Action Anthropology

ROBERT A. RUBINSTEIN
The Maxwell School of Syracuse University, United States

Action anthropology refers to a tradition of anthropological practice and theory cre-

ation developed initially by Sol Tax and his students at the University of Chicago. The
impetus for the development of action anthropology was work done by them among the
Meskwaki Indians outside of Tama, Iowa, and known as the Fox Project (referencing an
alternative name for the tribe). Begun as a field school for training University of Chicago
anthropology doctoral students in fieldwork methods, the Fox Project soon grew into
being concerned with assisting the Meskwaki in dealing with their troubled relationship
with white society (Gearing, Netting, and Peattie 1960). The Fox Project, which ran
from 1948 to 1959, is often discussed in anthropology textbooks as the only example
of action anthropology but in fact action anthropology continues to be used in a wide
variety of settings around the world (see, e.g., Ablon 1984; Lane et al. 2017). Addition-
ally, discussions of action anthropology often treat it as a form of applied anthropology,
a characterization from which its practitioners demur. Rather, they argue that action
anthropology has epistemological, methodological, and relational commitments that
make it unique and distinguish it on the one hand from “basic” research and on the
other hand from applied anthropology, understood as work done by anthropologists
employed by governments, nongovernmental organizations, businesses, and the like
(Rubinstein 1986).

Action anthropology develops

Action anthropology is based on the following commitments and their corollaries:

• giving equal priority to learning and to helping;

• engaging as equals people in the study communities,
⚬ acknowledging their right to self-determination,
⚬ accepting that people have a “right to make mistakes”;
• acknowledging the ways in which power affects research relationships,
⚬ being collaborative rather than directive in choosing research foci;
• seeing the anthropologists’ role as providing scientifically informed advice,
⚬ treating all knowledge as incomplete and fallible and useful for particular pur-
poses,
⚬ learning about the community and its context through long-term field research.

The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Edited by Hilary Callan.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2230
2 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

The basic premise of action anthropology is that anthropologists should give equal
priority to the goals of developing new knowledge about human social and cultural life
and to providing practical support to the communities within which they work. More-
over, the practical problems on which the action anthropologist works should be those
that originate from within the community. As Tax put it: “One may characterize action
anthropology by saying that the community in which it works is not only its subject
of study but also its object” (1952, 104). In taking this stance, action anthropology was
conceived of as a new kind of social science (Daubenmier 2008, 243) which stood apart
from alternative conceptions of anthropology as either positivist science or humanist
inquiry.
Growing out of engagements with Native American communities, at the time that
it developed, action anthropologists’ commitment to view community members as
coequal in setting the research agenda and in producing new knowledge was a radical
departure from the relationship then current between anthropologists and the people
with whom they worked. Smith (2015) argues that in the context of work with Native
American communities, this commitment was an explicitly anticolonial position and
an important precursor to a later parallel shift in anthropology generally. By taking
this position, Tax and his colleagues were among the first people to apply concepts of
colonialism to Native North America (Daubenmier 2008, 16).
Contrary to the federal policies of the time, and the general assimilationist perspec-
tive current in social science, which saw the United States as a “melting pot,” Tax and
his students developed the theoretical view of cultural persistence which conceptu-
alized their view that Native American peoples would persist as culturally coherent
groups despite continuing culture contact with white society (Tax 1988). He argued
further that the solutions to the problems that troubled the native groups should be
ones that they choose rather than policies designed without their input or agreement.
This view anticipated by two decades the anthropological critiques of development as
paternalistic and neocolonial. Whether it followed from holding this view, or this view
followed from it, Tax articulated the action anthropology principle that a commitment
to self-determination meant that the anthropologist (or other powerful party) should
not make decisions on behalf of communities with which they work because people
have a “right to make mistakes.” As Tax put it: “Whether or not the community turns
out to have chosen a wise course of action is quite beside the point. Every people, if it is
free, is free to make decisions, hence must have the right to make mistakes” (1956, 175).
In contrast to basic research methods that seek to extract information from the com-
munity or applied research that seeks to direct community decisions, action anthropol-
ogists function as a kind of resource for the community. Sometimes this is characterized
as taking a consulting role in which the anthropologist advises the community about
potential options based on the researcher’s expertise. In practice this means that the
action anthropologist applies his or her research and analytical skills to elucidating the
fundamental sources of the problems identified by the community, helps them identify
potential options for responding to those problems, and, to the extent possible, identi-
fies for community members the likely consequences of following each of the different
options. The action anthropologist thus helps to facilitate community change and devel-
opment rather than directs such change.
 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y 3

Choosing among the options for action is entirely in the hands of the community,
consistent with a commitment to respecting the value of self-determination. In this
regard, action anthropologists acknowledge the power differentials within the societies
in which their work is embedded and they seek to balance the power between them-
selves and the community through consensus and reciprocity. The analysis of power
was a core element early in action anthropology. One of the continuing hallmarks of
the approach is the explicit recognition of power differentials and direct discussion of
these among researchers and community members as challenges for research activities
and for collaboration with the community.
In order to understand the contexts and sources of difficulties identified by the com-
munity, the action anthropologist is committed to developing long-term, field-based
relations. As Tax put it:
In the anthropological tradition, we study such a situation at first hand. We are field
researchers. Indeed, I cannot imagine action anthropology except in the context of field
work. We go to the field to learn something new about the circumstances in our con-
text of change and of resistance to change. This requires that our field work include in a
single purview all of the people involved in the contact situation—a native tribe and the
missionaries, traders, or government representatives and the residents of other cultures
with whom they have contact. (1975, 515)

As a result, the natural history of action anthropology projects is markedly different

than those of “basic” or “applied” research projects. Basic research projects form to
answer discrete research questions emerging from theoretical research agendas, which
are bounded by research designs or the limitations of funding. Applied research is sim-
ilarly constrained by the parameters set by the individuals or institutions who con-
tract for and assert the limits of the work to be done. In contrast, action anthropology
projects emerge organically out of the relationships that have been developed between
the anthropologists and community members. The result is that action anthropology
projects frequently unfold in what more traditional “basic” or “applied” anthropologists
see as an attenuated process.

Disciplinary response to action anthropology

Those involved in creating action anthropology saw it as a new science that would help
reshape anthropology in general (Rubinstein 1986). Yet, disciplinary histories often
make only passing reference to it, limit discussion of it to the Fox Project, or gloss
it as a form of applied anthropology. That action anthropology is not better known
within anthropology, and its apparently minimal effect on general anthropological prac-
tice, is a disappointment to many of its practitioners (Daubenmier 2008; Stapp 2012),
perhaps especially because action anthropology is today a widely relevant and used
approach. This circumstance results from both the nature of action anthropology and
from changes in anthropology more generally (see Rubinstein 1986). Four considera-
tions are especially salient: (1) the positionality of action anthropologists; (2) challenges
related to training for action anthropology; (3) the epistemological perspective and
4 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

view of science incorporated into action anthropology; and (4) the movement within
anthropology to values-based and public anthropology.
The value orientation on which action anthropology rests suggests that its practi-
tioners will have some degree of independence. Thus, unlike applied anthropologists,
they may not conduct their work under a contract which specifies deliverables required
to meet an organizational or financial goal. Originally, this independence was equated
with the action anthropologist being employed by a university. Tax, and others, thought
that holding academic appointments insulated the action anthropologist from con-
straints that might lead to compromising the value commitments essential to its prac-
tice. This prescription soon ran into trouble (Daubenmier 2008). In part because the
ways in which action anthropologists conduct their work do not conform to recogniz-
able patterns of applied or basic research, funding for action anthropology projects is
difficult (and sometimes impossible) to find. Additionally, some students who submit-
ted dissertations based on action anthropology projects had those turned down because
they did not conform to traditional expectations. Without the PhD, academic employ-
ment was not possible for many early action anthropologists. As well, those who did get
the PhD and secured academic positions found that the demands of the academy for
publication and grant getting made the rhythm of action projects incompatible with
securing tenure or advancing their academic careers. As a result, many later action
anthropologists made their careers outside of academia.
Similarly, because action anthropology projects are not well-bounded in time
or scope, temporally establishing action anthropology training programs within
university settings has been difficult. Action anthropology classes can be structured
to fit into a semester-long schedule. However, gaining practical experience through
participation in action anthropology projects is problematic because the relational
aspect of its practice means that students working on those projects will be involved in
ways that do not conform to ordinary semester-long, university-based experiences. As
a result, training new generations of action anthropologists requires the development
of unorthodox and innovative approaches (e.g., Lane et al. 2011).
Action anthropology emerged during a particularly fraught time in anthropology’s
disciplinary development. Anthropologists were generally coming to recognize that the
discipline had benefited in direct and indirect ways from Western colonial hegemony.
At the same time there was a growing recognition that objectivity in social research is
illusive, if not impossible. Among the results of this awareness was a growing epistemo-
logical divide within the discipline. On the one hand, some anthropologists argued that
the discipline should be firmly aligned with the humanities. On the other hand, other
anthropologists redoubled their efforts to find rigorous methods for objective positivist
science. Action anthropology, which embraced a particular set of values, was out of
step with the latter, science-oriented segment of anthropology. Indeed, the legitimacy
of taking a values stance in research was the subject of a symposium largely hostile to
action anthropology, published as “Values in Action” in Human Organization in 1958.
In this symposium critics expressed strong objections to the appropriateness of con-
sidering values in scientific inquiry. Yet, action anthropologists’ claim to be scientific
put them at odds with the humanist camp, which was unfortunate because the view of
science held by Tax and his students was not the positivist understanding frequently
 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y 5

explicitly rejected by those turning to humanistic approaches to understanding social

and cultural life.
Rather than seeing science as conforming to a positivist model, action anthropology
is explicitly grounded in a pragmatist understanding of science. Its practitioners recog-
nized that all information is collected from a particular perspective and for a particular
purpose. As a result, in action anthropology data are seen as reflecting empirical reality,
yet, one that is incomplete and value laden. This put action anthropologists at odds with
members of the discipline who wished to pursue anthropology in a positivist mode. At
the same time their epistemological commitment to the view that fieldwork produces
empirically factual information put them at odds with the disciplinary shift toward a
postmodernist stance and with a general view that public anthropology is appropriately
thought of as advocacy.
In addition to the different value placed on developing respectful reciprocal relation-
ships with the communities with whom they work, action anthropology also incorpo-
rates epistemological commitments that differ from those held by anthropologists at the
time action anthropology developed. Action anthropologists acknowledged that their
work depended on subscribing to the values described earlier.

Theoretical developments and current status

Fundamental to action anthropology is that it is an activity through which an anthropol-

ogist seeks equally to help a community and to create new knowledge. In practice this
activity has been easily identified with the assistance part of this commitment, which
is one reason that action anthropology is usually treated as a form of applied anthro-
pology, and the developing of new, theoretical knowledge is not much commented
upon. Yet, from its inception, action anthropologists developed important new the-
oretical directions. Already mentioned is the development of the theory of cultural
persistence in relation to native peoples. As well, that early work gave insights into
the study of worldview, conceptualized the difficulties of positionality for anthropo-
logical researchers, and advanced the understanding of how powerless people conduct
politics in relation to more powerful state entities. These anticipated later developments
in anthropological theory.
Over time, action anthropologists have worked in a wide variety of settings other
than with native peoples where their contributions have been both practical and
theoretical (Daubenmier 2008; Stapp 2012). Examples of those conceptual contri-
butions include sociolinguistic understandings of native language revitalization,
new conceptualizations of administration, insights into the lives and experiences of
stigmatized peoples, the dynamics of structural violence in the lives of poor urban com-
munities, community development in rural societies, and the sociology of academic
disciplines.
Contemporary anthropology is increasingly embracing community-based, partici-
patory research as both a theory-building strategy and as a way of carrying out applied
projects. “Community-base participatory” research includes under its umbrella many
different specific strategies for engaging the community. Some projects are based on
6 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y

public participation meetings, while others rely on hiring local community members
to assist with data collection or as staff in the research projects. None of these projects
include the relational realignments fundamental to action anthropology, and some
eschew the scientific as a basis for work and action. As a result, action anthropology
remains a unique approach within the social sciences, which is practiced increasingly
by trained anthropologists working inside and apart from the academy.

SEE ALSO: Activism; Anthropology beyond the Academy: Communicating the

Subject to Nonspecialists; Anthropology, Careers in; Anthropology of Education,
Anthropology in Education, and Anthropology for Education; Applied Anthropol-
ogy; Chile, Anthropology in; Colombia, Anthropology in; Coloniality of Power;
Community-Based Ethnography; Conflict and Security; Corporate Social Responsibil-
ity; Cultural Brokers; Cultural Survival; Cultural Transmission; Digital Anthropology;
Educational Issues in Development; Empiricism; Energy Issues in Development;
Environmental Anthropology; Environmental Justice; Environmental Vulnerability
and Resilience; Fieldwork; Global Health; Indigenous and Local Knowledge and
Science: From Validation to Knowledge Coproduction; Indigenous Peoples and Higher
Education; Indonesia, Anthropology in; International Development, Anthropology in;
International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES); Irrigation
Systems; Israel, Anthropology in; Museums and Source Communities; Nongovern-
mental Organizations; Participatory Development; Policy, Anthropology and; Positive
Deviance; Praxis; Protest; Public Anthropology; Quality-of-Life Issues in Develop-
ment; Representation, Politics of; Research Traditions on Law in Anglo-American
Anthropology; Tax, Sol (1907–95); Warman, Arturo (1937–2003)

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

Ablon, Joan. 1984. Little People in America: Social Dimensions of Dwarfism. New York: Praeger.
Daubenmier, Judith M. 2008. The Meskwaki and Anthropologists: Action Anthropology Reconsid-
ered. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Gearing, Fred, Robert McC. Netting, and Lisa Peattie, eds. 1960. Documentary History of the Fox
Project 1948–1959: A Program in Action Anthropology Directed by Sol Tax. Chicago: University
of Chicago.
Lane, Sandra D., Robert A. Rubinstein, Dessa Bergen-Cico, Timothy Jennings-Bey, Linda
Stone Fish, David A. Larsen, Mindy Thompson Fullilove, Tracey Reichert Schimpff, Kishi
Animashaun Ducre, and Jonnell Allen Robinson. 2017. “Neighborhood Trauma Due to
Violence: A Multilevel Analysis.” Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 28 (1):
446–62.
Lane, Sandra D., Robert A. Rubinstein, Lutchmie Narine, Inga Back, Caitlain Cornell,
Alexander Hodgens, Monique Brantley et al. 2011. “Action Anthropology and Pedagogy:
University–Community Collaborations in Setting Policy.” Human Organization 70 (3):
289–99.
Rubinstein, Robert A. 1986. “Reflections on Action Anthropology: Some Developmental
Dynamics of an Anthropological Tradition.” Human Organization 45 (3): 270–79.
Smith, Joshua. 2010. “The Political Thought of Sol Tax: The Principles of Non-Assimilation and
Self-Government in Action Anthropology.” Histories of Anthropology Annual 6: 129–70.
 A CT I O N A N T H R O P O L O G Y 7

Smith, Joshua. 2015. “Standing with Sol: The Spirit and Intent of Action Anthropology.” Anthro-
pologica 57: 445–56.
Stapp, Darby, ed. 2012. Action Anthropology and Sol Tax in 2012: The Final Word? (Memoir #8,
Journal of Northwest Anthropology). Richmond, WA: Northwest Anthropology.
Tax, Sol. 1952. “Action Anthropology.” America Indigena 12: 103–9.
Tax, Sol. 1956. “The Freedom to Make Mistakes.” America Indigena 16: 171–77.
Tax, Sol. 1975. “Action Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 16 (4): 514–17.
Tax, Sol. 1988. “Pride and Puzzlement: A Retro-Introspective Record of 60 Years of Anthropol-
ogy.” Annual Review of Anthropology 17: 1–21.