Paper short abstract:

"We don't know, if we need someone like you here." Not an encouraging sentiment in a new job. Maybe a 'someone' like an anthropologist is 'outside' even purportedly traditional anthropological spaces incl. museums, which brings opportunities and challenges.

Paper long abstract:

What IS, DOES or SHOULD an anthropologist? I contend the job-market has 'us' as forever outsiders, which implies having to constantly reinvent what anthropologists do and why.

Upon starting as research lead to investigate digitising museum spaces, my boss told me that their team had never had 'someone like me' on. Moreover, my project initially sought a 'psychologist', instead of someone doing ethnographic works.

There are positions directly addressing anthropologists. However, anthropologists might spot fields of application for their anthropological methods that benefit from 'outsiders'. I stuck my nose where it did not 'belong' into other museums projects to get a feel of its internal logics and what this new community 'stood for'. As such, I was rewarded with validating comments on how anthropological takes on communication, inclusion etc. provided helpful nudges to alternative workways. This is much-needed professional validation and eye-opening: Anthropological jobs might not be 'demanded' but still 'needed' or beneficial.

My simple point: Apply anywhere. Ethnographic work and an anthropological lens may be applied in contexts that challenge anthropologists’ legitimacy throughout. Yet, Anthropology has potential to grow outside itself to benefit communities/organisations, individual researchers (broadening applicable fields for their skills, what they want to work meaningfully) and institutions. And Anthropology? As a discipline, it needs to stay topical. It should find fields of application which require its 'services' based on 'local needs and concerns'. You identify those, if you 'stick your nose into new places', and reflect, from your outsider's perspective, how (if) you can contribute.