Anthropologists now work far beyond the university, from crime labs to cyberspace
The classic image is a scholar living in a remote village taking notes. By 2014, though, most American anthropologists and archaeologists worked in research jobs, consulting or government, and new specialities have them identifying skeletons for police or studying how people relate to the digital world.
An anthropologist studies human beings in societies past and present, aiming at the big picture of what being human means for a given group. Branches divide the work: social, cultural and philosophical anthropology examine norms, values and behaviour, while linguistic anthropology looks at how language shapes social life. Archaeology counts as a sub-discipline, focused on material remains like artefacts and buildings, whereas anthropology as a whole ranges more widely.
Training usually starts broad and narrows. Undergraduates sample the whole field and specialise in graduate school, where some universities set a qualifying exam before a doctoral dissertation. Practising without an advanced degree is rare. Linguistic anthropologists, for example, spend three to four years on coursework such as phonetics, morphology and syntax, then master the history and society of one region before going into the field.
The signature method is participant observation, which means living among the people studied and talking with them, sometimes just listening to conversations, sometimes interviewing directly. Modern projects also lean on statistical software and geographic information systems to study population growth, inequality and globalisation, under strict ethical obligations toward the people involved. Forensic anthropology is growing in the United States, where, unlike in many countries, it belongs to anthropologists rather than forensic pathologists; they estimate sex, age, stature and ancestry from bones. Digital anthropology studies the relationship between humans and computer-generated worlds, including online ethics.
The job market is modest. US employment in the combined category was forecast to grow only from 7,600 jobs in 2016 to 7,900 by 2026, slower than typical occupations, and the median anthropologist's salary in 2015 was 62,220 dollars, yet many report above-average satisfaction. Those with doctorates mostly stay in academia. Famous names include Margaret Mead, Franz Boas and Claude Lévi-Strauss, and the novelist Zora Neale Hurston also trained in the field.
Source: Anthropologist
