>>AUGUSTINE FUENTES: Well if you think about
what are the big challenges facing humanity
right now, right? Climate change, inequality,
the COVID-19 virus running rampant. I mean,
think of all the challenges that are really
pushing on us, theyíre economic, theyíre
political, theyíre biological, theyíre health
oriented, theyíre climatological or ecological.
All of those things require some understanding
of the human processes in the past and in
the present to predict and to help us think
about the future. Anthropology provides the
toolkit, it provides the theoretical grounding,
and it provides the kind of social justice
engagement.
>>NICO JAWORSKI: Hi, my name is Nico Jaworski
I'm a freshman Anthropology major and this
is Dr. Augustine Fuentes from the University
of Notre Dame.
AF: That's me. To do anthropology is to care
about humans, to try to understand humans,
and I think right now it's absolutely critical
that we know, as best as we can, why things
are happening. Right? Why is the climate changing,
why our political systems the way they are,
what is the problem with access to health
care and inequality? Those are issues that
Anthropology brings something to the table.
That's why Anthropology matters.
If we don't understand the past, we're doomed
to repeat it in the future and so that's really
important. To think about where we're going
as a society or societies as a community as
groups of people, we need to understand where
we come from.
The past helps us inform, what are the opportunities,
what are the possibilities, how does that
work, how did it work then, how is it working
now, or not working, how might it work in
the future?
You should find out what calls to you, like.
what are you interested in? What kinds of
classes, take a bunch of classes, from a bunch
of different areas and find the one that speaks
to you. The great thing about Anthropology
is that because of its breadth, because of
its depth, and because of its sort of real
serious interest in all the fantastic parts
of being human, I think it calls to a lot
of people.
People are going to go do research on primates,
but it's actually primates or a window into
getting to people to think about conservation,
to think about the Anthropocene, to think
about themselves, to think about sort of colonial
legacies - there's all of these things we
can use people's fascination with monkeys!
You know, to do some really good anthropological
work.
Number one, look at the actual data of income
differential five years out you will find
no difference between business majors and
Anthro majors or actually, all of the sort
of majors in the social sciences. In fact,
being an Anthro major gives you probably a
little edge on getting into that interview
because you probably did some interesting
undergraduate research. So, that's one thing.
Going to business school does not guarantee
you a better job in business. The second thing
is, business Anthropology is a thing. Why
do people buy things, right? How do economic
systems work? Part of that is in marketing,
part of that is in economics and econometrics,
but another part of that is in social theory.
Is an understanding ethnographic realities.
How do different business models work? What
do we mean? Why are we attracted to certain
kinds of ads and not others, that's Anthropology.
So, people who are really interested in business
you got to understand humans and understand
humans probably should take a class or two
in Anthropology.
Look at where we are, take the good, recognize
the bad, see all the errors that I've made,
that my generations made, the generators before
us made. Be aware of them so as you go forward
you know the past, so you don't repeat it,
you can do stuff better that's, I think, it's
the most important thing.
>>NJ: Well, thank you very much.
>>AF: Itís my pleasure.
