A wider audience for anthropology?: political dimensions of an important debate

Anthropologists are convinced of the societal relevance of their discipline, but they have failed to claim a significant presence in the public domain for decades. As Eriksen documents in his book Engaging anthropology (2006), anthropology has by and large retreated from public debates since the end of the Second World War (see also Borofsky 2000). These days, ethnographies are rarely read by large non-specialist audiences; anthropologists with the status of ‘public intellectual’ are few and far between; and in most popular media outlets one will frequently look in vain for anthropological voices.