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Paper short abstract:

Using anthropological research in three higher education contexts, I describe initial findings on cultural patterns and divergences in the creation of anthropologists in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and India.

Paper long abstract:

Globally, social scientists in recent decades have increasingly examined how conceptualizations of their disciplines have privileged scholars from the United States and Western Europe. To address this imbalance, anthropologists developed the concept of world anthropologies. However, few of these works have addressed structural differences related to curriculum materials and cultural dynamics of teaching and learning in a particular discipline. In the anthropology of education, extensive studies have focused on K-12 school engagements and on university student experiences globally. As a result, scholarship on anthropological training worldwide fosters the notion that education consists almost wholly of individual fieldwork (ignoring classwork), thus marginalizing the work of university professors, students as learnings, and the broader cultural context. Science and Technology Studies has turned the research focus on the knowledge producers. This paper furthers this corrective by analyzing the teaching practices, required readings, assigned coursework at universities in the Caribbean and India, and the cultural dynamics that affect who studies anthropology. My research addresses the question, “how is an anthropologist created?" Using anthropological research in three higher education contexts, I describe initial findings on cultural patterns and divergences in the creation of anthropologists in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and India. I posit that a blueprint for equitable and productive academic collaborations across the globe requires consideration of specific teaching and learning practices.