I recently attended the Applied Anthropology meeting in Baltimore, MD. Surrounded by a colorful collection of scholars, activists, practitioners, policy makers, and researchers within academia but also those who have found their calling in the private sectors or NGOs (whether through preference or frankly lack of jobs in academia), the mantras of making anthropology accessible to a broader public on the one hand as well as enacting policy change through research results on the other, ran deep. This could be said for many a discipline where the wish for scholars to reach a larger audience is a common theme yet it is faced with so many challenges. I should note that I make the distinction here between informing an audience with the intent purpose of enabling change (in perspectives, policies, or priorities) and the “general reader”, a type of potentially lucrative yet high risk nebulous readership that sends many salivating publishers (unfortunately with university presses often leading the charge) hurtling over the cliffs of trade publishing to splatter down below on the rocks of high returns and watery scholarship. Continue reading “Making Social Science Research Relevant” →