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Anthropologists behaving badly? Impact and the politics of evaluation in an era of accountability

journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-08, 18:18 authored by Jon MitchellJon Mitchell
This paper discusses the move within UK social science funding to use non-academic ‘impact’ as a measure of quality and success for social research. It suggests that behind this move are a set of unspoken assumptions about what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ impact, and the paper seeks to problematize these. By way of provocation, it presents three classic cases of anthropological research, in which the impact of anthropologists on the societies in which they worked was at worst reprehensible, and at best controversial. These controversies – Darkness in El Dorado, the Human Terrain System and Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood – are used to demonstrate the difficulty with which we can assess impacts as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and the problems with attempting to do so.

History

Publication status

  • Published

Journal

Etnográfica

ISSN

0873-6561

Publisher

Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia

Issue

2

Volume

18

Page range

275-297

Department affiliated with

  • Anthropology Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2014-09-16

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