The Wilk Pyburn Parallax Research Grant

Parallax: the effect whereby the position or direction of an object appears to differ when viewed from different positions… (OED)

THE ISSUE:

Anthropology is committed to the principle that trained ethnographers bring a unique point of view to studying cultures other than their own. Cultural distance does not necessarily bring objectivity, but it always provides an important perspective, particularly on aspects of culture that are difficult for indigenes to see or explain. Despite slow institutional changes, most foreign anthropology graduate students who are trained at US universities are still expected to go home to do their fieldwork. American students are discouraged in many subtle and overt ways from studying their own culture, so they often exercise their privilege to work in other countries of their choice. The result is an imbalance and a lack of much-needed ethnographic insights on US culture by anthropologists from other cultures and countries. Previous experiments by foreign anthropologists working in the US have been successful and often eye-opening.

The Proposal:

Our goal is to provide an annual grant for anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnohistorians and ethnographers from other countries and cultures to conduct research on the USA and its territories. We will raise money for an endowment sufficient to fund one research grant per year in perpetuity through the Wilk Pyburn Parallax Fund, a Donor Advised Fund at Fidelity Charitable. The fund has an agreement with the Wenner-Gren Foundation to conduct the annual grant competition and administer the grant funds and endowment. Anyone can make a donation to this DAF and should contact Professors Wilk orPyburn atwilkr@indiana.edu or apyburn@indiana.edu.The grant competition will be open to citizens from any country outside the USA who plan a substantial field research project on aspects of culture in the USA. This includes students from other countries enrolled in graduate degree programs at US universities, and those who hold PhDs from US universities. In some situations, it may be possible for a US citizen who has resided outside the United States for most of their life to receive a parallax grant. Grantees will be encouraged but not required to establish an affiliation with an educational or research institution in the USA. While the grant competition is open to applicants whose advanced degrees are in social science fields outside of Anthropology (for example geography, American Studies, Social History), grant applications should have substantial anthropological goals and content. The endowment for the grants will be $500,000, administered by the Foundation to provide one annual research grant. 


Manuel Garcia-Ruiz

He is a PhD Scholar at CIES-Iscte and a Research Collaborator at IS-FLUP. He research on topics such as city branding, cultural regeneration, the commodification of arts and culture, art washing, and the construction of artistic fields.

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