Call it a midlife crisis (a red car was involved), a change in career direction, or that desire late in life to ensure that my life has “impact.”  I have spent my sabbatical year, in part, writing a book on “othering” and exploring my “Why.”  This deep introspection has drawn me back to my core as an Anthropologist.  I’ve been so focused on the science behind what I have been researching as a geoarchaeologist that I hadn’t really noticed the themes in my life that placed me in the unique career I have today.

As anthropologists, we seek to make connections regarding the human condition, including cultural, physical, and archaeological.  Our interests span the spiritual, religious, ethnic, symbolic, historical, psychological and natural realms of humanity and our relation to the natural world.  I love the idea of making big connections and my desire to become an archaeologist stemmed from a naiive fascination with Others and the desire to form connections with Others over deep time and vast space.  My appropriation of a Hopi badger (Honan) katsina in my own home comes from an appreciation for what that symbol represents (the embodiment in doll form of a healer) and a desire to help my husband heal from sarcoidosis. I can never fully appreciate it as a Hopi person would because I do not share an immediate, historic connection with the Hopi people.  I am, however, connected to all humans past and present in deep time and wide space, part of what Thich Nhat Hanh would call “interbeing,” and seek to understand the shared human experience that makes us all connected.

In addition to finding my core as an anthropologist, my participation in a leadership seminar helped me to define my leadership role.  I’m not the type of person who is out front, leading the pack, instead, I lead from the back.  I am a shepherd (and sometimes I bark).  It is perhaps no surprise to find that my last two dogs have been a border collie/German shepherd (with whom I formed the deepest connection) and a husky/German shepherd mix.  The latter (present “fur baby”) also displays her shepherd qualities on a regular basis at the dog park.  Whether she takes on my own personality or I selected her for that quality, we may never know.  Psychologists have been exploring these themes, but thus far have only determined that people do seem to select dogs that look like them.

My passion to impart that deep connection with a shared human experience landed me in a teaching position. Perhaps I would have made a good psychologist or a good religious leader, but I chose neither of these careers.  Archaeology allows me to explore the deep history of our shared human connections.  While geoarchaeology is my speciality, I find the deepest satisfaction in my travel courses (Hawai’i, Italy, France and Spain), where I get the opportunity to help our students make connections with the deep past.  I also receive deep satisfaction from my “Archaeology and the Media” course, where I ask students to explore their own biases by investigating how we portray Others, how we portray our own pasts and how Others (those who are not the same as us) portray themselves.  In my lecture for this course on the deep history of how archaeologists have othered Others, I fell into a funk, navel gazing, about whether I had the right to make inferences about the past of Canada’s First Nations or the U.S.’s indigenous groups from the remains they left behind.  Although there is a history of examining emic and etic perspectives, I am certain that few of us are introspective enough to explore our passions for Othering in detail.

Finally, I have recognized that I feel a deep moral obligation to open communication.  Despite what impact it may have on my career, I have signed every review that I’ve undertaken.  My sense was that first, it forced me to focus on how a manuscript or proposal could be improved and second, that I recognized that the way I framed my review might not resonate with the author.  If s/he felt that s/he could get clarification on what I was asking by speaking with me in person then the chances that the manuscript would be improved and serve the greater good of science was higher.  If we go into every action expecting that the person on the other side wanted the best for science, then our review should support them in doing so.  The academic system that set up our quest for tenure, promotion, and impact has spurred on competition.  Most of us, therefore, feel a need to put down or demean the work of others because it helps us to feel superior.

I wanted to share this experience because I feel that anthropologists do share many of these qualities.  Some of our tribe may be leaders and not shepherds, some may focus on very specific aspects of anthropology, rather than explore the bigger connections, but we all share that value.  Anthropology allows us to share those perspectives with a wide audience.  This voice is critically important in the world we experience today.  Cultures from wide space and deep time are intertwined in a digital world.  When we make decisions based on the fears we have about Others that we do not understand be they from our own culture or another, the world becomes entwined in greater conflict.  But, when the dialogues we have with one another come from a place of open and receptive communication, listening for our shared connections, hearing why we see things differently, then the world is a better place.