Reputation and professional degrees
I believe that the anthropologist Richard Leakey, who is currently a Professor at SUNY Stonybrook, had no formal college education http://www.roycecarlton.com/speaker/Richard-Leakey-Curriculum-Vitae/ although he's received many honorary doctorates. I don't think anyone would question his bona fides, just as I am sure most of us envy his education. Also, when I studied history at Columbia back in the 1970s, I was a little surprised to learn that one of my professors, Alan Cameron, did not have a PhD either. Cameron is currently Charles Anthon Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at Columbia University. Generally a PhD reflects a certain degree of expertise -- although, like friends on FB, we should probably be careful not to read too much into that -- but mostly it reflects a commitment to the academic system and its processes. Where this gets muddier it seems to me is in areas such as emerging technologies, where an 18 year old dropout might have a greater grasp of a subject that a 60 year old tenured faculty member. Professionalization seems to be weakening across disciplines, and trying to emerge is a more dynamic, more disperse, more ambient reputation system. We aren't surprised any more to find out the "person" we're talking with on the Internet is a dog, but we are still shocked when the dog turns out to be smarter than we are. -c On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 4:49 PM, Sam Ladner <samladner@gmail.com> wrote:
Of course this begs the question: what is the <redacted> text? I must know! Your inquiry I think is one of professionalization. Academics in general haven't been as successful at that process than, say, physicians (any of you been called "not a 'real' doctor'"? Extra points if it was by family member!). Physicians monopolized a set of knowledge and successfully organized the socio-legal framework to their benefit. They have placed other professionals below them in a hierarchy (nurses, physiotherapists, etc.) and locked down that social convention by having exclusive legal control over prescriptions. Anthropologists have failed to do the same (as have sociologists, FWIW). The only occupational control anthropologists have had thus far is guarding entry into the academy as a professor. You can call yourself an anthropologist as much as you want, but you just can't teach other anthropologists. Heck, I've met several "economists" who "only" have an MA. Now that said, I happen to think the PhD matters (under 25? irrelevant). It suggests a certain level of expertise, and of course the ability to teach that expertise. But it makes me uncomfortable to relegate someone to "non anthropologist" when there is no legal provision to certify that professional status, as there are with engineers, physicians, and accountants. ~~~~~ Sam Ladner, PhD Sociologist Toronto On Mon, Jan 4, 2010 at 3:21 PM, live <human.factor.one@gmail.com> wrote:
I actually have an inquiry that is related, and I'm highly curious what the list response is:
I've someone I know who is calling themselves a '<redacted term> anthropologist'. As such, they have been invited to speak and have been presenting at various conferences. They do not have a PhD and they're under the age of 25, having just graduated from college.
Is this ethical? Can a term 'psychologist' or anthropologist' be used by someone not having attended graduate education? What say this list?
On Jan 4, 2010, at 11:50 AM, Chris Hodge wrote:
I can understand people misrepresenting the nature of their personal contacts for self-aggrandizement (FB body counts), and I can understand people misrepresenting associations and affiliations for professional gain (fictitious advisory boards). As sins go, I guess I'm not sure this is much worse than resume-padding.
_______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
--
I find this an interesting topic as someone with a first draft of her dissertation but no Ph.D. I identify myself with my academic discipline but because of professional requirements, I've had to look outside of universities for employment. I've found that people in social networks take it on faith that I am a sociologist, albeit not a professor, which I appreciate. At least, no one has asked to see a CV. But when I first started following people on Twitter, I did a bio search for those who describe themselves as an anthropologist or sociologist and was surprised how much these titles had been appropriated by people who, as part of their job in marketing or media, try to make sense of why people act as they do. "Technology anthropologist" is one title I've seen several times by people working in social media. In one sense, people can call themselves whatever they want. But there is a lack of self-consciousness or irony in ascribing an expertise to oneself that I think most credentialed people within those disciplines would find a surprise. In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson discusses the cooperation & respect professional & amateur astronomers have for each others abilities and how they've come together to work on some research projects. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's more likely that this pro-am collegiality could occur in technology & media studies than in the social sciences. Liz Pullen nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com
I think it is important to note that in the case of the professional & amateur astronomers, and the earlier case of the professional & amateur naturalists, the mutual respect comes out of shared, strongly held values regarding the value of the science, the care that must be taken in the collection of data, and the shared goal of developing a particular kind of understanding of the world. It seems to me that the values of the academic anthropologists, whether or not they have a degree, and the values of the people who are employed by corporations, are at times radically different, and that is the source of the tension, especially because the people on the corporate side who use the label often make little effort to understand the academic use of the label. Now, obviously, this is not universally true. There are many people on the corporate side of things who do understand the academic side of things, but I'm not talking about the exceptions to the rule. The same division also occurs within academia, between people from anthropology departments, and people in computer science departments. That's not to say there aren't any people in computer science departments who understand the perspective of the anthropologists (Paul Dourish is an excellent example, though he's currently in an information science department). But if, for example, you look at how the word ethnography is used in the CSCW literature, and how it is used in the anthropology literature, they can be very different things. Personally, I do rapid ethnography, which most anthropologist would not recognize as true ethnography. But my purposes and goals are different than theirs, and I would never presume to call myself an anthropologist. I am a social scientist (I am from library and information science), but I am not a sociologist, as I study analog and computing technology as well as people and their interactions. Ingbert On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Liz <nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com> wrote:
I find this an interesting topic as someone with a first draft of her dissertation but no Ph.D. I identify myself with my academic discipline but because of professional requirements, I've had to look outside of universities for employment.
I've found that people in social networks take it on faith that I am a sociologist, albeit not a professor, which I appreciate. At least, no one has asked to see a CV. But when I first started following people on Twitter, I did a bio search for those who describe themselves as an anthropologist or sociologist and was surprised how much these titles had been appropriated by people who, as part of their job in marketing or media, try to make sense of why people act as they do. "Technology anthropologist" is one title I've seen several times by people working in social media.
In one sense, people can call themselves whatever they want. But there is a lack of self-consciousness or irony in ascribing an expertise to oneself that I think most credentialed people within those disciplines would find a surprise.
In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson discusses the cooperation & respect professional & amateur astronomers have for each others abilities and how they've come together to work on some research projects. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's more likely that this pro-am collegiality could occur in technology & media studies than in the social sciences.
Liz Pullen nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- ========================================== Ingbert Floyd PhD Student Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign http://ingbert.org/ || skype/twitter/etc.: spacesoon Check out the unofficial GSLIS Wiki: http://www.gslis.org/ "Dream in a pragmatic way." -Aldous Huxley
I am working with a number of interrelated biodiversity projects -- some grounded in academia and some centered more in the sphere of citizen science -- and I've found the work Nancy van House has done on trust and knowledge sharing across epistemic communities to be quite useful http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~vanhouse/pubs.html On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 3:06 PM, Ingbert Floyd <ifloyd2@gmail.com> wrote:
I think it is important to note that in the case of the professional & amateur astronomers, and the earlier case of the professional & amateur naturalists, the mutual respect comes out of shared, strongly held values regarding the value of the science, the care that must be taken in the collection of data, and the shared goal of developing a particular kind of understanding of the world. It seems to me that the values of the academic anthropologists, whether or not they have a degree, and the values of the people who are employed by corporations, are at times radically different, and that is the source of the tension, especially because the people on the corporate side who use the label often make little effort to understand the academic use of the label. Now, obviously, this is not universally true. There are many people on the corporate side of things who do understand the academic side of things, but I'm not talking about the exceptions to the rule. The same division also occurs within academia, between people from anthropology departments, and people in computer science departments. That's not to say there aren't any people in computer science departments who understand the perspective of the anthropologists (Paul Dourish is an excellent example, though he's currently in an information science department). But if, for example, you look at how the word ethnography is used in the CSCW literature, and how it is used in the anthropology literature, they can be very different things.
Personally, I do rapid ethnography, which most anthropologist would not recognize as true ethnography. But my purposes and goals are different than theirs, and I would never presume to call myself an anthropologist. I am a social scientist (I am from library and information science), but I am not a sociologist, as I study analog and computing technology as well as people and their interactions.
Ingbert
On Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 1:52 PM, Liz <nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com> wrote:
I find this an interesting topic as someone with a first draft of her dissertation but no Ph.D. I identify myself with my academic discipline but because of professional requirements, I've had to look outside of universities for employment.
I've found that people in social networks take it on faith that I am a sociologist, albeit not a professor, which I appreciate. At least, no one has asked to see a CV. But when I first started following people on Twitter, I did a bio search for those who describe themselves as an anthropologist or sociologist and was surprised how much these titles had been appropriated by people who, as part of their job in marketing or media, try to make sense of why people act as they do. "Technology anthropologist" is one title I've seen several times by people working in social media.
In one sense, people can call themselves whatever they want. But there is a lack of self-consciousness or irony in ascribing an expertise to oneself that I think most credentialed people within those disciplines would find a surprise.
In The Long Tail, Chris Anderson discusses the cooperation & respect professional & amateur astronomers have for each others abilities and how they've come together to work on some research projects. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's more likely that this pro-am collegiality could occur in technology & media studies than in the social sciences.
Liz Pullen nwjerseyliz@yahoo.com _______________________________________________ The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- ========================================== Ingbert Floyd PhD Student Graduate School of Library and Information Science University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign http://ingbert.org/ || skype/twitter/etc.: spacesoon
Check out the unofficial GSLIS Wiki: http://www.gslis.org/
"Dream in a pragmatic way." -Aldous Huxley
Hello all, I think that maybe my previous email did not go through because I did not see it in the list and got no responses. So here is another attempt, I apologize if this is redundant. I am doing some research on digital journalism and wondering if anyone might suggest any smart phone applications (iPhone apps) or other mobile tools that are specifically used by journalists in the field or could be especially useful to them? I am interested in the mobile aspect - how can smart phones be an advantage to journalists? Texting, tweeting, sending video and images are some such tools, but are there others? Has anyone heard of any geo-mapping apps that are or can be used by journalists? Thank you in advance, Irina Irina Gendelman, PhD Assistant Professor Saint Martin's University Lacey, WA 98503
I would hesitate to say that the 18 year old dropout as the expertise in *science*. That is, the collection and analysis of data. It's not the area of interest that I believe one needs expertise in, it's the study of that area. The 18 year old sounds like a perfect interview subject. On Jan 5, 2010, at 9:24 AM, Chris Hodge wrote:
Where this gets muddier it seems to me is in areas such as emerging technologies, where an 18 year old dropout might have a greater grasp of a subject that a 60 year old tenured faculty member.
participants (5)
-
Chris Hodge -
Gendelman, Irina -
Ingbert Floyd -
live -
Liz