Road of Mirrors

Road of Mirrors
the centrality of the anthropologist to their research is a source of constant reflection. removing oneself, it is impossible to tell the stories we are privileged to learn, but distorting or silencing those voices is to be avoided at all costs.

As we’ve been preparing for next week’s debut of our latest installation, “On the Road of Development,” I’ve been thinking quite a bit about perspective: what an anthropological perspective offers to discussions about issues of education, environment, infrastructure or economics, and, also, how we, as anthropologists and artists and event curators, can illuminate multiple perspectives on these topics. One of our goals for inviting participants to walk down the “road,” stopping to consider the perspectives presented at each topic station, is to show the many nuanced ways in which development changes are negotiated by individuals and communities around the world. Perspectives on perspectives. During the first class of every introductory Anthropology course I teach, I share with students that, if nothing else, my goal is that by sharing perspectives on topics that are different from their own, I can inspire them to hold up a mirror to their own perspective- consider how they came to see things in the way that they do- and maybe even begin to understand the value in other paths and perspectives. All my work as an anthropologist, including this collaborative installation, is essentially driven by this goal. These photographs were selected with these thoughts in mind: roads and mirrors, perspective and change. At the end of the road, it is unlikely that we will see in the same way as when we started.

Kristina Baines is our resident cool anthropologist. She’s been formally trained in applied, sociocultural, ecological and medical anthropology at Florida Atlantic University (BA, MA), the University of Oxford (MSc) and the University of South Florida (PhD). She has a strong interest in corn, how what we do in our environment makes us well, and using innovative methods to make anthropology relevant and accessible to a wide audience. You can find out more about how these interests translate into projects and pursuits by perusing the rest of our site, or you can contact her directly at kristina@coolanthropology.com

2 Comments on “Road of Mirrors

  1. It’s good to have different perspectives of life and cultures; it opens our eyes and makes us better humans understanding each other. It’s good to have culture relativism but, once you dominate and accept everyone opinion then, you will never stand for something. Like the famous quote from Alex Hamilton “Those who stand for nothing fall for anything”

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