Encountering Anthropology

This short (164 pages) book is a collection of six essays that are representative of the author’s engagement with anthropology. A connecting theme is anthropology as an educative force in settings beyond higher education, whether in pre-university education or, more widely, ’public education’. Anthropology’s marginal status relative to more popular disciplines, explicit or implicit in these essays, emphasises the importance of public visibility and reputation to the sustainability of the discipline, reputation being addressed in two of these essays. The focus throughout the essays is, therefore, on institutional rather than intellectual developments within anthropology. The author’s own encounter with anthropology was as an undergraduate studying economics, establishing a lasting intellectual interest in the discipline. He is a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. As a member of the Institute’s education committee, he was involved in the development of an accredited, pre-university anthropology qualification.