice” I fumbled towards a critique of allyship in an article that I

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wrote to interrogate the results of activism, hoping to provide space and validation for honest, frank self-critique, which colleagues and I were desperately looking for but found were missing in the promotion of activism as anthropology’s rebranding (Schuller, 2014). I found myself being hired not despite but because of this activist engagement, in both anthropology and the Center for NGO Leadership and Development at NIU. The Center was first established in 2010, with me as their first joint faculty hire in 2012 serving both anthropology and the Center, in part because of the clear role that anthropology and an anthropological imagination play in the nonprofit sector. The so-called “make a difference major” was rebranded after nonprofit employers could not understand what “Community Leadership and Civic Engagement” was or how it applied to them. This major, renamed “Nonprofit and NGO Studies,” is an awkward but deliberative hybrid of liberal arts and nonprofit management, local nonprofits, and international NGOs. Social justice is a key organizing theme in the Center’s work. The major has gone through extensive revisions of curriculum and rebranding. A course on community organizing was taken out of the required core, because of the way that I, a former community organizer, teach the course. These contradictions are in full display in the penultimate course, the pre-capstone “Nonprofits and Community Engagement.” In the first year, I worked with students and student organizations to bring the United States Student Association’s Grassroots Organizing Weekend (GROW) to this course. Not only did I attend a GROW training as a student organizer; it was where I decided to become a community organizer as a vocation, not simply an avocation. Students in the first cohort, whom I allowed to come up with their own projects, were also energized by GROW. One of the projects, the “Communiversity Garden” still stands today. A group working on sexual assault made institutional strides, before Obama’s “It’s On Us” campaign, and one of its members became a student member of NIU’s Board of Trustees and later a lawyer. A tenants’ association fell flat on its face, despite my clear interest as a former tenants’ union organizer. Over the five years, students did research for a local food hub, agitated to prevent the expansion of the county jail and bringing a state prison to the county, and advocated for divestment of fossil fuels. One particular group worked for access for mental health services, as Northwestern University hospital swallowed up our local health care provider and shut down the mental health facility; this group also started an “Active Minds” chapter on campus, which is still functional today. However, by far the most transformative group students worked with was supporting the undocumented community, first on campus and now in the county and region. This is my most challenging class to teach, by far, and to be honest I usually feel as if I failed at the end of the semester. I have tinkered with the class, which is microcosm of the new major, every spring semester when I teach the class. By the fourth time, the formula, involving a lot of hands-on, front-end work, was put in place for everything to succeed, and then the polar vortex of 2019 ate up two weeks in a row at the beginning of the semester.

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One challenge is the alignment of student interests: I have to find community projects and community partners whose work matches student interests. There were typically four constituencies to the nonprofit and NGO studies major: People who could not get into business school but who wanted to be social entrepreneurs, folks who wanted to be “leaders” and nonprofit executives, earnest white Christians who volunteer for the disadvantaged, and a host of people who consider themselves activists—black, brown, white; environmentalist, feminist, internationalist. With the drop of the “leader” in the name of the major and change in enrollment practices of the business school— and their putting up courses that resemble ours while no longer accepting ours as electives—we are left with the latter two. And interestingly enough, while enrollments have dropped by over 6,000 over the seven years that I have been at NIU—a decline of almost 25 percent—Latinx and African American student enrollments have remained steady and even grown, including and especially undocumented students. I do not believe that the two-year-six-day state budget impasse from 2016 to 2018 can explain both at once. A steady stream of activist students, like Maria Torres and others, who are now part of the planning process for our community organizing, made it through. Apparently the three of us “joint hires”—all white—who all went through the Undocumented Ally Training and include inclusive language in our syllabi, convinced others that we are worth a try. Now, the majority of my Nonprofits and Community Engagement class are Black and brown, with other nonwhites in the mix as well. To other anthropologists, I should state clearly that these increases in Black and brown students have NOT made it to anthropology classes. We do need to take this seriously and ask why this is. Another factor within my control as instructor is to replicate the energy and success of the GROW training. The second year that I did it, the newness wore off; I was old meat at that point. I did not require it, and only a handful of students who have one and sometimes two jobs—some with significant family responsibilities—showed up. Meanwhile, the new NIU administration was reorganizing, doubling the number of vice presidents (one of the impetuses for an ethics investigation—not to mention organizing a faculty union). There was not one but two in charge of diversity. The now-former diversity officer conditioned her support of the second go-around of GROW (January 2016) that we would organize our own training on campus. And so we did, in January 2017, a week after Trump took office. That fact, and the fact that one of our headliner trainers, Celina Villanueva with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights rushed to O’Hare to attempt to stop Trump’s Muslim Ban, catalyzed the people who attended. Tellingly, of the ten students in my class who said that they would show up (out of 32 in total), only three did, and only two over the entire weekend. The queer-straight/transcisgender/Black-brown-Asian-white/citizen-undocumented coalition that emerged became a force on campus, attending each other’s events, such as a screening of “13th” (DuVernay, 2016) and Dream Action’s “Coming Out of the

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Shadows” event, which was attended by over 250 people. They also took over the Student Association from the Greeks (one of the frats triggered a training of 1,700 students because of a racial bias incident), and several of them went on to become organizers. We called it CORE (Community Organizing Weekend Retreat). More than 35 people started, and just under 30 completed it.3 The Academic Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion office that funded it wanted the students to continue their work plans, to have measurable outcomes for their investment—“deliverables.” The training itself was a mash up of disconnected messages, themes, activities, films, and presentations from the planning group. But the diverse planning group got out a very diverse group of students. In the spring of 2019 an even larger planning committee (although the same core group) renamed it the People’s Organizing Weekend Retreat (POWER). The purpose of POWER was to empower student activists, who have previous experience planning and/or participating in activities centered on the tenets of social justice and to enhance their tool kits for the purpose of community organizing. Our goal was for student activists to strategically and effectively create spaces for intentional and culturally-specific planning focused on coalition building while allowing participants to work as allies and collaborators. In addition to some members of the planning committee, presenters included two NIU alum who were now community organizers, Mason Astill (of Change Corps) and Maria Torres (formerly of Proyecto de Acción de los Suburbios de Oeste—PASO). One of the most energetic discussions was led by two Chicago activist/educators, David Stovall and Jessie Fuentes. Participants mostly came from my class, as I had required either this or an eightpage paper. Recruitment was hampered by the weather and probably a lack of early buy-in. The planning committee was too big to be functional, with the temptation to say to oneself that others will do the work, a bystander effect. A clearer set of roles and conversations with the student groups would have helped. Also, we hoped that this year’s group would serve as ambassadors, bringing younger students to the table. However, as all of us are overworked and understaffed, follow up did not happen at all. Momentum is key.

Results and Student Feedback We asked students to evaluate POWER, and 83 percent rated it as excellent. The schedule was moved around to accommodate people arriving late, so participants did not actually get to role play or write their two-minute “what’s your why.” As far as comments, student participants wanted more time. POWER did not include any Asian presenters, and we received suggestions to be more inclusive to this student population. Most presenters were Latinx, but there were three Black presenters, three queer folks including two trans, and an undocumented person as presenters. In the planning meeting that began the 2020 organizing effort, which included two POWER alumni, a student recommended also having someone with a disability lead a session. Students appreciated the frank talk from people of color about self-care in the context of working against multiple systems of oppression.

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The discussions in the breakout sessions—chosen and then voted on by students—included a campaign for more diversity in faculty, more culturally appropriate mental health services, a living wage for student workers, and greater accountability and sensitivity for police. The associate vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion was in the room when students presented their plan on the final day. She offered feedback, in many cases quite detailed. Of the four issues, one was launched as an “ask” at Coming Out of the Shadows, for 30 new faculty of color over the next five years. Given the lack of follow up—for reasons noted above—the other ideas did not materialize. The only graduate student (during CORE we limited it to undergraduates) was perplexed, saying “so this is just an exercise?” Even though the content of the training was more focused on organizing and coherent, with a greater diversity of presenters, the lack of student buy-in was key. This started with the larger committee, with staff not feeling involved. One said after an organizational meeting—our second for the year—that it felt that we invited them last minute and that most of the issues were already decided. Missing was the ground-up connection with student organizations. While the coercion boosted attendance, in the long run it failed to lead to transformative change on campus. Therefore, to measure the “results” of POWER requires examining the impact that it had on the four student projects for class. Of the four community partners, one was new to the class. The other three reported that students were more engaged, focused, and effective than in previous iterations of the class. But this is still addressing outputs, not outcomes. Indeed, one key to transformative outcomes was community partner involvement. The new partner was not only new to the class; she was told about it only the day before the class started by her supervisor. While the class project was a continuation of an effort that my department chair and I supported for several years (Thu et al., 2017), the results were stifled by different and inconsistent expectations and communication patterns. Instead of consultants working on new projects, the students were used as volunteers to staff existing programs, which almost invariably had low attendance. As is typical, the group working with Welcoming Western Counties on justice for the local undocumented community was highly motivated, organized, and did a lot of work. They contacted all area churches, designed and conducted a survey of local nonprofits, and organized an Undocumented Ally training for nonprofit staff. The community partner, including one of the POWER co-organizers, was very organized and hands-on. A group that worked on a “moving target” issue ended up quite successful in garnering attention among the city and local media to address a slumlord, the city’s second largest. After the class ended, the group morphed into a DeKalb Tenants Union, which had several meetings during the summer, typically a “dead zone” in the campus town. It kept going and continued to organize the following fall. A grassroots effort to turn the school board around succeeded. One of the first changes that the school board made was to push back a particular landlord’s lawsuit and other bullying tactics to kick out undocumented students. They are also inviting Welcoming Western Counties to

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work with district staff. And they showed up to a meeting called for by Pastor Joseph Mitchell, who founded the community organization that led their campaign, following a viral video of city and county police putting a young Black man in a choke hold and tasering him following an arrest for which they did not cite cause (Torres and Bremer, 2019). These issues are all connected with one another. However successful the outcome was for the school board election, the stated goals of greater voter turnout were not met; this could have been because several races “up the ticket” were uncontested. This group of students had the lowest attendance at POWER (only one attended) and consequently documented lessons learned too late, that they should have been more proactive in recruitment and in canvassing. The learning process is important, and hopefully transformative to the students, but we should always be aware that our “value add” to the process needs to justify the community agency’s time and effort. In other words, outcomes—tangible results—matter.

Updating Models Current struggles for justice demand that university professors need not only to strengthen ties to who Antonio Gramsci (1971) called “organic intellectuals”— people who come to knowledge about their own social group through experience and reflection, not official credentialing—but also to change our value systems to respect their contributions. While liberal arts still exist in what remains of the public university, organic intellectuals can provide insights, experiences, and training to complement those of professional anthropologists. My experience working in the Center has also taught me that current top-down buzzwords of “engagement” and “service learning” are often not fully thought through. As part of capitalist “bean-counting” metrics of the university, the priorities are expressed in the number of hours students volunteer, not the impact. British universities share this in the Research Excellence Framework, which is an inspiration for the concept of the “audit culture” (Shore and Wright, 2000; Strathern, 2000). Given official promotion of “engagement,” NIU is beginning to tap out local agencies’ abilities to manage student volunteers. Colleagues elsewhere tell me that this is not unique to NIU. The concern across campuses remains students’ education and not the outcome—what activists critique as “laying on hands” approach, voyeurism, poverty pimping, or white saviorism. The antidote to this is an organic relationship, with professors being active members of the collectives and movements in the first place. Bringing activists in as instructors, equally valued, can make a powerful statement about what gets counted as knowledge (Heyman, Morales, and Núñez, 2009; Todd, 2015; Rosas, 2018; Cox, 2018). It would also pay activists and allow them to do more than “babysit” students (to use the words of one local activist). As noted in this volume’s introduction, a still more powerful statement would be to work with organic intellectual colleagues on shaping the research agenda in the first place, long promoted in Participatory Action Research (Whyte, 1991; Stringer, 1996).

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And we need to be deliberately inclusive of who we consider is that “we” and update our models accordingly. Five women scholars of color trained in “activist anthropology” at University of Texas−Austin encourage moving beyond Participatory Action Research into what they call a “fugitive anthropology.” They argue that “our training must entail grounded discussions of the particular challenges nonmale, nonwhite, nonhetero, and noncisgender bodies face in order to be better prepared as researchers” (Berry et al., 2017: 559).

Dismantling the Ivory Tower Dismantling the ivory tower to unleash the liberatory potential of anthropology and indeed an engaged academy requires actually doing the work in making change. We also need to be, to borrow a line from Hamilton (Miranda, 2016), in the room where it happens: Going to community meetings, engaging our neighbors, discussing what is to be done, establishing relationships, and building trust. In addition to walking the walk and valuing this engagement, particularly as anthropologists, we should be open to learning, challenging our own assumptions and “worldview,” and not always act as “experts.” One essential ingredient is what can be called a radical empathy, not just trying to understand other people’s point of view but also decentering our own (Schuller, 2021). In addition to the inequality and social distance within the ivory tower, a particular challenge that requires specific attention and action to work against is the “silo.” It is not enough to change the rules within the academy to reward “activism;” we must also make sure that those of us who attempt to do so are required to check in with those who are most affected, those who should be leading the charge. In other words, accountability. This accountability cuts in several directions. Given the relationship between public universities and communities, those of us seeking temporary refuge within universities (Harney and Moten, 2003) need to address structural inequalities within them while we seek to dismantle the ivory tower. Working with communities on today’s pressing issues requires both/and, not either/or action. Accountability to marginalized individuals and communities is key to dismantling the ivory tower. It requires all structural changes noted above to the reward structures, and transformative, radical reciprocity behind a true spirit of community collaboration. Specifically:   

Today’s urgent world problems require intentional collaborations of activists bridging “town and gown.” Resources of the university need to be defended, as public goods, and shared equitably among students and communities, particularly marginalized groups. Particularly public universities should fulfill their role as spaces of encounter and discussion, deliberating on the urgent issues facing communities, identifying solutions, and then training and mobilizing communities.

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Organizing offers potential synergy with an anthropological imagination dedicated to human liberation. Before any of this is possible, individuals within the university need to divest ourselves of the internalized capitalist, colonialist, racist logics of inequality. Particularly those most privileged within the system need to do the necessary work to own—and then dismantle—our privilege. Decolonization must always be accompanied by action to change the institutional structures and rules of the game. It should be accompanied by real, concrete action to redress dispossession. Activist and community partners need to be co-producers of knowledge, having a say in crafting the research agenda, empowered to call professors out, keeping us accountable.

Activist scholars such as W.E.B. DuBois, Aimée Cox, Robin Kelley, and Jaskiran Dhillon, among many others, have urged universities to join humanity’s struggle for liberation. Sadly, until now, universities and particularly anthropology have more often than not failed to answer the call. People within the academy can—and must—reform scholarly institutions, changing the reward structures and lowering barriers like fees, in order to encourage community collaboration. At the same time, learning lessons from activists engaging ever-more complex and intersectional crises, together we can create new, deliberately inclusive spaces for town-gown organizing. These collaborative spaces can connect activists and movements across the globe and across the tracks, engulfed in local struggles for justice, to explore the ways in which these local concerns are interwoven. These intentional encounters can consist of learning from one another about the specifics of local injustices, possible parallels, challenges, strategies, and underlying roots. They are about identifying connections. Herein lies a key principle of anthropology and activism. We must not only decolonize anthropology but work to dismantle the ivory tower. Working explicitly, openly, and “unapologetically” on organizing in the Communiversity offers one way forward, but we must all first engage in unyielding self-critique.

Notes 1 Torres’ term Mexirican is a neologism acknowledging the hybridity and the community coalitions between two Latinx communities in Chicago. Mexicans tend to predominate west of Chicago (e.g., Los Angeles, Dallas, Denver) and Puerto Ricans to the East (e.g., New York, and Florida, along with other Caribbean groups like Cubans). 2 The representation of the movement whitewashed the diversity of Stonewall, and erased trans participation, at least until the 1990s when “LGBT” became commonplace, and “queer” for the more radical vision. 3 For more information, the schedule, and training materials visit www.anthropolitics.org/ peoples-organizing-weekend-retreat-power.

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References Alinsky, Saul David. 1971. Rules for Radicals; a Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, first edition. New York: Random House. Bergan, Renée and Mark Schuller. 2009. Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources. Berry, Maya J., Claudia Chávez Argüelles, Shanya Cordis, Sarah Ihmoud, and Elizabeth Velásquez Estrada. 2017. “Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field.” Cultural Anthropology, 32(4): 537–565. Bobo, Kimberley A., Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max. 2010. Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists, 4th Edition. Santa Ana, CA: Forum Press. Carruthers, Charlene. 2018. Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Checker, Melissa, Dàna-Ain Davis, and Mark Schuller. 2014. “The Conflicts of Crisis: Critical Reflections on Feminist Ethnography and Anthropological Activism.” American Anthropologist, 116(2): 408–420. Coates, Ta-Nehisi. 2017. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. New York: One World Publishing Co. Cox, Aimee Meredith. 2018. “Afterword: Why Anthropology?” Hot Spots, Fieldsights (Society for Cultural Anthropology), September 26. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/after word-why-anthropology (accessed March 2, 2019). Dhillon, Jaskiran. 2018. “The Future of Anthropology Starts from Within.” Fieldsights (Society for Cultural Anthropology), September 26. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/ 1532-the-future-of-anthropology-starts-from-within (accessed March 2, 2019). DuVernay, Ava. 2016. 13th. Los Gatos, CA: Netflix. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections From the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers. Harris-Perry, Melissa. 2017. “How #SquadCare Saved My Life.” Elle, July 24. www.elle.com/ culture/career-politics/news/a46797/squad-care-melissa-harris-perry/ (accessed December 6, 2019). Heyman, Josiah McC., Maria Cristina Morales, and Guillermina Gina Núñez. 2009. “Engaging with the Immigrant Human Rights Movement in a Besieged Border Region: What Do Applied Social Scientists Bring to the Policy Process?” NAPA Bulletin, 31: 13–29. Indigenous Action. 2014. “Accomplices Not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex.” May 4. www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-comp lex/comment-page-1/ (accessed December 6, 2019). Miranda, Lin-Manuel. 2016. “Hamilton: An American Musical.” In Hamilton: The Revolution, edited by Jeremy McCarter. New York: Grand Central Publishing. Rosa, Jonathan and Yarimar Bonilla. 2017. “Deprovincializing Trump, Decolonizing Diversity, and Unsettling Anthropology.” American Ethnologist, 44(2): 201–208. Rosas, Gilberto. 2018. “Fugitive Work: On the Criminal Possibilities of Anthropology.” Hot Spots, Fieldsights (Society for Cultural Anthropology), September 26. https://culanth. org/fieldsights/1529-fugitive-work-on-the-criminal-possibilities-of-anthropology (accessed March 2, 2019). Schuller, Mark. 2012. Killing with Kindness: Haiti, International Aid and NGOs. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Schuller, Mark. 2014. “Being an Insider Without: Activist Anthropological Engagement in Haiti after the Earthquake.” American Anthropologist, 116(2): 409–412.

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Schuller, Mark. 2021. Humanity’s Last Stand: Confronting Global Catastrophe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Sen, Rinku. 2003. Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing and Advocacy. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass (Wiley). Shore, Cris and Susan Wright. 2000. “Coercive Accountability: the Rise of Audit Culture in Higher Education.” In Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability: Ethics and the Academy, edited by Marilyn Strathern: 57–89. London: Routledge. Spade, Dean. 2011. Normal Life: Administrative Violence, Critical Trans Politics, and the Limits of Law. Brooklyn, NY: South End Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 2000. Audit Cultures: Anthropological Studies in Accountability, Ethics, and the Academy. London: Routledge. Stringer, E.T. 1996. Action Research: A Handbook for Practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications. Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta. 2017. How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Chicago: Haymarket Books. Thu, Kendall, Mark Schuller, Tiara Huggins, and Valarie Redmond. 2017. “‘Being Heard, Not Only Seen’: Intersections of Tea Partyism, Racism, and Classism in a Low-income Housing Struggle in Dekalb, Illinois.” Human Organization, 76(4): 348–357. Todd, Zoe. 2015. “Decolonial Dreams: Unsettling the Academy Through Namewak.” In The New (New) Corpse, edited by Carolyn Picard: 104–117. Chicago, IL: The Green Lantern Press. Torres, Sandra and Shelby Bremer. 2019. “Video Shows DeKalb Officers Choking, Using Stun Gun on Man During Arrest.” NBC Chicago, August 27. www.nbcchicago.com/ news/local/video-shows-dekalb-officers-choking-tasing-man-during-arrest-558420641. html (accessed December 6, 2019). Whyte, William F. 1991. Participatory Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

12 ACADEMIC AND ACTIVIST COLLABORATION IN TURBULENT TIMES Responding to Immigrant Policing in Central Florida Nolan Kline, Mary Vickers, Jeannie Economos, and Chris Furino On June 28, 2019, ten days after announcing his reelection campaign in Orlando, Florida (and 28 miles northeast of one of the protest sites Smith-Cavros and Widener describe in this volume), Donald Trump tweeted a threat to begin largescale deportations of immigrants in the United States (Alvarez et al., 2019). Following the tweet, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced plans to conduct raids and begin forcible removal proceedings in ten cities. Two days after the tweet, however, Trump announced that the raids would be postponed until after the Independence Day holiday on July 4 as part of a political tactic to pressure Congressional lawmakers to alter asylum policies (Ordoñez and Allyn, 2019). The rapid announcement and alteration of raids, and using raids as a ploy to pressure Congress, are part of the Trump administration’s erratic approach to immigration matters that intends to stoke fear among undocumented immigrants, particularly those who are Latinx (a gender-neutral way to refer to Latino/a). The Trump administration’s capricious approach to immigration is part of a longstanding effort to divide immigrants and other populations based on notions of racial difference, and these efforts demand action from anthropologists and activist organization leaders. Since assuming the office of President of the United States, and while campaigning, Trump repeatedly referred to Latinx immigrants as criminally deviant and racially other (Lee, 2015), using a historic form of othering immigrants based on racial difference (Fairchild, 2004) to advance his personal political goals. Such rhetoric continued during his reelection speech in Orlando when he suggested that allowing immigrants to continue purportedly “pouring” into the country was a “betrayal” of “American life” (Haberman, Karni, and Shear, 2019). Racist and xenophobic rhetoric that informs public policy demands urgent anthropological attention, and anthropologists are uniquely positioned to document the lived consequences of anti-

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immigrant politics that perpetuate nativism and to combat such political ideologies. These efforts can be bolstered through collaborative engagement with immigrant rights organizations. In this chapter, we describe collaborative, activist ethnographic research between an anthropologist, undergraduate student, and two immigrant rights organizations to understand the consequences of anti-immigrant rhetoric and immigrant policing practices. In doing so, we argue for the importance of politically engaged anthropology in responding to pressing social and political problems and describe how activist methodologies can result in more robust forms of data collection. Moreover, we underscore how anthropological engagement itself can be a form of activism and describe how anthropological scholarship can support community-based organizations.

Activist Anthropology Anthropologists, like other social scientists, use methodological and theoretical approaches that are historically and contextually situated. As Sherry Ortner has argued, the social world influences the theoretical perspectives used in social sciences and academic work writ large, pointing to the rise of neoliberalism since the 1980s that led to a concomitant growth of anthropological work focused on power and inequality (Ortner, 2016). Focusing on inequality, however, can problematically fetishize human suffering, which in recent years has resulted in a call for anthropology “of the good” (Kelly, 2013; Robbins, 2013; Ortner, 2016). As a theoretical perspective, methodological stance, and moral positioning, activist anthropology not only documents suffering or resistance, but blurs lines between participant and observer and provides rich ethnographic and theoretical insights (Ortner, 2016: 64). Activist-anthropologists, then, can employ their political positions to produce rigorous scholarship and collaborate with community-based organizations to advance shared political goals. Anthropologists have a long history of activist engagement and often occupy a “middle ground” between activist and academic (Knauft, 2006: 415). Middle ground positions arrive out of a disciplinary convention of reflexivity and interrogating how personal politics shape fieldwork. They also contribute to broader efforts to put anthropology to “use” to address pressing social problems and respond to discipline-wide discussions about how to grapple with anthropology’s history of problematic engagement, such as serving as a tool of colonialism (RylkoBauer, Singer, and Van Willigen, 2006). In occupying a middle ground, it is not uncommon for anthropologists to serve as intermediaries between different configurations of community-based organizations, government agencies, and other stakeholders, or serve as advocates for populations needing specific health or social services (Rylko-Bauer, Singer, and Van Willigen, 2006; Kline, 2010; Mullins, 2011). In many circumstances, these forms of engagement are components of fieldwork. Beyond taking a middle road as advocate or intermediary, however, several anthropologists have taken more explicitly activist approaches to

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ethnography that include political engagement. These approaches are partly informed by anthropologists’ own political positions and feeling a personal sense of obligation to work towards meaningful social change, as Willow and Yotebieng describe in the introduction to this volume. More than a sense of personal obligation, however, politically engaged, activist anthropology, as Shannon Speed argues, is both “necessary and productive” (Speed, 2006: 66). Activist engagement can be productive for an academic scholar because of the potential for academic products such as scholarly manuscripts, and because of the valuable insights gleaned from activist work that entails destabilizing power dynamics between researchers and participants. Activist engagement, for example, can challenge the notion that a researcher’s perspective is complete without sustained dialogue with activist collaborators. As Sally Engle Merry asserts, the unequal power dynamics between “researcher” and “informant” must be destabilized, and “any vestige of the Malinowskian idea that only the anthropologist can see the whole picture must be swept away, along with the troubling albeit convenient relationship of inequality between observer and observed” (Merry, 2005: 241). Accordingly, activist anthropology as a methodological stance entails a commitment towards a shared political goal, resulting in a form of empirically grounded critical engagement that is ethically warranted, necessary, and does not sacrifice theoretical rigor (Speed, 2006: 71–75; Hale, 2008). As a result, scholarly products from activist engagement can also align with academic career expectations, as activist engagement produces more robust types of data. Moreover, such work helps to undermine the well-critiqued concern that anthropologists might excessively document suffering (Robbins, 2013; see also Yotebieng, in this volume) and instead works to correct systemic oppression (Singer, 1995). Several anthropologists have shown through their activist scholarship that anthropologists have a duty to not only “bear witness” (Davis, 2006; Sanford, 2006) to political forms of subjugation, violence, suffering, and inequality, but to actively work to stop them (Hale, 2001; 2006; 2008; Pulido, 2008). Action to challenge, and not just document, oppressive power structures and hierarchies is therefore a necessary component in some forms of anthropological fieldwork. This is certainly the case in the US where a current immigration climate exacerbates an already aggressive immigration enforcement regime (Alexander and Fernandez, 2014; Kline, 2017; 2019) by taking new steps to put immigrant children in what journalists and politicians have described as “cages” (Dickerson, 2019) as they are separated from family members, and even go as far as returning the wrong children to families when ostensible reunifications occur (Bump, 2018).

Activist Anthropology and Immigration Policy The US has a deep history of anti-immigrant sentiment that has directly informed public policy. US immigration laws have historically used conflated notions of racial otherness, purported criminal propensities, and perceived health status to prohibit immigrants from entering or remaining in the country (Fairchild, 2004).

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In recent decades, US immigration policies have become increasingly hostile towards Latin American immigrants as reflected by federal and state laws that work to increase fear among Latinx immigrants and increase their risk for detection and deportation. These laws largely use racial profiling tactics (Arnold, 2007; Kline, 2019), reflecting how immigration enforcement policies can heighten social divisions based on race (Valdez, 2016). In recent years, the Trump administration has strategically capitalized on ubiquitous sentiments about immigrants’ purported racial differences and criminal deviance to justify aggressive immigration enforcement. For example, in announcing his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump suggested that the majority of Mexican immigrants were rapists, drug dealers, and otherwise criminally deviant (Lee, 2015). This rhetoric serves to justify the administration’s increasingly hostile and capricious immigration policy agenda. The administration proposed to end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which provides a temporary reprieve from deportation for some undocumented youth, and ceased the Temporary Protection Status program, which provides a legal status for immigrants escaping conflict and disaster from a limited number of countries. The Trump administration also created new immigration exclusions, such as banning immigrants from some predominately Muslim nations (Executive Order 13769) and doubled down on aggressive enforcement tactics, such as parent-child separation. More recently, the Trump administration proposed to levy excessive fines against undocumented immigrants who avoid deportation orders, including those who do so by seeking refuge in churches (Sacchetti, 2019), and floated a policy to make it more difficult for authorized immigrants to obtain lawful permanent residency if they have ever received public benefits, including publicly funded health services (Luthra, 2018). Such an erratic and hostile immigration policy context demands activist anthropological attention because it destabilizes individual immigrants’ lives, families, and entire communities. The co-authors of this chapter felt a deep sense of wanting to respond to the US’s aggressive immigration regime and anti-immigrant rhetoric, and we concluded that the best place to start was to better understand the unique context of our local Central Florida community.

Activist Engagement between an Academic Institution and Farmworker Organizations As a methodological approach and political position, activist anthropology requires anthropologists to establish relationships of mutual reciprocity and accountability with research participants (Hale, 2006; Low et al., 2010). Furthermore, it requires adopting an explicit political position to advance a common goal (Hale, 2006). As Charles Hale argues, activist anthropology requires not only sharing a political goal with “a group of people in struggle,” but also creating a dialogue with them in every part of the research process, from start to finish (Hale, 2006: 97). That dialogue, as Willow and Yotebieng describe in the introduction to this volume, does not necessarily mean living and working in different academic and activist worlds,

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but enthusiastically and intentionally merging the two. For us, this included developing a collaborative relationship between an academic institution and two immigrant rights organizations in Central Florida: The Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF), and Hope CommUnity Center (Hope). Our broad, shared political goal is to advance immigrants’ rights, and in this project, we aimed to document the lived experiences of immigration policy on Latinx immigrants living in Central Florida. Here, we show how relationships created as part of the activist anthropological research process can directly inform research processes and improve empirical insights.

Community Context and Data Collection The FWAF has five offices around the state, one of which is in Central Florida. The organization primarily focuses on farmworker health, safety and labor matters, and immigration issues. FWAF engages in a few collaborative relationships for impact litigation, providing basic health services to farmworkers, and has participated in academic studies with several universities in Florida and Georgia. Like FWAF, Hope focuses on immigration-related matters in Central Florida and provides a number of programs related to immigration. The organization was founded by three nuns in the 1970s who aimed to build an organization that advanced social and economic justice for poor and racial minority populations in the area. One of the nuns, Sister Ann, explained the difficulties in establishing the organization in an African American neighborhood with a large Latinx population. “We didn’t know what we were doing or how to get to know people, so I started going to a grocery store where I noticed a lot of Latinx customers, and I started shopping where they were and following them in the stores to get to know them!” One of the key programs that Hope offers is a service-learning program, in which university students visit Hope for varying lengths of time and engage in homestays, immigration seminars, and farm work to gain first-hand experience about immigrants’ lives. Co-author Nolan Kline has worked with the FWAF since 2007, when he was an undergraduate student at the institution where he now works. FWAF staff member and co-author Jeannie Economos regularly gives guest lectures in Kline’s classes, and students from Kline’s classes routinely intern with FWAF. Furthermore, students in classes that Kline teaches with service-learning components often work directly with FWAF and contribute to events that FWAF organizes. Similarly, Kline has worked with Hope since 2016 when he began working with co-author Chris Furino to organize immersive local field studies for students to learn about farm labor and immigration policy as part of service–learning courses. Overall, these types of engagement demonstrate how activist anthropology and academic work are well suited and can align with institutional expectations for service and teaching (Kline and Newcomb, 2013). Co-author Mary Vickers’ relationship with FWAF and Hope started in an upper level undergraduate anthropology course focused on activist anthropology that

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then informed our collaborative research and Vickers’ independent undergraduate thesis work. In the class, Vickers worked with Hope staff to organize a guide of local resources that are available to undocumented people, such as shelters, food banks, and educational programs. Having enjoyed the class, Vickers asked Kline to apply with her for a summer research grant to continue exploring activist anthropology and immigrant rights. That grant resulted in the research project that serves as the basis for this chapter. Vickers’ introduction to anthropological fieldwork was her introduction to activist anthropology, and she immediately saw the connection between the two and the importance of responding to large-scale social inequalities. For the project we describe here, Vickers exclusively committed 20–30 hours per week of participant observation, divided between the organizations for eight weeks during the summer of 2018. In addition to participant-observation experiences, Vickers and Kline interviewed (n=14) immigrants who use services at the FWAF and Hope. We used a snowball sampling method that began with recruiting participants that co-authors Economos and Furino suggested we interview. We also conducted key informant interviews with organization leaders (n=5) at FWAF and Hope, three focus groups with members of a mother’s group at Hope (n=14), and ethnographic surveys (n=28) focused on immigration at FWAF. Focus group participants and interviewees expressed interest in participating in the study because they wanted to share how immigrant policing changed in their local communities since Trump’s election, and some participants expressed a feeling of catharsis in participating in the research.

Orlando and Florida Context Florida is the third most populous state in the US (United States Census Bureau, 2018) and has the fourth-largest immigrant population in the country (Krogstad and Keegan, 2014). The majority of immigrants in Florida identify as Latinx (American Immigration Council 2017), and the state has a diverse Latinx population comprising immigrants from several Latin American countries. Despite the large immigrant population in Florida, the state has an aggressive immigration enforcement regimen. The state recently passed Senate Bill 168, which prohibits sanctuary cities and requires state agencies to support federal immigration enforcement efforts (Ch. 908, Laws of Fla.). Further, 14 counties participate in the 287(g) program (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2019)—a program that grants federal enforcement efforts to local police and has been shown to have numerous negative consequences on immigrant communities (White et al., 2014; Rhodes et al., 2015; Kline, 2019). Such a hostile policy climate has sweeping consequences in Florida where 20 percent of the state’s population identifies as immigrant (American Immigration Council, 2017), and an estimated 18 percent of the state’s immigrant population are undocumented (Pew Research Center, 2019). Furthermore, as one in 14 children in Florida has an undocumented parent (American Immigration Council, 2017), these policies have significant implications for all Floridians.

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In our Orlando-area research setting, we saw first-hand the tensions between anti-immigrant hostility and a large immigrant community. We conducted our fieldwork with FWAF and Hope in the Orlando exurb of Apopka, which is rapidly transforming from an agricultural town to a largely residential municipality for Orlando-area commuters. Our drive to Hope and FWAF offices included passing Latinx-owned grocery stores and restaurants as well as ammunition shops with “Make America Great Again” yard signs. Along these routes, we occasionally passed local and county law and enforcement cruisers, as well as border patrol vehicles. Because Florida borders international waters, US Customs and Border Protection agents have jurisdiction throughout the state to stop and search any vehicle up to 100 miles away from any external boundary of the US, which extends into the Orlando area. Recently, Apopka residents started circulating videos on social media of border patrol vehicles stopping drivers near farms that employ many Latinx immigrants. The presence of border patrol and other law enforcement agents, as well as the heightened xenophobic rhetoric espoused by President Trump, led Hope and FWAF staff to ask Vickers and Kline to examine how immigrant policing efforts and anti-immigrant rhetoric overall impacted immigrants who use services at Hope and FWAF.

“Whenever You Go Out, You Always Expose Yourself:” Immigrant Policing in Central Florida As part of our collaborative research effort, we found that aggressive immigration enforcement efforts and overall anti-immigrant rhetoric altered some immigrants’ mobility and resulted in increased anxiety. Fear and changing driving habits, specifically, resulted from some participants reporting that police targeted immigrants at locations where they expected to find them, such as local gas stations or en route to work. As one participant, Julia, a DACA recipient, told us: “And it’s not like [police] are at rare places. No, it’s like Wawa [a gas station and convivence store chain]. Like, a mobile home park area where a lot of our families live. You know, it’s been by Mi Mexico [a small food market], where a lot of our community members go shopping at for their groceries. So, it’s like they know where to go, they know where to find [us]: Wawa. Who doesn’t put gas, early in the mornings, for work? So, it’s like, they know where to target.” Similarly, another participant, Sara, explained how police targeted some highways because they knew that that is where they could find immigrants on their way to work. “They identify the trucks that take people to work…That is very common on this highway.” Another woman said that her husband, who commutes to work on this highway, sold his van for a smaller, nicer car to avoid being pulled over. Overall, immigration authorities and local police targeting Latinx immigrants along specific routes affected immigrants’ daily activities, resulting in some immigrants changing their habits and avoiding driving all together. Such efforts contribute to immigrants’

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fears of discovery and deportation. As one participant put it succinctly, “I don’t drive, but if I did, I would be afraid.” Some participants we spoke to describe their efforts to avoid certain places in order to reduce encounters with police. Ana, for example, said that she and others “just don’t go to those places. Try to avoid them. You know, like Wawa. Just don’t go to Wawa.” But avoidance is not always an option, as some participants noted that police will target white vans, as they are associated with construction work and because they assume that the workers driving are Latinx and could be undocumented. As Ana noted: “For a lot of it, it’s like the work vans, what can you do? I know I’ve spoken to [other] families, and they’re like, ‘You know, what do you think about the situation?’ and they’re like, ‘Well what can we do? He is going to work. What other options do we have? It’s a work van.’ So, it’s just, to work, it’s like, what do you do?” The potential for detection and deportation that resulted in apprehension about driving also created new types of financial hardships. For example, one focus group participant explained that friends of hers no longer drive their children to school because they are concerned about being stopped by local police. Instead, they must pay for somebody to take the children to school and pick them up: “There are things you have to do out of necessity, like take children to school, and if you don’t take them, you have to pay someone to take them and that costs a lot of money. People take advantage of the situation—I know people who charge $50-$60 a week to drive children to school. So, $50 a week—in a month, that’s $200. It’s a lot of money. And there are people who have a record or something and prefer to pay it [to avoid police].” Such efforts are needed, she explained, because leaving the house itself is risky “whenever you go out, you always expose yourself.” Adding to this, another focus group participant, Patrícia, explained: “The fear is always there, right? But you can’t be paralyzed because there are things that have to get done. Work, going to school, going grocery shopping, so if you live in fear, you can’t do anything at all.” Despite fears of deportation and the threat of police discovery, Patrícia noted that she and other immigrants would not allow fear to control their lives. This was not easy for everybody, however, including Patricia’s cousin: “Even with that fear, with that persecution, we still have to do things, but some people even panic. I have a cousin of mine who says ‘I can’t sometimes even peek outside…’ She is such a nervous person, but I say, ’But you’re not living, really, you’re trapped. It’s useless to be here if you’re locked in your house all the time. It’s like being imprisoned.’” Accordingly, Patrícia tries to

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persuade her cousin to overcome fear of deportation and police discovery. “I say, ‘yes you’re afraid that the police will find you and that maybe they will deport you, and you will fight it, and all this.’ But we always have that risk, so it’s better to do the things we have to do and be able to move forward.”

Activist Collaboration for Meaningful Insights Findings from our study would not have been possible without the type of activist collaboration that the co-authors formed. To do the research resulting in this study, the authors embraced the reciprocal expectations of activist anthropology and designed all data collection techniques following suggestions from leaders from both stakeholder organizations. For example, co-author Economos, a FWAF staff member, directly shaped the study design by suggesting that Kline and Vickers complete ethnographic surveys and provided ideal days and times to conduct the surveys when she knew recruitment potential would be ideal. Similarly, staff from Hope, including co-author Furino, assisted with organizing focus groups and transportation for focus group participants. Hope staff called participants to recruit and remind participants of the focus groups. Altogether, these efforts made Kline and Vickers’ alignment with Hope and FWAF obvious to participants, and Kline and Vickers explained the research to participants as a collaborative effort between them and the organizations. This likely played a role in participants feeling comfortable with Kline and Vickers and affirmed that they were sympathetic to participants’ experiences. Without this type of collaboration built from a long-standing relationship, the data collected for the project would not have been as robust, and the project itself would not have been as successful. Keeping with the reciprocal expectations of activist anthropology, co-author Vickers worked at the FWAF and Hope’s front desks and assisted with office functions such as filing and answering phones, working as an English instructor, and assisting FWAF and Hope members with completing Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, food stamps) applications. Although these efforts are consonant with participant-observation expectations, they were similarly motivated out of a shared political goal and provided valuable services to the co-authors’ organizations. Accordingly, these mutual forms of engagement and reciprocity demonstrate how anthropological action can be a form of activism and support community-based organizations. This is further exemplified by reports Kline and Vickers disseminated information to FWAF and Hope.

Activist Anthropology to Advance Social Justice Goals Upon completing this project, Kline and Vickers wrote a report for FWAF and Hope, summarizing the main findings from the research. The report confirmed FWAF and Hope staff members’ suspicions of racial profiling and racism, leading Economos to send the report to local news outlets. The report also summarized the police aggression in Apopka, sparking a conversation at FWAF about what action

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to take next to stop police from targeting immigrants in the area. Hope staff also used the report as an educational tool in their service-learning efforts. For example, one group of students from Kline’s and Vickers’s academic institution received the report while participating in one of Hope’s service-learning activities. The report served to contextualize the kinds of discrimination and aggressive policing encountered by the families that the students stayed with, serving to triangulate the narratives students hear from Hope staff and their homestay families. One student who participated in the trip approached co-author Kline about the report and explained “I went to Hope and they gave us this article you wrote…I had no idea that kind of stuff happened—it’s crazy.” As a product resulting from our activist engagement, the report served both FWAF’s and Hope’s organizational missions and aligned with the organizations’ visions of social change. For example, Hope’s model of social change is based largely on education and relationship-building, which is why the organization invests heavily in its service-learning programming. Our report directly supplemented Hope’s service-learning efforts and aligned with the organizations’ understanding of how to affect social change. Similarly, the report contributed to FWAF’s mission by providing documentation that could be sent to local media outlets, aligning with the organization’s vision of social change by educating the broader public about the types of local injustices that occur with little attention. Lastly, findings from the report revealed the lived experiences of racism (Vickers and Kline, publication forthcoming), have sparked additional research efforts with both organizations, and played a role in both organizations increasing the number of “know your rights” trainings they conduct with local attorneys as a way to ensure members know what to do if police stop them.

Anthropology as Activism Through our collaborative study, we found that recent immigration politics and policies resulted in a deep sense of fear among undocumented Latinx immigrants in Apopka, much like immigrant policing regimes result in heightened fear among undocumented immigrants elsewhere (Kline, 2017; 2019). Findings from our collaborative study also reveal the productive potential of anthropological fieldwork on immigrant policing to advance activist organizations’ goals. Activist anthropology does not always lead to measurable or large-scale changes (Knauft, 2006), and certainly this is true of our collaborative project; we did not stop aggressive immigrant policing or end racism or xenophobia. However, smallscale anthropological engagement like the ethnographic research that we described here can aggregate to larger forms of action, particularly for anthropologists in academic settings. Through the academic position that co-author Kline holds, for example, this project can be one of many that FWAF and Hope use to continue not only documenting experiences, but finding new areas of action, such as pressuring local police to end aggressive tactics. By having a committed political position to advance immigrant rights and academic affiliations, co-authors Kline and

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Vickers can sustain activist engagement beyond the scope of one research project. For example, Kline and Vickers have both led undocumented ally training programs at their institution—one for faculty and staff and another focused on students—and Kline has held community forums where local immigrants share their experiences with the academic institution. Furthermore, Kline regularly invites coauthor Economos to classes to share first-hand with his students the kinds of work that she and the FWAF engage in. These broader forms of political commitment shape the overall character of anthropological work inside an academic setting and demonstrate how anthropology itself can be a way to reveal and challenge oppressive power structures through research and teaching. Through sustained forms of collaborative fieldwork, the kind of academic engagement seen in this project demonstrates how anthropology itself is a form of activist engagement. First and foremost, anthropologists who adopt activist fieldwork strategies align themselves with specific political causes, and the data collected from such alignments are used in the service of advancing a specific political objective. Accordingly, anthropological action serves to disrupt hegemonic forms of power outside of academia and within the discipline itself. Moreover, the kinds of activist anthropological engagement like the project described here can provide meaningful training opportunities for undergraduate students interested in pursuing careers in anthropology. For example, as a result of participating in this study, Vickers now plans on attending a graduate school program focused on activist anthropology. The research experience with Hope and FWAF provided Vickers with important skills for working in community-based organizations, such as how to assist people in applying for government services, how to ask sensitive questions in social service settings, and how to manage sometimes chaotic and ever-changing work environments associated with activist organizations. Additionally, unlike Vickers’ peers, who had laboratory-based undergraduate research experiences, Vickers will have had research experiences based on real-life circumstances, providing her not only with important skills, but also a deeper understanding of her local community. As she applies to PhD track programs and continues her career as an activist anthropologist, she will continue to utilize the skills that she gained in her undergraduate field research. Anthropology as activism has challenges, however. For example, anthropologists engaging in activist work within an academic institution could face limited or nonexistent institutional support. Kline and Vickers benefitted from their institution’s commitment to community engaged pedagogy, which created avenues for engaged research. At Kline and Vickers’s institution, there is an infrastructure for teaching courses that have service-learning components, which can serve to begin collaborative relationships with activist organizations and develop students’ interests in activist research. Accordingly, one way to conduct activist anthropology that is consistent with university expectations can be to find meaningful alignment between anthropological engagement and service-learning. In addition to the ongoing service-learning arrangements between the co-authors’ institutions that we described here, co-author Kline regularly teaches service-learning courses that

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include FWAF and Hope as partners. These arrangements could provide an outlet for how to do activist anthropological work in ways that are recognizable to academic institutional leaders and possibly garner support. Engaging in work that contributes to a political ideal can be challenging for anthropologists, regardless of their workplace contexts because of increasing political polarization in the US and elsewhere. In academic settings, such polarization can result in claims of institutions and faculty having political agendas and biases. Nevertheless, such work is urgent, and anthropologists who engage in activist scholarship have ways of simultaneously maintaining a rigorous research agenda, providing innovative teaching, and committing to activist engagement (Pulido, 2008). As a methodological approach that can generate theoretical insights, activist anthropology is a way to respond to urgent political matters, and for us, it provided a way to respond to aggressive immigration enforcement regimes in the US and xenophobic political rhetoric. The rise of popular nationalism that Trump employed as a strategy for electoral victory is not limited to the US, however, and activist frameworks could prove useful in other settings where xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, and racist politics are on the rise (Bieber, 2018). Although our work is situated in the US and our perspectives are informed by a US perspective on academia and political context, activist engagement elsewhere could be similarly feasible. Recognizing how the social world influences the theoretical and methodological choices that anthropologists make, we expect that increasing numbers of anthropologists will turn to activist anthropology as a way to act against oppression, in addition to conducting research.

Conclusion Activist anthropological engagement is increasingly necessary and important in the US to respond to anti-immigrant rhetoric that dominates national politics. Anthropological work itself can be a form of activist engagement, and such engagement is urgent and required. As we argue in this chapter, activist arrangements can provide more robust forms of data collection and result in useful deliverables for community-based organizations. In our activist engagement, we provided community-based organizations with a product that supported their missions and vision of social change, while simultaneously capturing data about organization members’ lived experiences. Furthermore, our collaborative research resulted in robust, hands-on methodological training for an undergraduate student (Vickers), demonstrating how such work can prepare future academics. Through collaborative engagement, anthropologists and community-based organizations can jointly resist anti-immigrant politics and broader efforts to sustain power hierarchies. Although, as mentioned earlier, the products that Kline and Vickers provided to organization partners might not have resulted in deep forms of systemic change alone, they are nevertheless part of an ongoing effort and contribute to the organizations’ overall approaches to combatting inequity. They are not meant to be one-time, simple solutions to complex problems. Notably, as

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academics, Kline and Vickers will benefit from this project by having academic products such as this chapter that will advance their careers, suggesting an unequal benefit for the academic partners compared to community-based organization partners. This inequality suggests how activist anthropology aligns with an increasingly neoliberalized academy characterized by quantifiable outcomes such as publications. However, we resist this critique and suggest instead that activist engagement through the academy is a way to use the neoliberal academic structure that values and quantifies research publications and student outcomes as a way to partner with community-based organizations and work together to address pressing issues over long periods of time. In this respect, there is a need for activist anthropology in academic settings to marshal the resources of academic institutions in the service of community-based partners.

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2015. “The Impact of Local Immigration Enforcement Policies on the Health of Immigrant Hispanics/Latinos in the United States.” American Journal of Public Health, 105(2): 329–337. Robbins, Joel. 2013. “Beyond the Suffering Subject: Toward an Anthropology of the Good.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 19(3): 447–462. Rylko-Bauer, Barbara, Merrill Singer, and John Van Willigen. 2006. “Reclaiming Applied Anthropology: Its Past, Present, and Future.” American Anthropologist, 108(1): 178–190. Sacchetti, Maria. 2019. “Trump Administration Threatens Hefty Fines on Immigrants Who Elude Deportation.” The Washington Post, July 2. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/ trump-administration-threatens-hefty-fines-on-immigrants-who-elude-deportation/2019/ 07/02/956e2334-9cc2-11e9-9ed4-c9089972ad5a_story.html (accessed December 6, 2019). Sanford, Victoria. 2006. “Introduction.” In Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy, and Activism, edited by Victoria Sanford and Asale Angel-Ajani: 1–18. New Brusnwick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Singer, Merrill. 1995. “Beyond the Ivory Tower: Critical Praxis in Medical Anthropology.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 9(1): 80–106. Speed, Shannon. 2006. “At the Crossroads of Human Rights and Anthropology: Toward a Critically Engaged Activist Research.” American Anthropologist, 108(1): 66–76. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 2019. “Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act.” www.ice.gov/287g (accessed July 8, 2019). United States Census Bureau. 2018. “QuickFacts Florida.”www.census.gov/quickfacts/FL (accessed June 25, 2019). Valdez, Inés. 2016. “Punishment, Race, and the Organization of US Immigration Exclusion.” Political Research Quarterly, 69(4): 640–654. Vickers, Mary and Nolan Kline. Publication forthcoming. “Commonplace Terror: Everyday Harassment of Immigrants in Central Florida.” In Formations of Political Culture in the Trump Era: Crafting Social Justice in a Hostile Nation, edited by Christine Kray and Uli Linke. London: Routledge. White, Kari, Valerie A. Yeager, Nir Menachemi, and Isabel C. Scarinci. 2014. “Impact of Alabama’s Immigration Law on Access to Health Care Among Latina Immigrants and Children: Implications for National Reform.” American Journal of Public Health, 104(3): 397–405.

COMMENTS ON ANTHROPOLOGY AND ACTIVISM Shirley J. Fiske

This section ponders anthropology and activism as interrelated ways of being, as expressed in the Introduction to this volume by Willow and Yotebieng. It investigates what the intersection of anthropology and activism looks like in contemporary global settings where pressing issues such as forced migration, refugees’ search for asylum, contested infrastructure development projects, immigrant’ rights, and increasing income inequality are front and center as public issues. I mention contemporary global settings because anthropology has a long history of commitment to action, the production of relevant (applied) research results, engagement with public issues, and collaboration with research participants. The difference is that activist anthropologists today build on this long-standing commitment and go farther by explicitly endorsing shared political goals in collaborations with organizations working for social change, generating “political alignment with an organized group of people in struggle” as Hale (2006: 97) puts it. Today’s expression of activism explicitly includes a commitment to a restructuring the dynamics of power relationships in working for social change; and this volume makes the case for an activist anthropology that is clearly engaged on the front lines of social change. Each of the preceding honest and engaging chapters includes powerful concepts and observations. Three of the four chapters are written by anthropologists situated in research settings; two chapters by co-authors working in academic positions; and two chapters by authors who choose activism while in the process of doing doctoral fieldwork. Kelly Yotebieng writes a powerful story of her research among Rwandan women refugees in Cameroon. She follows her personal transformation from anthropological researcher and former humanitarian worker to activist anthropologist that takes place as she listened to women’s stories of forced migration, told to her over and over again. Embedded in their stories were the women’s hopes

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that, as a former humanitarian aid worker and a person with privileged knowledge about the process, Yotebieng could help them in some way to navigate their way to asylum. These shared intimate and traumatic narratives forced her to reflect on her own role and on anthropological researchers’ moral responsibilities to do what we can when researching at-risk individuals and families. She argues that we must use our “situated usefulness” in the production and use of anthropological knowledge to help where we can. She queries herself and anthropologists in general: “How could the work I do contribute towards grassroots movements to effectuate real change to their living conditions?” Yotebieng introduces the useful concept of “micro-level activism,” an imperative to do whatever is possible with one’s situated usefulness to help individual participants at the individual case level. She also concludes that the best thing we as anthropologists can do is to translate the complexities, local contexts, and perspectives that we become familiar with into refugee and humanitarian policy—to bring participants’ voices to the forefront. As Yotebieng concludes, “we do not have a choice.” If we disengage, we risk producing what one of her research participants calls “useless information.” Brenda Fitzpatrick, also in the midst of doctoral research, finds herself facing a different set of challenges in the field as her own work evolves toward activism. Her fieldwork involves understanding both the pros and the cons claimed by stakeholder groups regarding the construction of a large hydroelectric dam on the Peace River in northeastern British Columbia—what she calls “double-sided ethnography.” With a background in Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS), her research goal was to increase the understanding of both sides, leading to more equitable conflict resolution. She notes that anthropology is ideally suited to identifying environmental worldviews on both sides of a conflict, rooted as they are in divergent assumptions and underlying beliefs about humans and nature. Fitzpatrick hoped that her work combining anthropology and PACS would lead to “just environmental conflict transformation” that addresses root causes of conflict in the social and historical context underlying the issue. However, as she interviewed individuals on both sides and observed the Environmental Assessment (EA) and consultation processes, she discerned the structural violence embedded within them, and she became more personally aligned with the hydro dam opponents’ views. She asks: how do you balance the even-handed translation of different perspectives when you see the structural injustice inherent in one of them? Fitzpatrick argues that it is virtually impossible to represent both sides equally if you are aligned—as an activist anthropologist—with one side of an unequal power struggle. Adding to her personal and ethical dilemma, PACS studies require that the researcher remain nonpartisan during the process of doing research. She thus had to be cautious about positioning herself as a supporter of anti-dam activists; doing so could undermine her scholarly credibility and “expert” status and could also impede her access to research participants. The dilemma for activist anthropology, at least where one takes a position in a conflict, is that it dilutes one’s expert, independent observer status, thus jeopardizing anthropology’s potency as a

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transformer of public opinion. Fitzpatrick’s solution is to call out structural violence as part of her analysis of key worldview differences, showing how the EA process privileges some worldviews over others. She also provides transparency about how she came to this conclusion through systematic research. This approach of transparency offers leverage to the opponents of the dam. She comes to a critical realization that “justice-minded worldview translators” must account for structural violence while remaining respectful of worldview differences. Mark Schuller makes us acutely aware of the growing gap between marginalized groups and white voters who espouse “right-wing nationalism.” He asks: “Where can we dig in our heels and turn the tide against forces of increasing inequality and hate now fully out in the open with a rise of right-wing nationalism?” As an anthropologist with prior experience in community organizing, now faculty at a rural Midwestern university, Schuller argues that it is imperative to decolonize the university and encourage long-term, intentional community collaborations with activists. He offers the idea of “communiversity”—organizing to create relationships between university students and community groups and activating both to transform relations of power. As we create such relationships, Schuller argues that we need to be critically and continually self-reflexive about our positionality, our privilege, and “to move beyond being allies—where privilege remains intact—to becoming accomplices, acknowledging self-interest and putting one’s own body on the line.” As activists, we need to be transparent about our interests and motivations when organizing, examining transparently our motivations for choosing to get involved, what “cultural capital” we bring to organizing, and what we expect to get out of organizing. Schuller highlights the key importance of “radical empathy”—not only understanding others’ points of view, but decentering our own. The author is situated in Northern Illinois University’s Center for NGO Leadership and Development, where social justice is a key organizing theme. He gives an honest, insightful appraisal of his work along with others in organizing and rebranding the capstone class (“Non-Profits and Community Engagement”) and the results of organizing students and collaborations for social change—both oncampus to disrupt the power dynamics of the university—and in the community. In his concluding section, entitled “Dismantling the Ivory Tower,” Schuller delineates the challenges of the academy: structural inequalities, social distance, and lack of accountability to the communities who should be in charge. He argues that anthropology can be central to this engagement if we do the hard work of organizing, which means being in both the community and the university and creating new spaces for collaboration. Activist and community partners need to be co-producers of research and knowledge, and academia must be kept accountable. Kline, Vickers, Economos, and Furino describe their work as “politically engaged activist anthropology” and “collaborative activist ethnographic research”— both key elements of activist anthropology. Their activism centers on oppressive immigrant policing in central Florida.

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Anti-immigrant and racist sentiment in the US has historically informed public policy on immigration, and in the current decade the state of Florida is no exception. Florida’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies have negative consequences on immigrant communities, destabilizing families and sending the fear of apprehension through immigrant communities. The co-authors engage in collaborative relationships with two immigrant rights groups in central Florida whose shared political goal was to advance the rights of immigrants living in central Florida. The authors were asked by their collaborating organizations to document how immigrant policy and immigrant policing affect the daily lives of the people using the services at the organizations. These collaborative relationships purposefully and directly informed the research process and improved empirical insights. Kline’s and his colleagues’ research shows that immigrants are negatively affected by the policing presence and threat of detainment. These factors altered their mobility (e.g., changing driving habits) and increased their fear of discovery and deportation. The police targeted frequented locations including gas stations, Latinx food markets, and highways used to get to work. The police targeted “white work vans,” resulting in one man’s decision to sell his van and get a sedan in order to be less identifiable. The apprehension created new types of financial hardships—some women no longer drive their kids to school and have to pay for someone else to drive them. Fear paralyzes people who must go out to grocery shop, school, and work. The authors argue that the key characteristic that sets activist anthropologists apart is their political engagement for social change. “Activist anthropology as a methodological stance entails a commitment towards a shared political goal,” they argue. And that stance means choosing to do something, to take action beyond the documentation of results as a way to challenge “oppressive power structures and hierarchies.” Collaborative partnerships with community-based organizations are key. Kline, Vickers, Economos, and Furino make the case that “activist collaboration” leads to enhanced research insights that they could not have achieved with the same level of confidence without partnerships in designing their research and locating people for interviews. They argue that academia is the best place for activist research and that it is a way “to challenge oppressive power structures through research and teaching.” Their research resulted in a report to the immigrant’ rights groups, who subsequently used it to show the effects of immigrant policing. One of the groups also provided the report to local media. In addition to the report, the co-authors implemented “ally training” for faculty, staff, and students at their university, hosted presentations by immigrants to share their experiences, and developed service-learning opportunities. The co-authors are realistic in their assessment of this project in that activist anthropology does not always lead to measurable, transformational change such as stopping such aggressive policing practices in central Florida. But it can be part of a larger aggregation of action on similar topics. They see anthropology and activism not as combatants, but compatible and necessary to anthropologists’ sense of being.

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In conclusion, what makes today’s activist anthropology unique is the focus on contemporary peoples embedded in nation-states and transnational economies, and, in addition, the explicit choices on political positions aligned with organizations/ people who are struggling, marginalized, impoverished, or otherwise suffering. The activism of today crosses that permeable boundary between (as Willow puts it in her chapter) producing knowledge and using it in order to expose and challenge existing hierarchies of power. For Yotebieng and Fitzpatrick, who were not in academic positions when they wrote their chapters, the intersection of anthropology and activism is fraught with personal, ethical challenges, and deep reflection. They are respectively able to resolve their choices through micro-activism and tying research to larger humanitarian policy, and through exposing structural violence transparently in anthropological analysis of worldviews in a “double-sided” ethnography. For Schuller and Kline (as the lead author working in conjunction with nonprofit organizers and students) who are positioned in academia, being an activist and being an anthropologist at the same time is approached as an expected requirement—almost a moral imperative—when confronting oppression, marginalization, and profiling based on stereotypes and rhetoric. Their response is to challenge and, if possible, destabilize hierarchy and power dynamics through organizing people in “communiversity” and through collaborative activist ethnographic research. Each in their own way, these anthropologists demonstrate how they can be activists while still being anthropologists—as interrelated ways of being.

Reference Hale, Charles R. 2006. “Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology.” Cultural Anthropology, 21(1): 96–120.

AFTERWORD Stephen L. Schensul

The chapters in this volume describe case histories of activism, the opportunities and dilemmas of sorting out the role of anthropologists involved in activism, and the impact of that work on both personal and professional objectives and societal change. The chapters cover environmental activism, resistance to anti-immigrant policies, promotion of GMO-free farming and foods, opposition to fracking, addressing refugee issues, supporting a people-based acupuncture, and advocacy for people with disabilities. These chapters raise many pertinent issues for anthropology and its role in society as we move into the third decade of the 21st century. While a standard afterword might summarize the major themes of the volume, I will take a different tack. I believe that the rich descriptions in these chapters provide a basis for a preliminary outline of a methodology for anthropological involvement in activism from a disciplinary perspective. By disciplinary, I refer to the field of anthropology that adheres to scientific methods and principles, possesses theoretical constructs and unique perspectives, uses a research methodology incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data, and produces reliable and valid results. In my view (and that of the authors in this volume), the discipline of anthropology has a great deal to contribute to addressing societal inequities and dysfunctions. In sorting out the role of the discipline, I suggest seven principles and methods that can guide anthropologists to play a constructive role in the arena of political and social confrontation.

1) Choosing a Side Anthropologists involved in activism find themselves in contested spaces in which there are competing forces with diverse perspectives. These competing forces can include powerful and resource rich entities such as governments and corporations, as well as resource-poor entities such as community residents or special interest

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groups. I am unapologetic in my desire to see my anthropological research and that of anthropologists like those in this volume contribute to the ability of marginalized, underserved, and under-resourced groups and communities to advocate for their needs in the face of opposition from more powerful entities. However, diverse and competing interests are not limited to the powerful versus the less powerful. Communities and groups may take diverse positions that lead them to compete with each other. Given this complexity, how and why do we choose a side in which to be involved? Several contributors to this volume explicitly consider this question. SmithCavros and Widener, for example, describe the concurrent roles of citizens/activists and researchers/anthropologists. The choice of a side may come from one or both of these perspectives. The anthropologist as citizen/activist may have a priori values and commitments that guide the choice. Alternately, the anthropologist may decide in the process of conducting research that one competing group or one approach has greater validity than another. While I am sensitive to the positioning dilemmas and potential consequences described by Moolenaar and by Morrow and Winter, I would argue that anthropological involvement in activism requires a choice—a specific “client” group and the collaboration of that group in the formulation of research that will address advocacy needs. In this way, anthropology’s approach to activism is unique; anthropology as a discipline gives us room to explicitly choose a side while reflexively acknowledging why we take these positions, something apparent in all of the chapters in this volume. In fact, other disciplines also choose sides, they just do not explicitly acknowledge it in the way that anthropologists do as we bring reflexivity into our scientific approach.

2) Research Objectivity Willow and Yotebieng (in the volume’s introduction), Willow, and Morrow et al. raise the possibility that choosing a side affects the objectivity of research results. In my view, this choice should not interfere with the scientific accuracy of research results. In a confrontational situation, there will be an intense effort by “other sides” to challenge the accuracy of research results with charges of bias, nonrepresentativeness, lack of rigor, and undermine the results as mere opinion. The ability of anthropologists to respond to these challenges rests with the methodological rigor that produced their results. At the same time, activist groups and organizations need to trust the accuracy of the data as they promote their positions and plan but also provide empirically based results that can generate cultural and community interventions that work. I would argue that “objectivism” does not require “disengagement” but rather a commitment to empiricism and science as a part of engagement in the support of one side in a confrontation. As citizen activists, we are entitled to hold signs, join in rallies, and speak out on issues. As anthropologists who generate data and disseminate results, our commitment must be to methodological rigor in the service of the group with whom we are working.

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3) Positionality The task of the activist anthropologist is to support activist groups and organizations in their efforts for positive change. In my view, our task is not to play a leadership role, but to stand behind leadership and members as they use our data and other methods to advocate for change. This role means that rather than the anthropologist/researcher choosing topics, directions and questions, it is vital that collective leadership participates in determining research directions and even presents research results with the anthropologist in a supportive role. This background role will contribute to the efficacy of advocacy and amplify the voices of activists. Similarly, anthropologists should try to avoid the position of intermediary or broker between competing forces. This role is best left to the leaders of the competing forces to negotiate, resolve, or reject various solutions, proposals, and compromises.

4) Participatory Action Research The most satisfying experiences that I have had in working with activist groups seeking to address societal dysfunctions and inequities were the opportunities to work collaboratively with research-oriented activists as an activist-oriented researcher. To achieve this objective, there needs to be a process of mutual learning as activists train researchers in how to fit research results into advocacy and researchers train activists in research design and methods. Participatory action research, or, as it is now called in public health, community-based participatory research, calls for involvement of activists in formulating research questions, developing hypothesized models, choosing from a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, and conducting analyses. While leaders of activist groups may have limited time to invest in full-scale training, the delivery of research results provides a mutual learning opportunity for the information-action interaction on the part of both parties. As noted below, if activist involvement is to increase, it is important that there be an opportunity to train a cadre of activists in participatory action research and to institutionalize such a component in the advocacy group. Establishing the utility of research requires that the anthropologist, in concert with their activist research participants, should begin their relationship by identifying data and results that can support action, thereby demonstrating the utility of research and the anthropologist/researcher role.

5) A Long-term Research Agenda The issues presented in this volume require long-term commitments from activists and the anthropologists who work with them. Relationships established based on shared passions, interests, and advocacy objectives are essential. In my experience, partnerships that span at least five years, and preferably more, of shared advocacy and action research form the basis of a solid relationship and provide the

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opportunity to respond both to immediate data needs and the development of a research agenda. Ideally, that agenda will anticipate future data needs, allowing anthropologists and activists alike to identify archival reports, literature and data summaries, raw data from the myriad domestic and internal surveys, as well as geographic information surveys for secondary analyses that address the advocacy needs of the activist group. Depending on the types of information needed to better inform the research and advocacy, primary data collection could include key informant and in-depth exploratory interviews with those affected by the problem, as well as population-based survey data. If the activist group is developing an intervention to address the problem, researchers can provide further support to evaluate both the implementation process and the outcomes. These data can be utilized as preliminary results on which to base an application for funding. Funding is critical to the stability and contribution of a research component that is a part of an activist group or organization.

6) Dissemination Anthropologists involved in activism need to develop a wide range of skills to present research results. Short reports, press releases and briefings, data-based responses to contrary assertions, and audiovisual productions are likely to be more useful than the typical paper in a peer-reviewed journal. At the same time, publications in anthropological and other academic journals are necessary to inform the discipline of the importance, methods, and outcomes of linking anthropology with activism. I am less sanguine than Willow and Yotebeing (as described in the introduction) that applied, engaged, action, and public anthropology is expanding in the discipline. The leading anthropology departments emphasize theory to the detriment of methodology, producing graduates best adapted to academic positions that are increasingly scarce. While we have an increased number departments with an applied focus, we seem to lose many of their Masters’ and PhD-prepared graduates who assume non-academic positions, feel disrespected by the discipline and as a result have little incentive to present at meetings of the American Anthropological Association or the Society for Applied Anthropology or to publish in anthropology journals. This volume is a wake-up call for a renewed focus on activism (including relevant theory and methods) in our departments, as many Masters’ and PhD-prepared graduates who end up outside of academia could in fact be part of activist anthropology’s new face. However, for those of us who do anthropology in the activist realm, we have only ourselves to blame, as we under-report our case studies, methods, and outcomes to the discipline. As a result, we have not built a sufficient body of knowledge necessary to expand our component of the discipline of anthropology. For those who are in or out of the academy, peer-reviewed publications describing processes and outcomes must be a necessary part of the pursuit of activist anthropology (recognizing the disincentives sometimes imposed by nonacademic institutions).

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7) Training Students Anthropologists must find effective ways to engage students in developing the motivation and the skills necessary to be involved in research-related activism. In this volume, for instance, Schuller develops the “communiversity” concept, calling for the transformation of the relationship of the university to the community to address societal inequities and dysfunctions. However, this relationship to training needs to work both ways so that academic departments recognize the utility of engaging non-academically situated anthropologists as key contributors to training and education of students. Students in most fields learn best not when they work alone in a laboratory or a community, but when they apprentice and work side by side with professional anthropologists. This approach calls for anthropology departments to recognize and engage anthropologists in the local community to be engaged in the teaching and training process and, through that involvement, to see anthropologists in non-academic positions as vital to the educational process and to the discipline. Anthropologists as activists take sociopolitical positions, join with similar-minded groups to collectively express their views, hold signs, and participate in marches, rallies, and protests. Anthropologists can study the nature and processes of activism, a legitimate focus of study, important to the functioning and development of societies. These “as” and “of” relationships between anthropology and activism require little change in the discipline. However, anthropology and activism calls for an ongoing evolution (a transformation) of anthropological theory, methodology, and results in order to increase the discipline’s contribution to activists seeking to address societal inequities and dysfunctions. For me, this is the primary challenge as we assess the utility of anthropology to the welfare of the society.

INDEX

abortion 103–104 accountability 15, 170, 176, 180, 184, 186–187, 193–194, 207 action anthropology xii, 5, 128–129, 135, 137 activism: see activist anthropology; acupuncture, as activism; anthropology, and activism, as activism, of activism; anti-extraction activism; armchair activism; disability, cross-disability activism; emotion, as motivation for activism; fear, as motivation for activism; healthcare, activism; LGBTQIA+, activism; micro-level activism; motivation, of activists; participation, in activism; risk, of activism; social media, activism on; students, activism; tension (academic-activist) activist anthropology: in academia 2, 7, 10, 22, 170, 186; history of xi–xii, 2, 4–7, 100–101, 139, 168, 191–192; methods 9–10, 99, 102; practice 22, 47, 99, 102, 144, 172, 193–195, 205–209; theory 9–12, 99, 100–101, 191–192, 198–202, 212–213; see also applied anthropology; engaged ethnography acupuncture: as activism 54–56, 60–63, 81–82; anthropology of 52–54, 210; community acupuncture 58–59; liberation acupuncture 56–58; in Oregon 50–52, 81 acupunk 51, 53–54, 55, 57–59, 60–63, 81

African American 110, 175, 177, 182, 194; see also Black agency 72–73, 143; see also Bourdieu, Pierre; habitus alignment 7, 79, 169, 198, 200, 205, 210–211; see also motivation alternative medicine 51–52, 55, 57 American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) 117 American Disabled for Attendant Programs Today (ADAPT) 116, 118–119 American Dream 25 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) 116 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) 26 anarchism 60–62 anger 1, 87, 94, 101, 105, 107–108, 110, 133–134, 152, 155, 166, 170; see also emotion Anishinaabe (Indigenous group) 86 Anthropocene 22 anthropology: and activism 129, 206; as activism 85, 95, 129, 144, 145, 199–201; of activism 50, 80, 82 85, 95, 129; of the good 72, 191; see also activist anthropology anti-extraction activism 91–92, 94, 131, 134, 135–137; anti-clearcutting activism 86–87; anti-dam activism 89–91; anti-fracking activism 87–89, 90; see also justice, environmental applied anthropology 6, 9, 39, 132, 138, 152, 205; see also activist anthropology, anthropology

216 Index

armchair activism 2, 86 Army (US) 28 Ashtabula, Ohio 23, 26, 27, 29–31, 32 Ashtabula River 32 auto-ethnography 99–100, 102, 110 ballot 39, 41–42, 88, 106 bias 74, 101, 105, 134, 165, 170–171, 183, 201, 211; see also objectivity; positionality biodiversity 35–36, 43–45, 47 biomedicine 50, 52–55, 59, 81, 116–117, 119; see also healthcare biopower 69, 72–73, 81; see also Foucault, Michel biosociality 26 biotechnology 35, 37–38, 41, 46, 80; see also Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) Black 175, 178, 179, 182, 183, 185; see also African American Black feminism 179; see also feminism Black Lives Matter 122, 178, 179 Black Panthers 58 Blasey Ford, Christine 108 blockade 86–87 Boas, Franz 4 Boston, Massachusetts 66, 70 Boston University 65–67, 69–70, 73–74, 76 Bourdieu, Pierre 73, 138; see also agency; habitus British Columbia 89–91, 94, 96, 163, 165–166, 169 Bush, George H.W. 117 capital 24, 61, 69, 87, 153; cultural 76, 87, 180, 207; social 21, 74, 87 capitalism 24, 50, 80–81, 176 care see healthcare Catholicism 27 Checker, Melissa 4, 9, 11, 149 Chelsea, Massachusetts 65–66, 67, 73–74 chemo-ethnography xiii, 21, 22, 26, 32–33 chemosociality 22, 26, 32 Children’s Hospital Advisory Network for Guidance and Empowerment (CHANGE) 114, 115, 119 citizenship 1, 12, 24–25, 80–81, 102, 145 class 4; classism 62, 72–73; formulation 21–26; identity 32, 51, 55, 80–82, 88, 114, 161 Clean Water Act 67 Cleveland, Ohio 29 coal 22–27, 89, 110, 129–130; see also fossil fuels cohesion 98, 100, 102, 103, 105, 109 Cold War 5, 28

collaborative activist ethnographic research see activist anthropology collective action 6–7, 27, 37, 55, 60, 69, 114–116, 119, 122, 139, 212 commodification 24–26, 40, 53–55, 58, 61 Community Choice Act (CCA) 116 community organizing 123, 175–176, 177, 179, 180–183 Communiversity 175, 187 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) 23, 27 conflict 14, 160–161; resolution 168–171; transformation 162–163, 171 conservative (political ideology) 23, 32, 207 contamination: by chemicals 14, 26–27, 29, 31–33, 86, 89; of food 41, 43–45, 81 critical medical anthropology see medical anthropology cultural critique 7, 79; see also Hale, Charles D’Andrade, Roy 6 dark anthropology 50, 72, 74, 191; see also anthropology, of the good; Ortner, Sherry B. Dart Jr., Justin 117 decolonization 8, 187, 207 deindustrialization 21–23, 33; see also capitalism; industry Deleuze, Gilles 26 Demaximis 32 democracy 35, 37, 38–39, 45, 46; democratic action 40, 92; democratic principles 88, 100; democratic processes 36, 46, 47, 85, 178; food 37, 39, 47 Democratic Party 23, 25, 106, 175; see also liberal (political ideology) disability 114, 117, 125–126; cross-disability activism 114–116, 118, 120, 121–123, 144; education 117; mentorship 114, 115, 119–120; self-advocacy 119, 123; studies 115; youth 114, 116, 117, 119 disempowerment 88, 131, 168, 178; see also empowerment; power dissemination 3, 7, 10–11, 36, 47, 75, 139, 158, 198, 211, 213 drug abuse 21–22 Du Bois, W.E.B. 4, 187 dumping see contamination electoral college 21, 201 emotion: as capital 87, 92; in health 53, 62, 155; as motivation for activism 98, 103–108, 166–167; in research 22, 47,

Index 217

76, 100–101, 103–108, 110, 149, 152; see also anger; fear; grief; empathy empathy xiii, 2–3, 12–13, 80, 86, 104–105, 117, 186, 207; see also emotion empowerment xi, 4, 8, 37, 72, 74, 88, 91–92, 94–95, 177, 183; of research participants 13–14, 124, 155, 187; see also disempowerment; power energopolitics 128–129, 133; see also biopower engaged anthropology see activist anthropology engaged ethnography 53, 168–169, 176–177, 201–202; see also activist anthropology; participatory research methods environmental assessment (EA) 160, 164–168, 171–172, 206 environmental justice see justice Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 27, 31, 32, 67, 72 environmental psychology 91 environmental sociology 93 equity see inequality; justice ethics xiii, 2–3, 98, 151, 192, 206; ethical conflicts faced by anthropologists 13, 85, 98, 143–145, 152, 158, 209; obligations 4, 6, 9, 15, 79–81, 124, 155, 169; principles 3, 39, 135, 161–162; see also morality ethnicity 24–25, 31, 161, 177; see also race extraction 14, 85, 86, 87–89, 90, 91, 128, 129, 130, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 140, 144; see also anti-extraction activism Farm Worker Association of Florida (FWAF) 194–195, 198, 199–200 fascism 99–100; see also conservative (political ideology); nationalism; white supremacy fear: of contamination 44, 81; of deportation 105, 190, 193, 196–199, 208; of economic decline 91; as motivation for activism 1, 11, 105, 110; of retribution 5, 34, 94, 170; see also anger; emotion; motivation feminism 4, 5, 138, 179, 182; Black feminism 179 Fields Brook (Superfund Site) 23, 27, 29 First Nations 86, 89, 90, 164–166, 167 Florida 99–100, 102–195–196, 208 Fort Lauderdale, Florida 99, 108 fossil fuel 67, 87, 102; see also coal; hydraulic fracturing; industry Foucault, Michel 69, 133

fracking see hydraulic fracturing framing 1, 35–36, 39, 46, 167, 176 Fox Indian Project xii gender 1, 4–5, 55, 81, 114, 164, 186; gender-based violence 150; see also LGBTQIA+; transgender Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) 14, 35, 37, 43, 81; see also biotechnology; sustainable agriculture gentrification 65–66, 72, 178 globalization 8, 21–22, 53, 205 governmentality 133; see also Foucault, Michel Graeber, David 8–9, 35 Grassy Narrows First Nation 86, 93 Great Depression 24 Great Lakes 22, 32 green energy 160 Greenpeace 31 GreenRoots 65, 67–68, 70–71, 74, 76 grief 1, 125 Groningen, Netherlands 128 Guattari, Felix 26 habitus 73–74, 81; see also agency; Bourdieu, Pierre Hale, Charles 7, 79, 98, 129, 135, 137, 139, 169, 192–194, 205; see also activist anthropology; cultural critique; participatory research methods Haraway, Donna 26 hazard 68–70, 72, 74; see also contamination health 30, 41, 42–43, 46, 53, 58–59, 61, 88–90, 94, 104, 119–120, 143, 153, 156, 192; disparities 5–6, 51, 59, 62, 75, 81; ecological 27; environmental 23, 33, 65, 66, 72–75; mental 65, 69, 119, 181, 184; public 14, 65, 75, 133, 193; see also healthcare Health Committee for Persons with Disabilities (HCPD) 114, 118 healthcare 117; access 50–52, 57–58, 59, 60–61, 62, 102, 104, 105, 110, 181; activism 81, 102, 122, 181, 184, 191, 194; clinics 55; delivery 59, 61, 63; systems 50, 56; trauma-informed care 53, 58, 81; see also biomedicine; health Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) 153 Human Rights Committee 135 humanitarianism 150, 153–155, 158, 205–206 Hurricane Irma 98 hydraulic fracturing 87–89, 94

218 Index

identity 23, 24, 87, 177 immigration 67, 108, 110, 194, 195; from Europe 24, 27, 99; immigrant rights 107, 191, 194, 195, 199, 205, 208; from Latin America 70–71, 190, 194, 195, 199; policy 149, 150; US policy 192–193, 195, 196–198, 199, 201–202, 207–208, 210; undocumented 105, 106, 181, 190, 193, 195; see also refugees; xenophobia Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 110, 190, 195 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) 117 industrial chemistry 27 industry 143; hydroelectric 85, 86, 89–91; industrial development 85, 88, 91; logging 85, 86–87, 89; oil and gas 24, 85, 87–89, 128, 129–130; steel 27; see also capitalism; coal; deindustrialization inequality 5, 57, 102, 115, 176, 186–187, 191–192, 202, 205, 207; see also equity; justice informed consent 149–151 Institutional Review Board (IRB) xi intersectionality 99, 102, 114, 121, 179, 187 interview (method) 10, 29, 39–40, 51, 66, 91, 109, 131, 149, 163–165, 195, 213 Ivory Tower 186–187 Jackson County, Oregon 35–36, 39 Johnson, Boris 21 justice 6, 12, 15, 72, 81, 89, 110, 167, 171, 176, 207; economic 37, 194; environmental 13, 14, 23, 26, 30, 32, 36, 65–68, 72–73, 75–76, 81–82, 99, 136, 140; food 38–39, 45, 47; injustice xi, 1, 3, 6, 24, 37, 45, 57, 72, 88, 90–91, 92, 94–95, 100–101, 109, 137–138, 151, 166, 187, 198–199, 206; restorative 163; social justice 35, 37, 50, 58–60, 63, 75, 81, 85, 98–99, 115, 136, 138, 160, 178, 181, 183, 198–199, 207; transformative 180; for undocumented immigrants 184–185, 187 Kavanaugh, Brett 105, 108; see also informed consent Latinx 175, 177, 182, 183, 187, 194, 196, 197, 208; immigrants 190, 193, 195, 196, 197, 199 Latour, Bruno 26, 80, 165 least-resistant personality 27 LGBTQIA+ 105, 122, 178, 183; activism 122, 179, 182–3

liberal (political ideology) 23, 32, 79, 102, 180; see also Democratic Party, progressive lived experience xvi, xix, 22–24, 81, 114, 119–120, 138–140, 151, 191–194, 199, 201 Lou Gehrig’s Disease see Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) Love Canal (Superfund Site) 23 manufacturing 21–22, 24–27; see also deindustrialization; industry Mar-a-Lago 98–99, 190; see also Trump, Donald J. marginalization 131–132; economic 2, 129; of identities 114; of knowledge 38, 52, 122; of people 7, 59, 72, 81, 102, 104–105, 131–132, 167, 175, 177, 179–180; of places 37; theories of 135, 178; working among 158, 186, 207, 209, 211; see also class; inequality; racism Mead, Margaret 4 medical anthropology 5–6, 52, 59, 65, 81, 115 methods 40; see also activist anthropology, methods; participatory research methods Miami, Florida 99, 105, 108 micro-level activism 154, 206 Midwest (US region) 21–22, 26–27, 33, 118, 176, 178–179, 207 Midwest Academy 178 militant anthropology 6, 9 mining 27; coal 24, 89, 130; iron 22; laws 129 morality 81–82, 152 more-than-human (theory) 26 motivation: of activists 35–42, 44–46, 53, 59, 80–81, 85, 88, 90–94, 160, 166, 169–170, 178; of anthropologists xiii, 12, 138, 180, 198, 207, 214 multispecies ethnography 26 myth of the super-anthro 11 Nash, June C. xii–xiii National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 4 National Priorities List see Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act nationalism 23, 99–100, 176, 201, 207; see also populism; white supremacy native anthropology 13–14 Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM) 129, 130, 132, 134, 136

Index 219

neoliberalism 3, 10, 15, 24, 50, 58, 72, 154, 191, 202; see also class; deindustrialization neo-Marxism 162 New Deal 25 non-actor 87, 91, 92–94; see also motivation; participation North America 91 Northern Illinois University (NIU) 177–178, 182 nuclear 28, 30, 133, 145 Nyanzi, Stella 2, 5 objectivity 6, 8, 14, 100, 109, 120, 125, 166, 170, 211; see also bias; positionality observation see participant-observation (method) Ohio 21, 23–24, 26, 29, 31, 80, 87–89, 90, 94–95 organic farming 38, 40–41, 43–45 Ortner, Sherry B. 24, 50, 72, 100, 110, 191 Our Family Farms (OFF) 36, 39 participation: in activism 35, 39, 41–42, 56, 67–69, 87, 91–92, 95, 144, 167–172, 183; in activist anthropology 85, 98, 102–110; in research xv, 4, 7–9, 12–14, 37, 39–40, 43–47, 60, 114–116, 118–122, 124–126, 134, 149–157, 195–198, 200, 205–206 participant-observation (method) 9–10, 99–101, 103–104, 124–126, 131, 161, 163, 191–194 participatory research methods 8, 66–67, 73, 75–76, 143, 185–186, 212 Peace River 89–90, 160, 163, 167, 206 Pennsylvania Youth Leadership Network (PYLN) 114 People’s Organization of Community Acupuncture (POCA) 50–51, 52, 53, 56–57, 58–60; see also acupunk People’s Organizing Weekend Retreat (POWER) 183–185 personhood 50, 116, 154 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 27, 114, 118, 121, 144 pollution 92 populism 22–23, 32–33, 42–43; see also nationalism positionality 79, 149, 155–156, 163–164, 170, 212 posthumanism see more-than-human power 12, 24, 39, 80–81, 92, 108, 115, 176–178; dynamics 140; in fieldwork xii, 3, 86, 126, 156, 160, 162, 210–211; in healthcare context 51–52, 54, 57, 59, 61–62, 81; leadership 69, 71–73; political

21, 25, 61, 89, 117, 168, 180; structures 68, 93, 95, 177, 191–192, 200–201, 205, 208–209; theories of 3–6; see also disempowerment; empowerment; inequality praxis xii, 74, 143 precarity 24, 52 preservation 86; of farms 37, 46 progressive see liberal protest 5, 50, 55, 58, 109–110, 144; counter-protest 105–106; against industry 29–33, 68, 73, 76, 86, 90–91, 131, 136, 163–164; participant observation of 101–103, 214; right to 100; against road closure 124; against Trump administration 98–99, 103–105, 107–108, 110, 190; against Vietnam War 5, 101 public anthropology 51, 58–60, 176–177; see also activist anthropology; applied anthropology Puerto Rico 98, 110 punk see acupunk queer see LGBTQIA+ race 1, 22, 25, 26, 193 racism 4, 25, 107–108, 177, 198–199 Reactive Metals, Incorporated 29, 30, 31, 32 reflexivity 3, 144, 151, 191, 211 refugees 67, 110, 149–150, 151–154, 156, 158 Republican Party 106; see also conservative (political ideology); Trump, Donald J. research methods see activist anthropology, methods; methods; participatory research methods resilience 155 rights 43, 45, 50, 86–87, 88, 90, 98, 104, 144, 145, 153, 178; abortion 104; civil 92, 117, 177; community 22; disability 115, 117; farmers’ 38, 44, 45; First Nations 90, 166; to food 38, 47; gay 179; human 38, 43, 47, 92, 100, 135, 136, 170; immigrants’ 107, 191, 194, 195, 199, 205, 208; mineral 129; property 92; proprietary 38; protest 100, 102; rights-protective space 144, 145; subsistence 90; treaty 92; undocumented 178; voting 102, 104; women’s 102, 107; see also justice risk: of activism 5, 30, 101–102, 110, 170, 177, 206; of contamination 27, 29, 43, 65, 68, 72, 75, 80–81, 93, 166; of deportation 193, 195, 197–198; of

220 Index

fieldwork 10, 98, 101–103, 105–106, 170, 206; financial 89, 131; health risks 149, 155, 206; see also contamination; ethics; morality Rubio, Marco 108 Rust Belt 21 Scheper-Hughes, Nancy 6, 139–140; see also militant anthropology segregation 25, 27, 80, 177, 178; see also racism; white supremacy self-determination 45, 86 shale see hydraulic fracturing; industry Silverberg, Bea 30–31 Site C Dam 89–90, 160, 163, 165 situated usefulness xii, 149, 155–156, 206 social media 1, 130–131, 133, 180, 196; activism on 41, 109, 135–136, 137, 139–140, 164 social movement theory 36–37, 94–95 social movements 35, 36–37, 47, 55, 99; study of 8, 12, 95, 106; see also social movement theory social psychology 27, 57, 95 social suffering 3, 22, 59, 62–63, 152 social trauma see trauma, social trauma Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) xii; Annual Meeting 2019 1 Sol Tax Award xii, xiii South (US region) 25, 27, 118 stakeholders xiii, 59, 155 standing 1–2 Stonewall Riots 179 structural violence 161, 166–168, 170, 171–172, 206–207, 209; among acupuncture patients 58–59, 62 students 2, 3; activism 15, 101, 105, 181, 182–184, 185, 200, 207, 214; of acupuncture 51, 52, 53, 58, 62; marginalized 182, 184, 186; service-learning 194, 199, 200 subsistence 86, 89; see also rights, subsistence Superfund see Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) sustainability 37, 45 sustainable agriculture 35, 37–38, 44, 45–47 Tax, Sol xii, 5 tension (academic-activist) 2, 103–105 toxicity 14, 27, 66, 76, 80–81, 89 Traditional Land Use Area 86

traditional medicine 53, 167 transgender 105, 122, 175, 183; transLatina 179; see also LGBTQIA+ translation (cultural) 161, 162–163, 168, 170, 171 trauma 57–58, 81, 152–153, 180; social trauma 133–134; see also healthcare; trauma-informed care Treaties: Treaty Eight of 1899 90, 165, 172; Treaty Three of 1973 86 Tree of Life Synagogue mass shooting 124–125, 127 Trump, Donald J. 21, 98, 108, 176, 182, 190, 196, 201; supporters 105, 106; Administration 99, 102, 193; see also Mar-a-Lago; 2016 US Presidential election 2018 Florida gubernatorial election 106 2016 US Presidential election 21, 23, 25, 99, 102, 144, 175, 195 2012 Huizinge Earthquake 130, 132 United Kingdom 93 United Nations 150, 152–153, 156 United States Institute of Peace 157–158 University of Chicago xii, 5 University of Michigan 5 uranium 28–30, 80 Vance, J.D. 21 Vietnam War protests see protest, against Vietnam War Vincina Protocol Project 26 violence 1, 58, 72, 80, 156, 170, 177, 192; gender-based 150; gun 99, 104, 107; see also structural violence W.A.C. Bennett Dam 89 well-being 60, 88–89, 119, 143 white privilege 23, 54, 107, 156, 175 white supremacy 22, 23, 99–100, 176 white working class 14, 21, 22–23, 24–25, 25, 32, 80; upward mobility 24; wages 24 Wolf, Eric 5 xenophobia 99, 102, 108, 150, 176, 190, 196, 199, 201 Youngstown, Ohio 27, 29 Zalimeni, Gary 29, 31, 32