Anthropology Day and Practicing the Discipline

The outside patio of the author's brewpub, 2016.

by douglas reeser
February 19, 2021

Yesterday, I mentioned to my partner that it was World Anthropology Day. She asked, "Why today?" Good question I suppose, and from what I can tell, there really is no reason. The concept was created by the American Anthropological Association in 2015 as a way to celebrate and share the discipline. The controversial legacy of anthropology not withstanding, I tend to see the field as mostly populated with people working to understand and improve the world around us. Insight into the craziness that constitutes our world is certainly a noble goal. 

My introduction to anthropology is one that I imagine is somewhat common. As a young(ish) adult, I was a reader, and found myself interested in reading about things different from my own life. My introduction to anthropology began with reading about ancient sites in places like Egypt and the Americas that filled me with wonder. Further piquing my interest were readings about indigenous people around the globe that still live somewhat traditionally, separate from the global economy that seems to touch every corner of the planet. And finally, traveling around the US, and then far into Mexico, I witnessed the great diversity the exists among us. I wanted to learn more. Thus began my path to becoming an anthropologist: about 13 years in training that culminated with a PhD, a few years of teaching, and most recently, 6 years practicing. 

The training was deep and intense, and completely broke down and built anew the way that I see the world around me. I now more deeply see the world as filled with an amazing diversity of humanity, and also unimaginable injustice. I enjoyed teaching a good deal, and I thought that was ultimately going to be my future: a life in which I taught others what I had learned, while continuing to research and to learn, all the while writing. However, teaching at a university in the US is a tough gig to find these days. I was just about 40 years old and facing the reality that I was going to have to move somewhere new, and with little input into where that new place would be. I wasn't an all-star academic, so I was going to have to take whatever position I could get. Suddenly, after over a decade of training, I wasn't that excited about my situation. 

I come from a family of entrepreneurs, and timing worked such that at that very point in my life, while I was stressed and job seeking, an opportunity opened up to go into business with my family. They had acquired an abandoned and broke-down building that had once housed a restaurant, and they didn't know it at first, but I had an idea. I wasn't interested in opening a restaurant, but I was interested in beer. I had been drinking craft beer since before I was 21 (shhhh....), and brewing beer as a hobby for almost a decade. I convinced my family to let me use the old dish-washing room and the kitchen, and with my brother-in-law, put a small brewery in one room, and a small bar for about 30 people in the other, doing the work mostly myself. 

Thus began the "practicing" part of my anthropological career. I took the opportunity to run a brewpub guided by the tenets of justice that I had learned through my anthropological studies. I payed staff well above industry standards, and set up a system in which tips were shared across the entire staff. The pub was successful, and we took over much of the building, built a new kitchen, and even a new brewery. As we grew, the entire staff, including everyone working in the kitchen, earned a very livable wage in our part of rural-suburban Pennsylvania. 

I also sourced our food for the kitchen from all local suppliers. For much of the year, we were feeding our community (and staff!) with food sourced from within about 15 miles of the pub. We worked with over two dozen farmers, bakers, cheese makers, butchers, and other makers, supporting other small, family-run businesses that made up a part of our community. In fact, on any given night, you might sit at the bar next to someone who had grown or made something that was on the plate you were eating from. We became a true community hub, where people from all different backgrounds and beliefs came together, drank and ate, and talked with each other. We had no table service, so people were able to move around the building at their leisure, and were forced to get up to order food and drinks, leading to conversations with people outside of the party they were there with. We watched friends being made and our community coalesce into something real: a richer, larger, deeper community where there was not much of one before. 

Through these practices, I was able to help build a more resilient local economy in which local producers and makers had a steady, reliable source of sales, and where local people could work in a fun environment and actually earn a wage that was respectful of their time and presence. The concept worked, and I viewed it as an anthropological approach to running a business. The pub continued to grow for its first five years, right up until the COVID pandemic hit. It was a difficult couple of months at first as I struggled to transition to a business that could not host the community that it was built upon. Still, we had great support, and we were able to re-imagine ourselves quickly enough to keep our staff and cover our bills. Sadly, my family and I did not see eye to eye on many aspects of the business, and the stressors brought on by the pandemic led to our split. I'm now re-examining my role as an anthropologist in the world.

Six months later, and we're still in the midst of the pandemic, although vaccines are being rolled out, and there is hope on the horizon. One of the core tenets of anthropology is that we share the results of our research, usually by writing. The pub life took me outside of academia, and outside of creative beer descriptions, I did not write much during those six years. Now, with no clear future, I figure it's a fine time to begin writing again. Having been out of academia for those six years, I don't think I have a future there, as the time away is prohibitive of being hired (a problem from my point of view). But I am still an anthropologist, and I view those six years as putting my knowledge into practice. And now, I'm hoping I can find it within myself to start writing again, to honor that tenet of my discipline, and share what I have learned, and what I continue to learn. This is a start on the day (after) anthropology is being promoted around the globe.

Here's to anthropology and making a difference in this crazy world...!