Applied and Public Anthropology Careers

Using anthropological methods and theory to solve practical problems for a client or community.

Bringing anthropological insight into public debate, policy, and advocacy beyond the academy.

About half — and most BA holders never enter academia at all.

US Army program embedding social scientists with combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan; condemned by the AAA because informed consent is impossible in a war zone.

It grew partly out of colonial administration and wartime intelligence work (e.g., Evans-Pritchard's Nuer research funding; Benedict and Mead at the Office of War Information).

Hired by Xerox PARC; her photocopier study produced 'Plans and Situated Actions,' arguing action is improvised in context rather than executed from a plan — reshaping interface design.

Anthropologist who built a research group at Intel, insisting engineers understand how real families worldwide live with devices.

Explained resistance to safe-burial protocols (funerary washing as a moral obligation to the dead) and helped design burial practices families could accept.

Contextual inquiry in real settings, diary studies, journey mapping, and synthesizing observations into design recommendations.

Pioneered forensic identification of victims of state violence, a key advocacy/human-rights application.

You always work for someone — who is the client, and what happens to the people you study?

In agencies like the World Bank or USAID, asking whether project assumptions about 'beneficiaries' match how people actually organize their lives.