Loewen, Gregory V. 2005 A Socio-Ethnographic Study of the Academic Professionalization of Anthropologists. Mellen Studies in Anthropology. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. Notes: xii, 368 p.; 24 cm. ISBN: 0773462384
	Reviewed 14 Sep 2006 by: Robert Lawless <robert.lawless@wichita.edu> Department of Anthropology, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, USA
	Medium:	Written Literature
	Subject Keywords:	Ethnology Knowledge, Sociology of

ABSTRACT:    In the author's words, "This is a study of how anthropologists in North America construct anthropological knowledge".

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     Loewen "contacted, shadowed, and informally conversed with" ninety anthropologists for more than three years and then chose thirty "to participate in lengthy formal interviews" (p. 1). Labeled on the back cover as "a hermeneutics specialist", Loewen divides his book into six chapters. The first chapter introduces some major variables of anthropological knowledge such as epistemology, ethics, and fieldwork. Chapter Two addresses some epistemological tensions in anthropology, especially between positivism and postmodernism and between practice and theory. Chapter Three contains what Loewen characterizes as "the most important part of the project" (p. 99), that is, the voices of the informants discussing essentially what was discussed in Chapter Two. Chapter Four features these thirty discussing institutional influences. Chapter Five focuses on ethics. And the final chapter summarizes the first four chapters.

     Loewen finds, "Those interviewed suggested that anthropology exists both as a form of academic knowledge, or a disciplinary discourse, and as a way of being, or ethical life . . . almost in a Calvinistic sense" (p. 2). He also finds that the epistemologies of anthropology "conflict at the theoretical level but tend to not conflict in practice. . . . Although anthropologists understand different cultures’ values to be equal, they suggest that ways of knowing another culture through anthropology are not equally valid" (p. 3). Anthropological knowledge is also influenced by institutions, publishers, students, and teachers. The "Conclusions" reiterate these findings (pp. 299-302).

     Although the topic (as stated in the title) would seem to be intrinsically interesting, this book is painfully repetitive and could have been shortened into a journal article. The long quotations of those interviewed are often unreadable and could have been greatly condensed. It would have been helpful to know who these anthropologists were, at least where they received their training, where they did their fieldwork, and their current affiliation. What could have been an interesting book is also further limited by the fact that Loewen apparently thinks that anthropology is limited to sociocultural anthropology and omitted the other subfields.

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To cite this review, the American Anthropological Association recommends the following style:

Lawless, Robert
2006 Review of A Socio-Ethnographic Study of the Academic Professionalization of Anthropologists. Anthropology Review Database. September 14. Electronic document, http://wings.buffalo.edu/ARD/cgi/showme.cgi?keycode=2843, accessed November 22, 2009.

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