UW Study Finds Anthropological Training Valuable in Nonacademic Job Market

Recently published research led by Lauren Hayes, an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at the University of Wyoming, analyzes job advertisements in anthropology and considers how the field can adapt to a shifting job market.

In past years, more anthropology graduates have entered public-sector and private-practice jobs than ever before, as opposed to academic work.

"Practicing jobs in anthropology are often associated with archaeology and cultural resource management careers," Hayes says. "But businesses, tech companies, healthcare organizations, nonprofits, development organizations and government entities have been hiring those trained as anthropologists for many decades, even if 'anthropologist' is not always part of their job title."

The article, titled "Customer Support Analysts, UX Researchers, and Directors of Storytelling: A Systematic Analysis of Job Advertisements for Anthropologists," was published Sept. 28 in American Anthropologist, the journal of the American Anthropological Association. Hayes, alongside Tyler Bowers, a researcher and anthropologist at Wayne State University, analyzes over 300 job advertisements and the value an anthropology degree poses outside of an academic context.

Because of the way anthropological training focuses on culture and human-centered questions, with unique approaches to the production and evaluation of knowledge, it is applicable to careers across many fields. For example, nearly half of the sampled job postings fell into a user or customer experience research category.

Practical positions are often overlooked as options for graduates, despite building pressure from a lack of academic job opportunities. This leads to less specialized education and training that is less likely to consider nonacademic applications of anthropology in students' future careers.

Hayes poses several ideas for lessening the impacts of issues in the anthropology job market. This includes better preparing graduates for job searches; offering students opportunities for practicum projects and independent research; and emphasizing writing and storytelling skills as well as mixed-methods training.

Hayes' work also addresses the significance of the development of artificial intelligence tools in anthropology, explaining how anthropology is inherently resistant to the devaluation some fields experience in the face of advancing technology. Anthropology teaches critical thinking and also challenges students to consider the ways humans think, feel and behave. This produces a crucial ability to understand and predict interactions between humans and technology. The future of anthropology is strong due to its adaptability against changes in culture, technology and the economy.

Hayes currently teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes at UW, where her research focuses on work, globalization, workplace discourse, and rural identity and livelihoods. In addition to Wyoming, she also has conducted research on Honduras and the Appalachian region of the U.S.

For more information about her research, email [email protected].