title: Signing on for dirty work: Taking stock of a public psychiatry project from the inside.
abstract: As applied anthropologists used to working at arm's length from public psychiatry, we step out of the daily grind to take stock of the challenges of taking on ethnography entrained-harnessed to the implementation of a new program. These include the loss of critical distance, the struggles to negotiate locally viable forms of authority and relevance, the necessity of sustaining a Janus-faced relation with principal players, the urgency of seeing time-sensitive information converted into corrective feedback, and the undeniable attraction of being part of "committed work" with game-changing potential. In so doing, we rework the terms of witnessing and revive an old alternative: that documentary dirty work be reclaimed as a variant of public anthropology, one that transforms the work of application from mere afterthought to integral part of the original inquiry.
authors.affiliation: Vera Institute of Justice, USA lpope@vera.org.
authors.forename: Leah G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Pope
authors.affiliation: Washington University.
authors.forename: Lauren
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Cubellis
authors.affiliation: Columbia University.
authors.forename: Kim
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hopper
mesh_terms: D000883:Anthropology / Q000193:education* / Q000266:history*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008605:Mental Health Services / Q000592:standards*; D009519:New York City; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000639:trends*
keywords: applied anthropology; dirty work; engaged anthropology; implementation research; mental health