Driving Organizational Change: 2020 Bronislaw Malinowski Award Address

Abstract

This article represents my 2020 Bronislaw Malinowski Award Address that I delivered virtually at the 2021 Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings, March 23–27, 2021. The address focuses on the value of organizations as both a field of study and a place of employment for anthropologists. On the one hand, organizations have been largely excluded from anthropological field research in favor of research in communities. On the other, academic anthropology departments (applied anthropology programs excepted) have been largely reluctant to engage with anthropological practice and scholarship in the classroom or view organizations as a vital source of careers for their graduating students. I use my own career trajectory as a model to raise awareness of what anthropology might learn from organizations as well as what anthropologists might offer them. I will close with an initiative for a cross-section of the discipline to work together on the Career Readiness Commission to address the lack of student preparation and professionalization for careers in and for organizations.