Bridging the gap.

The general public unfortunately have no gusto for anthropology. Or so it would seem. This can be seen when you explore online communities. While recognizing their limitations in terms of sample representativeness, they are still representative enough to give an indication of where the general consensus lies. What we find here are gross generalizations and reductionist statements. This is not a surprising observation given the inherent popularity of books such as Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus or thinkers such as Richard Dawkins. The problem is that unless someone is more familiar with work done by those who demonstrate the significance of societal & cultural and historical context such generalizing and reductionist views will continue to enjoy hegemonic status. This is all the more telling as they are not new views. Just as Richard Dawkins for instance speaks of "the" evolution of societal and cultural traits such as religion so too did the founders of anthropology. Likewise the binary gender essentialist understandings in Men are from Mars have been discredited. However the invisibility of anthropology to the public has made these long time redundant theories retain legitimacy long past their expiration dates. We are in dire need of someone or something to bridge this gap.

Enter Anthropologies a new online magazine which will hopefully succeed in introducing anthropology to a wider audience. The first issue is a series of articles focussed on the question What is Anthropology? I found it to be a really interesting read. Although some of the writers were a little too pessimistic for my liking. The first article also made the mistake of being a block of text. Although they were an interesting, and to this one, new way of approaching the question. In particular the article which utilized their glasses as a descriptive tool. I do not have much opportunity however to speak to people without awareness of anthropology. So I can not say for certain how well this will appeal to the mainstream. One can only hope.