Introduction: Engagement, Accountability and Ethnography in Applied Practice

Abstract

This issue of PA contains two sets of articles dealing with anthropological engagement and accountability, and bridges the full spectrum of community involvement from planning initiatives to ethnographic reporting. Anthropologist Diane Austin, editor of the first collection, reminds us that as anthropologists and social science practitioners, we struggle to understand the social, economic, and political structure of societies. We pay attention to local and global power relations and we strive for social justice. At the same time, we are involved in an ongoing process of learning about ourselves and our relationships with others. As the rules of interaction between anthropologists and the communities within which we work change, we must develop new forms of engagement as well as opportunities to practice and reflect upon them.