Approaches to Anthropological Praxis in Florida

On Wednesday, November 20th, 2024, around 40 anthropologists filled a conference room in Tampa, Florida at the annual meetings of the AAA for a roundtable titled “Ethics and Risk in Anthropological Praxis: Navigating Socio-Political Landscapes.” This roundtable emerged from a collective desire to address considerable fallout from state-led initiatives and legislation and the anticipated deleterious impacts of these policies on higher education and academic freedoms in Florida. Relatedly, we asked about possible coping strategies. Some of the headlining events leading up to the roundtable included the statewide revocation of funding for DEI initiatives and dismantling DEI-related campus programs (including DEI offices, inter-faith, LGBTQ and Women’s Centers), syllabi keyword searches (flagging syllabi and course materials with specific terms including: CRT, diversity, Israel, and Palestine), the sudden appointments of new university leadership and restructuring of New College, widespread book bans, the rejection of AP African American History in Florida schools, state-led attempts to weaken or eliminate faculty unions, the reorganization of General Education requirements through the elimination of Sociology curricula, and the implementation of post-tenure review. The roundtable also generated broader discussion on current events, including pro-Palestine protests and encampments and law enforcement responses that included student and faculty arrests.

Sympathetic colleagues and educators learned about–and were shocked by–the high-profile headlines from Florida, and not surprisingly, many anthropologists chose not to attend the 2024 AAA meetings in Tampa. However, by the time the AAA convened in Florida just weeks after the presidential election, many of our colleagues across the nation realized we may all soon face similar threats to our professional, disciplinary praxis.

As co-organizers of the roundtable panel that inspired this reflection, we are both anthropology professors at a mid-sized regional public university on the tenure-track and recognize that our positionalities are situated within various axes of privilege and precarity. Jessica is an un-tenured assistant professor and woman of color, and Anne is an associate professor and white. We organized this roundtable to include anthropologists at different career stages (undergraduates to full professors) to foster discussion between people with different professional and personal perspectives. We opened our discussion acknowledging that Florida’s standing was no longer exceptional within hegemonic geographies and temporalities. The central question guiding our roundtable was: How do we maintain integrity to the ethical standards of our anthropological research and pedagogy amidst the complexities of an ever-changing political climate?  We discussed moving our praxis beyond detached academic study tofoster collaborative, ethical, and nuanced understanding of our roles as anthropologists in today’s socio-political landscape. We have parsed the highlights of that discussion into two salient and interrelated themes of (1) engaging in community collaboration to strengthen the impacts of anthropological praxis in uncertain times and (2) drawing upon anthropology’s expert toolkit to engage in difficult conversations where relationship-building is a key outcome.

Can bridging classrooms and communities help us understand diverse perspectives?

First, we reflected on the local implications of doing (and teaching) anthropology, reminding ourselves of our field’s community-engaged focus. Anthropology is often oriented towards establishing equitable partnerships with community members to ensure all stages of the research process are relevant for, and respond to, community-identified needs and concerns. Local communities—in Florida and beyond—are where our students, as nascent ethnographers, often practice their newly learned skills and engage in anthropological research. Teaching our students to work in these diverse communities, with individuals from varying socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, and religious backgrounds and a wide range of political and ideological beliefs, inevitably involves confronting differing viewpoints and opinions. As noted by our roundtable participants, understanding these opposing viewpoints should be a driving force behind anthropological inquiry, rather than something from which we shy away.

The ability to understand multiple perspectives hinges upon meaningful dialogue and close listening. When it comes to highly-charged topics–like human rights, for example– anthropologists can lean into the power of social science inquiry to interrogate current events and foster empathy. In contemporary classrooms, the act of seeking a nuanced understanding, especially of controversial topics, risks being interpreted as acquiescence or even as endorsing contentious views. This reframing contributes to a growing sense of intellectual paralysis where nuanced scholarly exploration can be misconstrued as personal bias or provocation. Discomfort, not just in our discipline but in many liberal arts and social science classrooms, is often reduced to a polarized dichotomy of threat versus safety (Smith 2017). Such a dichotomy is also felt unevenly based on the positionalities of those engaging in, or refraining from, such discourse. This reductive stance effectively shuts down the opportunity to explore multiple sides of any topic or point, and narrows the space necessary for connection, comprehension, and critical thinking. Incorporating difficult discussions and purposefully challenging experiences into our praxis through community engagement can cultivate new safe spaces for vulnerable pedagogical discourse.

How can we teach and dialogue with integrity?

Avoiding complicated discussions or presenting a face of neutrality is not always possible, nor desirable. These realizations led one audience member to ask, “What do we lose by not taking a side?” While we agreed there are no easy answers to this question, it generated discussion on how students look to their professors and peers to unpack the significance and impacts of anthropological research. Our classrooms are spaces where we tease out complicated issues related to the study of human behavior within cultural contexts, and students build community with each other and with faculty through these discussions. Yet, many faculty may feel vulnerable revealing their stances on a range of topics, fearing their views might be seen as “too liberal” or “too political” (especially in states like Florida, described by the state’s governor as “where woke goes to die”). Conversely, faculty may feel disingenuous if they are masking their own informed opinions, especially when their views are backed by decades of research within and beyond the discipline of anthropology.

Fear of contentious cross-ideological dialogue demonstrates how the “chilling effect” works. While cultivating a “comfortable discomfort” was once an effective pedagogical tool, discomfort appears to have become something to avoid or limit on college campuses. This may be the result of the increasingly polarized viewpoints within and beyond the classroom, wherein both “sides” are deeply entrenched and often emboldened to say things that might shock or offend. The deliberate strategy of pushing students to think beyond their intellectual comfort zones to develop critical thinking is now a tool potentially wielded to challenge course content through claims of being problematic or inappropriate (i.e. “too political” or “woke”). Again, hesitation stems not from an unwillingness to engage challenging perspectives, but from a legitimate fear of institutional repercussions. Under current political mandates, complaints can easily reframe the instructor’s attempt to push students out of their comfort zones as potential misconduct.

We discussed how faculty may feel reasonably nervous about the repercussions of engaging in provocative debates, given the uncertainty of this socio-political moment, marked by  “cancel culture,” high-profile firings, resignations, and the shifting precarity of tenure and newly-instituted post-tenure review. Carefully constructed boundaries of academic discourse, intellectual freedoms, and professional protections can be rapidly undermined by claims of harm or ideological transgression. Our socio-political and academic landscape has heightened the stakes of cultivating meaningful dialogue, such that it is no longer just an academic exercise. The challenge to create spaces where students and faculty can openly engage with polarizing topics, while feeling genuinely safe and supported, is ever more urgent.

Where can we find and build support?

One salient ethical dilemma that arose from our roundtable was how to critically engage with complex, contentious topics using our expert anthropological toolkit while maintaining professional integrity and job security. In the weeks after the 2024 AAA meetings in Tampa, we reflected on our discussions, particularly those related to the importance of building community and finding allies outside of and across our institutions as a meaningful way forward. As we leave spaces like the AAA meetings, where many of us find strength and comfort in solidarity, what disciplinary lessons do we take with us into praxis? In a time when so much of our attention is drawn to angst over the divisions between people, we are reminded of Jonathan Marks (2017) who describes anthropology as a “science of mediation,” that is, an intellectual dialogue seeking commonalities between juxtaposing ideas or phenomena. How can we foster mutual understanding and navigate contradicting perspectives when civility and decorum in public discourse appear to be eroding in our current political climate?

Several participants suggested focusing on what anthropology does best: uncovering the everyday workings of institutional power dynamics. Several audience members and panelists then contributed examples of being forced to navigate arbitrary rules, such as a puzzling requirement to keep protests below 85 decibels at one university; or vague and ever-changing regulations, such as those governing protest timing, permits, and locations, each marked by a lack of transparency and consistency. Participants voiced concerns about working within shifting institutional policies on a variety of topics related to academic freedom. When trying to respond to shifting institutional policies around academic freedom, we increasingly encounter silence, uncertainty, and, at times, outright misinformation. Anthropologists are expertly positioned to study such power dynamics like the strategies used by institutions to induce confusion and maintain control.

Finally, our conversation circled back to the importance of cultivating stronger relationships between university campuses and local communities. We agreed that a shift from competitive and siloed institutional growth to one of greater community success and welfare requires collaboration. As the current sociopolitical climate intensifies institutional competition over funding, teaching loads and restrictions, and access to resources, it becomes even more important to refocus anthropology’s strengths to build coalitions both on campus and within the broader community. This approach not only enhances our collective impact and relevance but also strengthens our personal and professional security. One audience member astutely pointed out that applied practitioners working outside of academia are not bound by the same measures and metrics as university professors, at times allowing them to more freely promote core anthropological values. This type of allyship may prove to be a way forward in uncertain and shifting sociopolitical landscapes. Recently, legislation targeting academic freedom, institutional programming and curriculum, and funding has intensified across higher education across the United States. As scrutiny increases, so has anxiety around censorship and the politicization of knowledge and praxis. These issues are no longer “Florida issues,” they are tensions colleagues and students across the US must now engage. This underscores the urgency of fostering broader networks of support and community collaborations to ensure anthropologyspeaks meaningfully to the current moment. Anthropological praxis is highly impactful when we incorporate a variety of voices and lived experiences into our research and its practical applications.