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ANTHROPOLOGY AND THE and that anthropologists had no need of text- moting a generic ‘teaching professionalism’, a
‘AMATEURS’: A PERSONAL VIEW books or the ‘popular touch’. An iconoclastic professionalism supposedly lacking in the dis-
disciplinary pedagogy was already deeply ciplines. This time it is the anthropologists
British anthropologists have concerned them- embedded in anthropologists’ academic identity. who are being labelled amateurs. While some
selves with education throughout the long 20th The 1958 conference marked an important have found such courses useful, as a rule they
century. As early as 1914, the British watershed in the discipline’s concern with have been treated with suspicion. An aura of
Association set up a committee to ‘devise teaching and learning. For the enthusiasts, from managerialism and a formulaic, uncritical
practical measures for the organisation of then on education primarily meant ‘educating’ approach to educational debates puts many off
anthropological teaching at the universities’. others about anthropology, especially in (Mills & Huber forthcoming).
Once social anthropologists had established schools, rather than teaching anthropology to It gets worse. The latest discourse urges uni-
their institutional foothold, they increasingly university students. The Manchester depart- versity teachers to focus on improving the
turned to thinking about how to share and ment did some pioneering work with local ‘student experience’, whatever that means,
communicate anthropological ideas. teacher training colleges, and the Royal rather than on the specific and often unique
The year 1958 marked an early high point. Anthropological Institute supported the pub- ways that disciplinary knowledge is learnt and
In that year, the Association of Social lishing of the ‘Land and People’ training packs communicated. But is part of the problem that
Anthropologists of the UK and in the 1970s (e.g. Sallnow 1978). The emphasis we find it hard to articulate exactly what our
Commonwealth (ASA) held its first annual was on ensuring that anthropology was dissem- own pedagogy amounts to? Anthropology may
conference, in Cambridge, on the theme of inated by ‘people who knew what they were have an invaluable contribution to make to the
‘The teaching of social anthropology’. talking about’, and on working with secondary broader field of education, but this will also
Sessions included ‘Social anthropology for the school teachers to prevent ‘amateurs from come from an ethnographic understanding of
non-professionals’, ‘The teaching of under- leading each other into the ditch’, as Paul how the discipline itself is taught. For anthro-
graduates’, ‘The teaching of graduates and Stirling once put it. Unfortunately, without the pologists, schooled to privilege autonomous
training for fieldwork’, and ‘Training for field- whole-hearted backing of the discipline, and independent enquiry, pedagogy is too pre-
work in retrospect’. attempts to introduce anthropology as a dis- cious to leave to others. But it is also too pre-
There was much discussion of undergraduate crete A-level subject repeatedly foundered. cious to leave to itself.1 !
teaching, and the usual fracas between the Proposed future changes to the 19-19 cur- David Mills
London School of Economics (LSE) and riculum make this A-level ever more unlikely. University of Birmingham
Oxford over whether postgraduate researchers Surely such efforts should be applauded, [email protected]
could or should be trained. But the topic that despite their sporadic success? Yes, as long as
drew most attention was that of teaching such proselytization does not lead us to ignore 1. The work of the National Network for Teaching and
Learning Anthropology (NNTLA), and the Centre for
anthropological ideas to ‘non-professionals’. the learning, teaching and social reproduction
Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP), part of the
Kenneth Little suggested that knowledge of of the discpline within universities. In some Higher Education Academy, has begun to develop insights
social anthropology would be useful for school ways, anthropology’s enthusiasts have been into anthropology’s own pedagogic ‘style’, as contributions
teachers in handling children, and that they too single-minded. They only rarely worked to Mills & Harris (2004) demonstrate.
would benefit from an anthropological under- alongside or shared ideas with educationalists. Mills, D and Harris M (2004) Teaching Rites and Wrongs:
standing of race relations. Barbara Ward contro- This is hardly surprising. Education’s rela- Universities and the making of Anthropologists.
versially suggested that teaching was ‘neglected tively low academic status, perceived lack of Birmingham: Sociology, Anthropology, Politics (C-SAP)
— & Huber, M. (2005 forthcoming). Anthropology and the
or even despised’ in the research universities. theoretical sophistication and dependence on
educational ‘trading zone’: Disciplinarity, pedagogy and
But not everyone agreed. Edmund Leach, in psychological models of learning may have professionalism. Arts and Humanities in Higher
particular, thought the proposal of ‘selling’ made it an unappealing collaborator. Now it Education 4: 5-28.
social anthropology ‘preposterous’, and that ‘if can sometimes seem too late. There has been Sallnow, M. 1978. Peru: The Quechua. Oxford: Blackwell.
the subject was any good it would sell itself’. an inexorable growth of ‘faculty’ development
Some felt that teaching was a personal matter, units in the UK, with compulsory courses pro-

obituary
JOHN BOUSFIELD
In some ways he exemplified the ideal advo- turns awkward and delightful – and a charis-
(1948-2004)
cated by Rodney Needham, of the ethnogra- matic teacher who enjoyed enormous loyalty
John Bousfield died on Friday 28 May at his pher as a kind of empirical philosopher, and in and admiration from his students, John was
home in Canterbury. John was born in 1948, pursuit of this end he undertook fieldwork on jointly responsible for the development of a
and studied philosophy at Sussex, Rutgers and Sufi tariqah in Malaysia and Indonesia which unique experiment in cross-disciplinary
King’s College London, where he developed a was to influence his later thinking in profound teaching which went under the title
particular interest in the work of Wittgenstein. ways. Bousfield was the author of important ‘Understanding other cultures’, and which he
However, from the time of his appointment at essays, such as those critiquing the Berlin and taught with, among others, Paul Stirling and
the University of Kent in 1974 he sought to Kay work on basic colour terms (in Ellen and John Davis. Sadly this course, and the
apply his philosophical training to real world Reason’s Classifications in their social approach to learning that inspired it, was
problems, first to anthropology, particularly context), on evil (in Parkin’s The anthropology undermined by the relentless audit culture and
ethnophilosophy, then to Islamic studies, to the of evil), and on Islamic philosophy (in departmentalization which has dominated
theology of science and finally to the global- Hooker’s Islam in Southeast Asia). His instinc- recent university sector reforms, and of which
ization of religion. During his career he moved tive interdisciplinarity was very much part of John was himself in a sense a casualty. !
with apparent intellectual effortlessness the pedagogic ethos at Kent in the early days, Roy Ellen
between departments of philosophy, anthro- and this suited his eclectic view of what phi- University of Canterbury
pology, Southeast Asian studies and theology. losophy was about. A complex person – by [email protected]

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 6, DECEMBER 2004 25