After the success of its pandemic response, the Anthropology Department at Fred’s University has decided to go entirely virtual from now on.
This means no more fieldwork or travel of any kind, no more in-person interactions with subjects and no more engagement with the real world. Although rising travel expenses were cited as a primary reason, sources inside the department revealed that it has become increasingly difficult to recruit graduate students due to the students’ special diets, their need for CPAP machines and weighted blankets, the lack of cell phone coverage in many of the university’s field sites and the related prevalence of faculty sexual harassment in these off-campus settings.
Some have raised the question of the racist history of white anthropologists’ reactions to the “primitive” conditions in the field, from Bronisław Malinowski’s secret diaries through a tradition of white male dominance (see “The Cultural Problem of the Cultural Anthropologist”, by Francis L. K. Hsu), and questioned the motives behind the move to virtual study. Others have pointed to the fundamentally racist structure of the discipline and the question of whether it is possible to decolonize anthropology at all (see “Toward a Fugitive Anthropology: Gender, Race, and Violence in the Field” by Maya J. Berry.)
Fred’s University has gone out of its way to explain that the new Armchair Program is inspired by the special needs of white students, not the deficits of indigenous cultures.
For those still seeking a travel experience that is in line with white fragility, the Richard E Rich $45,000 Smoking Year Abroad Program should be suitable for white males with rich parents.
Meanwhile, the newly founded Armchair Anthropology program has received generous funding for its new facilities from Pottery Barn and La-Z-Boy Furniture.