Originally published as: L. Bakker, M. Cohen, W. Faaij, Antropoloog Gezocht. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020. ISBN 9789463728430

Translation: Vivien Collingwood

Book design by Selma van Gorkum of Good Roots Design, who is both a designer and an anthropologist.

ISBN | 978 94 6372 226 1
e-ISBN | 978 90 4855 439 3
DOI | 10.5117/9789463722261
NUR | 764

© L. Bakker, M. Cohen, W. Faaij / Amsterdam University Press Ltd., Amsterdam 2021

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Table of contents

Preface to the 2021 edition

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1. What is anthropology?

Why anthropology?

Participant observation

Structuralism and relativism

Context and holism

Ethnography

Academic and applied, reflective and engaged

Applied anthropology

...and what’s the salary?

Interlude with Corina Enache

Interlude with Anneke Beerkens

Interlude with Emma Ratia

2. ‘What can I do with an anthropology degree?’

As an undergraduate student, how can I prepare for the job market?

What is the added value of a master’s degree in the job market?

What distinguishes anthropologists from other social scientists?

Why would an employer want to hire an anthropologist?

How can I ‘translate’ my discipline for employers?

How do I land my first job?

Interlude with Lianne Quax

Interlude with Rita Ouédraogo

Interlude with Sam van Vliet

3. Academic anthropology: working at a university

Getting a doctorate

A postdoctoral position

Interlude with Bart Barendregt

Interlude with Naomi van Stapele

Interlude with Loes Berendsen

4. Unique skills of an anthropologist

Ordering chaos

Seeing the invisible

Understanding the internal logic

Discovering patterns

Guiding change

Telling persuasive stories

Enriching decision-making

Interlude with Olof van der Gaag

Interlude with Mark Middel

Interlude with Michelle Steggerda

5. Branding anthropology

Framing: anthropologists as fixers of human issues

Power: own your rank!

Language: multilingual, strategic and playful

Tempo: faster and with the beat

Nuance: strength and weakness

Ethics: pragmatic, bold and brave

Change: to describe and to create

Always underline you are an anthropologist

Interlude with Martin Ortlieb

6. Anthropologists, employers and the job market

Anthropologists on starting out

Anthropologists on their career paths

Professional fields: where anthropologists work

Trends and developments

Employers on anthropologists

Employer tips for anthropologists

Tips from working anthropologists

Interview with Frans Lustermans

Interview with Lilian Swart-Eekhout

Interview with Meino Zandwijk

Conclusion

Bibliography

Preface to the 2021 edition

Anthropology is a global profession. Its practitioners frequently find themselves studying or working in other countries than their own for at least part of their career. The three authors of this book have worked in the Netherlands, but also in Belgium, the United Kingdom, Estonia, Italy, Greenland, Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria. These international experiences shape our understanding of what it is like to work as an anthropologist and have shaped our own careers. As we conducted the research for this book, we noticed that many interviewees and respondents referred to the international dimensions of their own experiences.

These notions of the global character of anthropology as a field of work echo strongly in this book, which was originally written with an audience in mind of (prospective) university students, recent graduates and practitioners in the Netherlands. The original 2020 book was very well received, and we decided to publish an edition for a wider international audience.

In this book, we provide insights into the labour market and career paths of anthropologists; information which is often poorly included in academic degree programmes. Potential employers form another audience we aim to address, given that anthropology and its usages remain relatively unknown outside of the university. In what follows, we explain differences in academic and applied careers, discuss the main strengths of an anthropology training versus other academic careers, and present employers’ responses to our questions as to why they would (or would not) employ an anthropologist. Overall we aim to provide a clearer picture as to what a career in anthropology might entail, and as we find that anthropologists end up in all sorts of working environments, we have included a considerable number of portraits and examples to illustrate just what we mean by that.

Much of what we discuss in terms of work and the labour market holds true in many countries, if with differences that make each of them unique in their own right. Marked differences between countries can be found in, for instance, PhD defence procedures, research finance, and academic hiring systems and titles. We consider these to be marginal elements of the book’s message, and they will become clear to interested readers as they consider such specific characteristics in their own contexts.

We strongly believe that society is faced with a series of major challenges:

- A growing and ageing world population with massive societal impact in terms of megacities, living environments, food systems, the labour market, pension systems, and the distribution of wealth.

- Global warming resulting in increasing pressure on natural resources and land and requiring a shift to a low-carbon economy.

- Increasing inequality, both within and between countries, resulting in conflict and migration.

To better understand these challenges, and particularly to create change and find better solutions, we need to understand people. Why they do what they do, how they live, work and travel. How people make sense of their world. Exactly what anthropologists are great at. So, let’s up our game. Claim our seat at the table. And build that sustainable, inclusive and future-proof world.

Foreword

It is becoming less common, fortunately, but you still encounter them: people who confuse ‘anthropologist’ with ‘anthroposophist’, and who continue to believe, after I have corrected them, that anthropology is some kind of religious cult. The phrase ‘woolly-minded’ is never far from their lips.

But that is not what anthropologists are. We are not a cult, and we are anything but woolly-minded. We are a tribe of people whose university training challenged our personal assumptions and ideas in an unprecedented fashion. We subsequently learned to reflect on this experience in a structured way.

Many highly-educated people from outside the field believe that an anthropology degree consists of reproducing books written by people who themselves read a great many books. Any student, then, who can say something original about this commentary-upon-commentary must be first-rate. Being able to summarize adequately, though, is also sufficient to achieve a pass. There is nothing wrong with books based upon other books, but for anthropologists this is just the first step: we use theory to improve our understanding of the world, not vice versa.

There is a simple reason for this: anthropologists study to deepen their understanding and do so-called fieldwork. We immerse ourselves as deeply and for as long as possible in a world that is truly different from our own. In this way, we learn to understand other mentalities. Just as importantly, we learn to distance ourselves from our own mentality, conventions and society. These are unique skills, gained at an age when our view of people and the world is still being formed; namely, in our early twenties.

As an anthropologist, I learned Arabic in order to spend a year living amongst impoverished students in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, in 1995. Did they think that Islam, democracy and human rights were compatible? I discovered that they felt sorry for me: I was not a Muslim or an Arab or an Egyptian. But nothing could be done for ‘Zjorzj’, as they called me; Europe simply was not Islamic ‘yet’. That was not Zjorzj’s fault, so they treated me respectfully. Islam and democracy are perfectly compatible, said some. It depends, said others. And others still: Islam is the highest form of democracy. And yet others said: no, of course not; you have democracy, we have Islam. Thus, the world often proves more complicated than the average columnist can describe in 600 words.

My experience in Cairo proved incredibly helpful when, as a Middle East correspondent, I had to put myself in the place of Jewish settlers, Palestinian suicide bombers, Syrian human rights activists and Iraqi collaborators. I learned that everyone has a story, and that almost everyone wants to tell their story, too; on condition that you actually listen to them, and are not simply looking to confirm a previous impression.

Later still, I could once more draw on my arsenal of anthropological skills when I had to immerse myself in the culture and mentality of London bankers for The Guardian. How could these people live with themselves? And, just as importantly: how could I phrase this question in such a way that they would be willing to answer it?

Even later, I plunged into the world of right-wing populist party supporters in the Netherlands – the kind of people who see me and think, There goes another left-wing idiot who is wrecking the country. An anthropology degree proves very useful when facing so much opposition and resistance, because it prepares you for precisely such a reception; just as anthropology also teaches you to think critically about your own position and privileges. And that is how I came to undertake my most recent project, a large-scale research study on why the Netherlands is currently led by men like me.

Personally, I have always pursued a freelance career because I value autonomy above all else, and I find it difficult to deal with managers who have little time for my fundamental analysis and criticism of their assumptions. That attitude is entirely understandable, I should add, because with my anthropologist’s keen vision, I can see that the structure of the news industry, with its never-ending deadlines, makes self-reflection almost impossible. This means, though, that I prefer to find my own path.

The situation is different in large organizations outside journalism. Anthropologists are increasingly working in such places, largely thanks to the outreach work of ‘public’ anthropologists such as Masja Cohen, Danielle Braun, Jitske Kramer and others. Anthropologists flourish in particular around strong leaders who have enough self-confidence to value fundamental questions, for anthropologists are always coming up with observations, remarks and criticism that others pass by or overlook. After all, that is what they are trained to do.

Interim managers are increasingly discovering how closely their work resembles anthropological fieldwork: you arrive at a new department where everything is going wrong, and everyone blames someone else. What is more, not one of them trusts you a jot. Just imagine being in an interim manager’s shoes. But that is precisely what anthropologists do when they immerse themselves in a tribe or community.

As Jan Rotmans, professor of sustainability transitions, likes to say, we are not living in an era of change, but in a change of era. Old assumptions no longer apply, and many are only becoming visible now. Due to mass immigration and far-reaching technological, geopolitical and ecological changes, societies, like individual organizations, are searching for new group processes, rituals and taboos. The things that once seemed obvious no longer apply, and familiar processes must be held up to the light in a radical fashion.

No clan can be more helpful in this process than anthropologists. I would not want too many of them in my organization, though. Anthropologists are like salt in a dish; throw in too much and the food is spoiled. But if a dish has no salt at all, none of the other flavours can come into their own.

Joris Luyendijk

Author, journalist and anthropologist

Acknowledgements

We could not have written this book without contributions from many anthropologists. We are especially grateful to Yvette Jansen and Lotje Brouwer, respectively study adviser and career coordinator for the anthropology degree programmes at the University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University, who co-authored Chapter 2 of this book. They collated students’ FAQs about getting a job and brought in Taco de Ruiter and Simone de Boer from Leiden University, Irene Nelissen from Radboud University Nijmegen, and Marrije Prins and Ellen Bal from VU University Amsterdam to make an inventory of questions and answer them.

Jitske Kramer and Carmen Hogg contributed to Chapter 5 on ‘branding’ anthropology, and Rowan Hordijk interviewed his employer for us. Many people were willing to be interviewed about their work, careers, or as an employer of anthropologists in the ‘interludes’: short portraits in which we explore the diversity of the field.

In addition, more than eighty anthropology graduates completed the questionnaire that we circulated. We were also able to draw on their insights, recommendations and experiences in the job market. Without you, this book could not have been written. Thank you!

Introduction

In two earlier books (Cohen and Sarphatie, 2007 and 2015), Masja Cohen noted that one rarely comes across job vacancies seeking anthropologists. In recent years, though, this has changed. A random survey of four job vacancy sites in January 2020 produced 25, 69, 6 and 2 hits, respectively.¹ The vacancies ranged widely and included positions in healthcare, government, academia, museums, businesses, education, charities and civil society organizations. Many vacancies were for consulting jobs, specifically for roles relating to organizational change, sustainability and international security.

Anthropologists have become more visible in the job market in recent years, and they are being employed in broader roles. While this is good news for anthropologists, we should add a caveat: the vacancies we found were mostly also open to psychologists, communication specialists, sociologists and political scientists. It seems that employers see anthropologists’ skills and educational level as equivalent to that of graduates in similar but better-known fields. That is positive for jobseekers, but it also raises a question: do employers and consultancy clients consider the specific qualities and competencies of anthropologists to be relevant?

We believe that the answer to this question is an unqualified ‘yes’, and this was confirmed by the employers we interviewed for this book. Yet we also found that many people, including potential employers and consultancy clients, still know little about what anthropologists do, about the added value they bring to the job market and about the roles they can play.

We wrote this book primarily for anthropology students about to explore the job market and the career opportunities open to them, and for prospective students wondering whether anthropology might suit them. Yet it also seeks to address anthropologists who are already employed and seeking an update on developments in the professional field. The book further aims to inform employers and others keen to know how anthropologists can add value in the workplace.

The purpose of this book is to provide the reader with insight into what anthropologists do, where they work, and how they found their jobs. It is based on data on work and careers provided to us by a diverse group of over eighty anthropologists who filled out an extensive questionnaire. We conducted additional interviews with a number from among these, as well as with other persons. We sought to make their career specificities visible; the combination of factors and elements that shape one’s life and employment and that might make it recognisable and understandable to others. We therefore included thirteen interludes – brief portraits of anthropologists who describe their careers – as well as three interviews with employers about their ideas as to how anthropologists add value in the workplace.

In the book, we seek to help students in thinking about their future jobs. In doing so we discuss the job market for anthropologists – it is more varied than you might think. We discuss the specific skills of anthropologists and how to explain their value to an employer. With Jitske Kramer we go on to look at how anthropology is marketed and how you can ‘sell’ yourself in the job market. Finally, we look behind the scenes with employers and consultancy clients to find out what they consider to be the added value of anthropologists and what advice they have for anthropologists entering the job market.

Anthropology is a highly varied professional field, as we seek to convey in this book. We, the authors, all are anthropologists, but we use our shared anthropological knowledge and background in different ways professionally.

Laurens Bakker works as an associate professor and researcher in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. He carries out both scientific and applied research and is particularly interested in the diverse ways in which research can be used beyond the academic world.

Masja Cohen is Senior Advisor Social Domain at consultancy Haute Equipe. She undertakes social projects that ideally approach social issues from the perspective of a city’s residents.

Walter Faaij is a corporate anthropologist, consultant and entrepreneur (founder of Green Culture Lab) who specializes in sustainability, corporate culture and culture change. He helps leaders and sustainability professionals to embed sustainability in their organizations’ culture.

The three of us have followed very different career paths and apply our knowledge in different ways. In writing this book we were driven by a curiosity to discover how our own experiences tallied with those of the wider community of anthropologists in the Netherlands. The findings and insights presented here are intended as a broad overview of who today’s anthropologists are, what they do and what makes them do it. They aim to inform and inspire. What is more, we hope that this publication helps to create a greater awareness of anthropologists’ knowledge and skills in the job market.

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1 The sites were: www.indeed.nl, www.vacat.nl, https://academicpositions.nl and www.monsterboard.nl.

1. What is anthropology?

What is anthropology? Aren’t anthropologists those people who spend years living with ‘primitive tribes’, studying rituals and probably taking part in them, too? Do they not dance around totem poles dressed in a loincloth, so that they are accepted by the tribe in order to grasp the meaning of its exotic rituals and customs? These are clichés, of course, and major ones at that. But like many clichés, they also contain a grain of truth.

Anthropology is the study of human cultures, in which the anthropologist is usually studying a different culture from their own. Anthropologists are keen to understand how societies are organized, and how people attach meaning to themselves and the world around them. They do this by immersing themselves in a culture as deeply as they possibly can. They study cultures from the outside in, but also from the inside out. In this chapter, we provide a short overview of how this came to be and why anthropology developed into the discipline it is today. We introduce a limited number of basic concepts that return later in the book and we briefly consider some contemporary dilemmas.²

Why anthropology?

Modern anthropology’s roots lie in the colonial past, in an age when European explorers, soldiers, officials and missionaries set forth across the world. They were driven not merely by curiosity, but largely by a desire to discover commercial opportunities far from home. When they did, they attempted to establish trading relations with the inhabitants of the newly discovered regions. Once a foothold was gained, they set up permanent trading posts which were often followed by conquest, colonization and incorporation into the ‘overseas territories’ of colonial powers. Some of the soldiers, officials, or missionaries involved kept diaries or wrote reports on the local populations they encountered. These writings described the lives of these peoples: how they made a living and organized their society, the nature of their religion, what they valued, how they related to one another, how they explained the world around them and perceived their place in it. Some of these authors wrote this down out of interest, or perhaps to alleviate boredom, but for others it had a more practical application. After all, understanding another culture’s idea of god helps a missionary to communicate their own message, while an administrator benefits from understanding a society’s structure and principles of leadership. It is useful for a soldier to know which forces mobilize resistance, how war is waged, and how violence is viewed and explained.

As well as such practical applications, interest in the ‘otherness’ of such cultures as human beings gradually arose. Scientists believed that there was much to learn about the development of humanity from underlying differences in ways of living and organization. Western thinking about the development of humanity was highly evolutionary in nature and saw the European powers and the United States as the pinnacle of civilization. Japan, China and Turkey – cultures with developed state structures and advanced levels of technology – were on a slightly lower level. The levels then ‘descended’ to end at a basic level of nomadic hunting and gathering cultures. Studying these various levels was considered to be a means of gaining an understanding of the development of human civilization and the principles underlying the increasing complexity of its societies as these evolved. Anthropology thus arose out of such curiosity about the emergence and development of humanity and the desire to map this out as a science, as well as out of the practical application of knowledge of other cultures to control and dominate them. This is a tension that we will return to frequently.

Participant observation

Participant observation is one of the most important methodologies in anthropology. With this method, the researcher attempts to follow the subject’s life as closely as possible, both by observing them and by participating in their lives as deeply as they can. The underlying idea is that one can only really understand someone if one experiences their way of life from close at hand, ideally from within. The researcher should therefore go and live among the research subjects, learn their language, eat their food, and live as they do. Based on these insights, one can then ‘translate’ the knowledge gained as precisely as possible to one’s own language and culture. After all, many concepts that were assumed to be universal – from broad concepts such as family, leadership and justice to more concrete concepts such as housing, clothing, a tree or a knife – turned out to have different and more nuanced meanings in local contexts. The more the cultural context and the interwoven nature of various different ways of attaching meaning (economic, social, political, and so forth) became clear, so did differences in meaning. One of the researchers most famous for using participant observation was the British-Polish anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski. We compiled the following description of the role of yams – a tuberous plant – in Trobriand society, based on his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), as an example of such research:

Yams are the Trobrianders’ single most important source of food, but they are also more than that. The cultivation of large, long, high-quality yams is a sign of expertise that confers prestige on the grower. Yams such as these are displayed prominently, so that all can see them. In this way, the social status of the grower is collectively established. Yams are also given as gifts to other villages or clans. This not only creates a bond between the giver and the other group, but it also gives rise to an obligation for the receiving group to present the giver with yams that are at least as good. In this way, yams extend prestige and social relations beyond one’s own group. Moreover, a man may have several wives, on condition that he provides for them by building each a ‘yam house’. Her family then fills this house with yams to sustain her. In this way, yams also reveal an unequal social relationship between the families of the bridegroom and the bride.

Yams are thus much more than food: they symbolize expertise, prestige and social status, and function as money or as a medium of exchange. Malinowski gradually made this discovery during his long sojourn on the Trobriand Islands.