As any cultural anthropologist will tell you, a decade is an arbitrary cultural construction with no inherent meaning. I agree. But it does offer a potentially interesting way to bracket a period of time within which a lot happens but not too much — at least not too much for my memory to handle.
On Morning Joe today, some commentators were going through a list of top 10 events of the decade, with the 9/11 attacks ranked as number one, the most significant. As I watched, I wondered if it would make sense to compile a ranked list of the most important cultural anthropologists of the decade. It seemed impossibly difficult, especially the ranking part. But then it hit me that I could reasonably make a case for a number one cultural anthropologist of the decade.
I hereby, with all the authority of a lone blogger, name Paul Farmer (Wiki, bio) as #1 Cultural Anthropologist of the Decade.
Here’s why, in case you do not already agree with me. He has published many important scholarly works, beginning with his groundbreaking exposure of the politics and racism that led to blaming Haiti for the origin and spread of HIV/AIDS.
In addition to his many scholarly publications, Farmer is an influential global health practitioner and activist and co-founder of Partners in Health. Tracy Kidder’s book about him and his health work in Haiti, Mountains beyond Mountains, is widely read. CBS did a documentary on him in 2008. The Skoll Foundation named him “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2008. In 2009, he was a top contender for the position of head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and in the same year he was named U.S. deputy special envoy to Haiti.
Within the discipline of anthropology, Farmer has placed consideration of poverty, social inequality and social justice in the mainstream of research and writing. His use of the term “structural violence” has ensured its significance well beyond medical anthropology. His insistence on taking poverty and social inequality seriously as primary causes of health problems worldwide has helped shake the foundations of western biomedicine. He has helped forge importance links between health and human rights.
Rich anecdotal evidence from my experience teaching at GW also supports my naming of Farmer as #1 Cultural Anthropologist of the Decade. In my undergraduate cultural anthropology class, when I ask who has heard of him, many hands shoot up. Of these students, most have read Mountains Beyond Mountains. A few have heard him speak. In my upper level class on medical anthropology, an even larger proportion of students is aware of his work, and many have read one of his books in another class (they will in my class as well). In my graduate seminars, most students have read at least one of his books and perhaps also an article or two.
Beyond the impressive level of awareness among my students of Farmer’s contributions to health and anthropology, however, is what I refer to as The Paul Farmer Effect (PFE). I created this term to refer to the Pied Piper role he plays: I keep hearing from students that want to be a Paul Farmer. And they are choosing courses, majors and minors, to help achieve that goal.
Thus enrollments at GW in classes in medical anthropology, culture and human rights and cultural anthropology generally are booming. Increasing numbers of B.A. students are combining majors in anthropology, global health and/or international affairs, and adding a minor or two if they cannot fit in a double major. At the graduate level, our dual M.A. degree in international development studies and public health is very popular, and there is strong demand for a similar dual master’s degree in anthropology and public health. Every year, I receive inquiries from medical students about how they can include anthropology in their training.
The Paul Farmer Effect.
At GW, I began to notice it five years ago or so. Since then, the PFE has not abated. It is growing. Because of the PFE, more students each year combine their academic interests in anthropology, global health and international affairs. These students are beginning to graduate and go on to pursue humanitarian careers. Thanks to Paul Farmer and the PFE, they are more powerfully informed and more motivated to make the world a better place than would otherwise be the case.
anthropologyworks 