The new internal colonialism

Anthropology's claims not only to special insight into systems of structural inequality, but a special mandate to expose and condemn them, become problematic in light of the discipline's studied inattention to the emergence of a large and growing underclass of underemployed professionals within its own ranks. Corporate outsourcing and downsizing have analogues in the exploitive hiring practices of the academy, where they are mystified by appeals to departmental and institutional loyalty, and the need to maintain course coverage and student enrollment figures. Serious attempts to bring this issue to the attention of the discipline at large have met resistance. It is argued that a professional ethics worthy of the name cannot be limited to the study and representation of ethnographic Others, but must be conceptualized broadly enough to encompass our dealings with our colleagues.