Comments on: We suck at (academic) politics

By: Jane Beckett

Jane Beckett — Sun, 29 Apr 2018 19:14:51 +0000

These points also apply to lots of other types of institutions — unions, religious congregations, civic associations, political movements, youth development organizations — the list goes on. Thanks for this quick summary.

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 14:46:06 +0000

@Kerim. What does participating in a joint project entail? I am thinking about the difference between “joint”projects in which people work independently and cobble together a joint report of some kind and projects in which teams are expected to produce an emergent result that no individual could produce alone. A typical product of the former would be a collection of papers only loosely connected by a nominal shared theme. When I think of the alternative, I think of the advertising and marketing campaigns I worked on at Hakuhodo and imagine laboratories producing new technologies. In the social sciences/humanities I think of archeology and a few notable examples of collaborations between anthropologists and historians, e.g., the project on traditional Chinese funerals organized by Woody Watson and Carol Embree. These, however, seem exceedingly rare.

By: Kerim

Kerim — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 10:35:34 +0000

@John Interesting comment. Here in Taiwan (as I’m sure you know) the government encourages joint research projects in the social sciences. I haven’t been part of one myself, but most of my colleagues have participated in at least one or more joint projects.

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 06:01:19 +0000

A sharp and long overdue analysis. To which I will add a matter of particular concern to scholars in the humanities and social sciences, including, of course, anthropologists. Our rivals/potential allies in STEM fields have natural advantages over those of us used to lone-wolf pursuit of our own hobbies. They are used to working in teams whose members spend time together in their labs, sharing equipment and running joint experiments on which more than one individual’s success depends. They are used to taking collective action, utilizing the skills that Kerim describes so well here. We may joke about herding cats. Their troops, packs and prides, as well as the material advances they produce, give them an edge that occasional individual brilliance will never overcome.