RPCV Anthropologists
It is very interesting to read about the topic of PCVs becoming anthropologists. In our Ecuador I training group there…
If there is one career that the Peace Corps has fostered (besides that of a writer!) it is the one of Anthropology Scholar. The classrooms of colleges teaching Anthropology are full of RPCV professors. (You can hear them saying right now, “When I was in (fill-in-the-blank)…etc.
Ron Schwarz (Colombia 1961-63) is an anthropologist, and he was kind enough to send me the link to the December print and online publication of the American Anthropology Association – Anthropology News – features stories about Anthropology and the Peace Corps. It is online at: http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/category/in-focus/
Read what Ron and: Ralph Bolton (Peru 1962-64); Michael Sheridan (Kenya 1988-90); Frank Hutchins (Ecuador 1983-85); Scott Freeman (Dominican Republic 2005-07); Veronica Muoiro (Jordon 2011–) and others RPCVs have to say about the transition from being a PCV to that of a scholar studying their host countries, as well as, other parts of the world.
You don’t have to be a PCV to be an Anthropologist, but it wouldn’t hurt.
Thanks John and Ron……
I think anthropologists, like writers, are joining the endangerd species club of RPCV’s. The preferred skill category seems to business or conflict resolution major. I recently met a PC reject chap, said he was majoring in philosophy and the humanities!
It is very interesting to read about the topic of PCVs becoming anthropologists. In our Ecuador I training group there was a married couple who stated quite bluntly that they were anthropologists and were joining the Peace Corps to further their studies of other cultures. At the end of training they were asked to leave and did not go on past the training. It seemed that the PC trainers suspected their primary motives. On other other hand, if one becomes an anthropologist after service in the Peace Corps, the motivation might arise as a result of that service.