Independence with others: Lessons for anthropology from postdocs in team science

Sonia Rupcic; Lily Shapiro; Aaron Seaman; Gemmae Fix

doi:10.1080/00187259.2024.2417197

Back

Independence with others: Lessons for anthropology from postdocs in team science

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Independence with others: Lessons for anthropology from postdocs in team science

Sonia Rupcic, Lily Shapiro, Aaron Seaman and Gemmae Fix

Human organization, Vol.83(4), pp.413-425

01/01/2024

DOI: 10.1080/00187259.2024.2417197

PMCID: PMC11823433

PMID: 39949857

Files and links (1)

url

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11823433/pdf/nihms-2043712.pdfView

Open Access

Abstract

Despite critiques from inside the discipline of anthropology, the figure of the “lone wolf” anthropologist perdures in the ways sociocultural doctoral students are (and are not) trained. Failure to prepare graduates to engage in substantive interdisciplinary collaboration poorly prepares them for careers inside and outside academia, and limits their capacity to meaningfully apply their research to pressing problems of the day. An increasing share of graduates occupy precarious postdoctoral positions in the humanities and social sciences; these are temporary posts from which they might continue to conduct research in precarity and relative isolation. To the extent that they are acknowledged at all, postdocs are worried over as signs of the crisis in academic hiring. Certain postdoctoral positions, however, can offer training in “team science,” research conducted by interdisciplinary teams whose members meaningfully work together to apply for funding, design a research protocol, collect data, analyze data, and publish and present findings. Drawing on our own experiences, we propose taking the “fellowship” in “postdoctoral fellowship” as an epistemological challenge to anthropology to produce knowledge in the company of others.

Anthropology

College Students

Epistemology

Social Sciences

Graduate students

Hiring

Humanities

Interdisciplinary aspects

Interdisciplinary research

Methodological problems

Research design

Scholarships & fellowships

Sociocultural factors

Teams

Teamwork

Details

Title: Subtitle: Independence with others: Lessons for anthropology from postdocs in team science
Creators: Sonia Rupcic - VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System
Lily Shapiro - Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute
Aaron Seaman - University of Iowa
Gemmae Fix - Boston University
Resource Type: Journal article
Publication Details: Human organization, Vol.83(4), pp.413-425
DOI: 10.1080/00187259.2024.2417197
PMID: 39949857
PMCID: PMC11823433
NLM abbreviation: Hum Organ
ISSN: 0018-7259
eISSN: 1938-3525
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Language: English
Date published: 01/01/2024
Academic Unit: Center for Social Science Innovation; General Internal Medicine; Community and Behavioral Health; Internal Medicine
Record Identifier: 9984757198102771

Metrics

3 Record Views