Cool Anthropology

Through a series of case studies by leading anthropologists, Cool Anthropology highlights the many different approaches that scholars have used to engage the public with their research. Editors Kristina Baines and Victoria Costa showcase efforts to make meaningful connections with communities outside the walls of academia, pushing anthropological thinking beyond the discipline.

Cool Anthropology offers insights into the entire research and dissemination process - from making early relationships, to securing funding, to employing appropriate technology, to defining an audience and then engaging that audience. Contributors to the volume shed light on their own ways of reaching the public with anthropological research and methods, including virtual reality, performance art, film, and comics, as well as social media, blogs, online magazines, and classroom activities. Through their focus on collaborative efforts, they push against the exclusivity of knowledge production to ask how engaging communities as both producers and consumers of academic research helps to promote anthropology better and do anthropology better.