Comfort Zones and Their Dangers

Who Are We?Qui Sommes-Nous

Bibliographic Data

ID2280258
AuthorsR Dominguez (0000-0003-2431-1391, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, corresponding author), Virginia R Dominguez
Year2012
Volume114
Issue3
Pages394-405
Publication date2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Anthropologist (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7294 • E-ISSN: 1548-1433
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1548-1433.2012.01441.x
OpenAlexW2042822928
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited13

This Presidential Address examines contemporary U.S. anthropological rhetoric regarding the profession of anthropology and related habits of professional self-understanding that warrant a second look. It is most concerned with aspects of our widespread self-understanding that often function (esp. in conversation and in writing) to assert and reassert a truth we tell ourselves about ourselves, even in the absence of sustained research. Arguing for moving beyond comfortable zones of self-understanding and dwelling instead on "zones of discomfort" (and not just in "the field"), it specifically queries the common notions (1) that anthropologists constitute a "progressive" (or liberal or left-of-center) discipline, (2) that anthropology is in decline or on the verge of disappearing (what I call the "doom and gloom" scenario), and (3) that the AAA exists to serve anthropologists in the United States yet is open-minded enough, liberal enough, globally oriented enough, and anti-imperialistic enough to keep its "Americanness" at bay. [the profession of anthropology, comfort zones, racism, disability, international(ism

Aesthetics · Gloom · Rhetoric · Sociology · Theology · Warrant · Anthropology: Ethics, History, Culture · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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