Department of Sociology
& Anthropology:
I. ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
Widening inequalities, contested identities, and escalating strife have fragmented the post-Cold War world. Questions of difference and community loom fundamental as peoples and nations grasp to moor themselves against centrifugal forces of global transformation. The academic disciplines of sociology and anthropology—which originated in the nineteenth century’s own confrontations with large-scale violence and flux—remain essential to our quest to make sense of, tame, and mend history’s latest version of a world in turmoil.
The dawn of the twenty-first century indeed finds a world rife with insecurity and conflict. Much of it is refracted through the lens of ethnicity, which frequently stands for or obscures other divisions such as political and economic inequalities. On the one hand, globalization knits together peoples and places in a tightening web. On the other hand, ethno-regional identities and movements are resurgent. Armed conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East, Indonesia, Central Africa, South America, and elsewhere testify to the importance among peoples of demarcating their differences. This became painfully evident on September 11, 2002, when a group of Islamic militants devastated the World Trade Towers, declaring to the world an extreme commitment to the assertion of their politico-cultural identity and vision.
How prepared are FIU students to inhabit this globe? Sociology and anthropology stand at the core of FIU’s mission of preparing students as citizens and leaders in a world of simultaneously more porous and more unyielding borders.
The contemporary professions—business, law, medicine, engineering, architecture, public administration, education, journalism, and so on—have come to recognize that their viability hinges increasingly on understanding a world of ethnic, national, gendered, generational, and other differences. The dynamics of such identities and hierarchies, along with methodologies for comprehending them, are indeed the focus of sociology and anthropology. The social sciences, then, are essential to the training of the next generations of effective and productive global citizens; and, as the history of the academy makes clear, the disciplines of sociology and anthropology are the anchors of the social sciences.
Multicultural, internationalized South Florida exemplifies the ruptures and the vitality that define the world today.[1] As the region’s public research university, and as a young and expanding institution, FIU’s challenges are both daunting and enviable: it endeavors to combine the academic integrity and excellence of a traditional research university with active engagement in a metropolis of striking diversity, inequity, and strife.
FIU’s location in South Florida has far-reaching consequences for how we envision our Department’s research, teaching, and service roles. At the same time, however, these roles are most effectively carried out in ways that emphasize theoretical, methodological, and geographic context for understanding Greater Miami. We strive to provide such contexts in two ways: first, by privileging the theoretical and methodological priorities of the academic disciplines of sociology and anthropology; and second, by exploring comparative-global themes that transcend South Florida, such as studies of other localities around the world and of overarching cultural and institutional themes.
Demographic projections for Florida—the country’s fourth most populous state—have decisive implications for FIU’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology. Florida’s population has boomed: by 24% from 1990 to the century’s turn.[2] The state’s tier of 18-24 year olds is swelling from 1.25 million in 2000 to a projected 1.54 million in 2010, pressing for space in the State University System. Increasing numbers of 25-44 year olds are joining the younger group as SUS students. Demand for undergraduate, graduate, and certificate programs mounts not only as the 25-44 year-old population has grown (by 15% in 1990-2000), but also as its members negotiate the fast-shifting terrain of a service-geared, regional job market that is increasingly integrated with Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world. Cutting across these changes, moreover, is a striking ethnic transition: Hispanics are surging from 14% of the state’s population in 1995 to a predicted 24% in 2025.
FIU’s home, Miami-Dade County, is the epicenter of Florida’s transformations. Hispanics climbed from 36% of Miami-Dade’s residents in 1980 to 57% in 2000. Driving this increase has been massive immigration from Latin America and the Caribbean to South Florida. This, in turn, has engendered another marked trend: demographic realignment among Hispanics themselves. In 1990-2000 Cubans dropped from 59% to 50% of Miami-Dade’s Hispanics. Greater Miami’s Hispanic diversification continues, particularly as political and economic crises push a widening diversity of Latin Americans into South Florida. Overlapping with these trends, as well as hinting at the sizable weight of non-Hispanic Caribbean immigration, is that foreign-born residents rose from 26% to 40% of Miami-Dade’s population in 1980-2000.
South Florida’s demographic trajectory adds new layers to what among major U.S. cities is Greater Miami’s unparalleled integration—socio-cultural, market, and political—with Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition it raises troubling questions concerning those groups, such as the vast majority of local African-Americans, who are excluded from and subordinated to these networks.
Greater Miami’s changing ethnic fabric and deepened continuities with Latin America and the Caribbean are themselves embedded in massive transformations of the global order. Among these are world economic restructuring, political realignments and violence, international flows of migration and refugees, and transnational communities and social movements. Miami, as the gateway city of the Americas, is neither immune to these dynamics nor can it ignore them. A prime example is the current surge in local immigrants from crisis-ridden South America. Looming large as well is anticipation of a post-Castro Cuba. Thus, virtually no aspect of public life in Greater Miami—least of all its profound inequities of political voice and government policy—can be understood apart from local, national, Caribbean-Latin American, and worldwide patterns of political economy, race-ethnicity, social class, and socio-cultural identity.
This conclusion also pertains to the formidable challenge of protecting the fragile ecologies that traverse South Florida and the Caribbean Basin. Here, too, both the causes of ecological destruction and its consequences—including heightened vulnerability to natural disasters—are inextricably bound up with transnational matters of political economy, ethno-nationality, class inequality, and identity.
How can we not only mitigate South Florida’s problems but also take advantage of its multicultural opportunities? No constructive answer to this question is imaginable without the premise of a solid comprehension of culture and institutions. Promoting such comprehension is fundamental to the missions of FIU and its Department of Sociology & Anthropology.
C. The Disciplines of Sociology & Anthropology
Sociologists and anthropologists have been at the forefront of investigating the broad issues that are critical to understanding Greater Miami in world perspective. Among the relevant focal points of investigation are global political economy and comparative political sociology; race-ethnicity and gender; urbanization; migration and transnational communities; and environmental risk and sustainable development.
Enrollment in sociology undergraduate and graduate programs expanded during the mid-1960s to mid-1970s, contracted until the mid-1980s (as part of a broader shift away from the liberal arts), and has climbed since then. From 1990 to 1999 the number of degrees awarded in sociology grew as follows: bachelor’s, by 55%; master’s, by 44%; and doctoral, by 21%. The number of minorities enrolled in graduate sociology swelled during the same period: Hispanic Americans, by 113%; Asian Americans, by 88%; African-Americans, by 67%; and Native Americans, by 50%. This growth far exceeded that of the minority populations. While male graduate enrollment dipped by 13%, female enrollment rose by 25%. The recent success of sociology departments in attracting minority and female enrollment may be attributed at least partly to the discipline’s scholarly concern with minority and gender inequality.
From 1994 to 2001 federally financed R&D expenditures at doctorate-granting institutions leaped by a net 54 percent. The increase was 65 percent at public institutions (NSF, Division of Science Resources Statistics, Fiscal Year 2001).
Anthropology
Anthropology enrollments have paralleled those of sociology. From 1987 to 1996 the number of undergraduate anthropology majors jumped by 109%. In 1998 there were approximately 16,000 anthropology majors, of which 58% were females and 10% minorities. In 2000 anthropology graduate enrollment reached 7,633 students, compared to 8,689 in sociology and 745 in joint anthropology-sociology Departments (NSF Division of Science Resources Statistics, December 21, 2000).
A yearly average of 400 anthropology doctorates were awarded in 1974-94; a record annual-high 577 were awarded in 1998-99. From 1972 to 1994 women’s share of anthropology doctorates leaped from 32% to 59%, while minority representation in anthropology Ph.D. cohorts swelled from 4% to 16%. These pronounced increases reflect the discipline’s own commitment to cross-cultural and gendered inquiry.
Summary
National demand for degrees in sociology and anthropology, especially by women and minorities, has risen sharply during the past decade. Given global transformations and their attendant demands for cross-cultural awareness and analysis, this level of demand is likely to persist.
E. Joint Sociology-Anthropology Departments in
the U.S.
Of the country’s 218 graduate departments of sociology and 171 graduate departments of anthropology, approximately 40 are joint sociology-anthropology departments.[4] The 40 or so joint departments have an average rougly 15 faculty members (versus FIU’s 22, four of whom serve as FIU administrators while another five are currently on leave) and 175 undergraduate majors (versus FIU’s 140). The 12 or so doctoral programs awarded 3-6 M.A.’s and 3-5 Ph.D.’s in 2000-01 (versus FIU’s average of 7.3 M.A.’s and 5.5 PhD’s in 1999-2003; see Table 7). Apparently all of the M.A. programs, however, are in either sociology or anthropology, and all of the Ph.D. programs are in sociology. We have found no graduate curriculum that is comparable to FIU’s program in Comparative Sociology, which regards sociology and anthropology as snugly intertwined.
Besides FIU’s program, Central Florida, Fordham, George Mason, Howard, Loyola (Chicago), Northeastern, and Santa Clara universities are evidently the only joint sociology-anthropology departments located in leading metropolitan areas. Of these programs, only Central Florida’s and George Mason’s program, which do not offer doctorates, are housed in public universities. Central Florida and George Mason are included in the later comparative reviews of undergraduate and graduate curricula (see sections VI.A & VI.B).
There are six graduate-degree granting sociology programs in Florida, four of which (FIU, University of Florida, Florida State University, and University of Miami) offer the doctorate (Table 1).[5] The University of Florida’s program is the largest: 26 full-time faculty, 56 full-time graduate students, and 554 undergraduate majors (versus FIU’s 22 full-time sociology-anthropology faculty, 33 full-time graduate students, and 162 undergraduate majors). The University of Miami’s is the smallest Ph.D.-granting program: 11 full-time faculty, 16 full-time graduate students, and 232 undergraduate majors. The University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida house intermediate-size, master’s-granting Departments.
Of these programs, only FIU and the University of Central Florida offer sociology and anthropology as a joint major. Central Florida’s program differs from FIU’s, however, in key ways. First, unlike FIU’s combined sociology-anthropology curriculum for undergraduate majors, Central Florida offers separate tracks for sociology majors and anthropology majors. Second, unlike FIU’s M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Comparative Sociology, Central Florida offers only an M.A. degree in Applied Sociology, which emphasizes social deviance and community policy.
Florida has six graduate-degree granting programs in anthropology, four of which (FIU, University of Florida, Florida State University, and University of South Florida) award the Ph.D (Table 1). The University of Florida’s program is the largest: 38 full-time faculty, 188 full-time graduate students, and 476 undergraduate majors. Florida State’s is the smallest: 12 full-time faculty, 24 full-time graduate students, and 128 undergraduate majors. FIU, of course, offers Ph.D. training in anthropology as part of its Comparative Sociology program; none of the other anthropology programs offers a cross-disciplinary M.A. or Ph.D. Florida Atlantic University and the University of West Florida offer the M.A. in anthropology.
No graduate program in the state of Florida is comparable to FIU’s. The University of Central Florida does provide a comparison at the undergraduate level. Regarding the non-comparable programs, let us mention that the sociology departments at the University of Florida’s and Florida State University enroll far more graduate and undergraduate majors per full-time faculty member than does FIU and UCF. This is based on their large graduate programs and the fact that they teach high numbers of large-lecture courses with teaching assistant-led sections. It perhaps is also based on the demographic profiles of undergraduates at leading, non-commuter state universities versus the undergraduate demographic profiles at commuter-based FIU and UCF.
Beginning in 2003-04, FIU’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology has been teaching, per fall and spring semester, four 200-student sections of introductory sociology; one or two 200-student sections of introductory anthropology; and four 200-student sections of upper-division “Myth, Ritual, and Mysticism” (which is part of the University Core Curriculum). No more than an occasional other FIU upper-division sociology or anthropology course reaches as many as 90 students (principally Dr. Shearon Lowery’s regularly offered “Social Deviance,” “Juvenile Delinquency,” and “Criminology,” which is a testament both to the nationwide popularity of such courses and to Dr. Lowery’s teaching excellence). A large boost in the Department’s per faculty undergraduate enrollment would require much greater access to large lecture rooms and the possibility of offering teaching assistant-led sections. It is possible that more frequent teaching of deviance, criminology, and sexuality courses would substantially increase enrollments as well. On balance these courses do not mesh with the departmental graduate program’s strengths, but, the budget permitting, an alternative would be to hire lecturers and adjuncts to teach such courses.
Summary
FIU’s joint program in sociology & anthropology is not comparable to any other graduate program in Florida or the nation. Hence the Curriculum Review section will compare FIU’s graduate program with the graduate sociology and anthropology programs of several universities, rather than Departmental, benchmarks: Arizona State University, University of Houston, University of Illinois-Chicago, and Temple University. In contrast, the Department’s undergraduate program is comparable to others. The Curriculum Review section will compare our undergraduate program with the joint sociology-anthropology curricula at Central Florida, George Mason, Howard, and Northeastern. Like FIU, these institutions are located in large metropolitan areas. Central Florida and George Mason are public institutions, while Howard is a minority institution and Northeastern is well known for its commuter work-study programs.
Table 1
Comparison of Sociology and Anthropology Programs in
Florida
|
Florida
Institution |
Program
Name (Program
Type) |
Degrees
Offered |
Comments |
|
FAMU |
Sociology
and Criminal Justice |
BS, BA,
MASS |
8
sociology and anthropology faculty |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAU |
Department
of Sociology; Department
of Anthropology |
BA, MA BA, MA,
MAT |
11
full-time fac. 3
full-time fac. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FGCU |
Social
Science Program |
BA |
Sociology
& anthropology tracks |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FIU |
Department
of Sociology and Anthropology |
BA, MA,
PhD |
21
full-time faculty; Comparative
Sociology graduate degrees |
|
|
|
|
|
|
FSU |
Department
of Sociology; Department
of Anthropology |
BA, MA,
MS, PhD BA, MA,
MS, PhD |
23
full-time fac. 12 full-time fac. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
New
College |
Division
of Social Sciences |
BA |
Anthropology
and sociology majors |
|
|
|
|
|
|
UCF |
Department
of Sociology and Anthropology |
MA |
Separate
tracks 19 full-time sociology fac.; 10 full-time anthropology fac. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
UF |
Department
of Sociology; Department
of Anthropology |
BA, MA,
MA/JD, PhD BA, MA,
PhD |
Both
programs the largest in the state; 29 full-time sociology fac., 34 full-time
anthropology fac. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
UNF |
Department
of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice |
BA, MS
in Sociology; BA in Anthropology |
17
full-time faculty |
|
|
|
|
|
|
USF |
Department
of Sociology; Department
of Anthropology |
MA BA, MA,
PhD |
9
full-time faculty 20
full-time faculty |
|
|
|
|
|
|
UWF |
Department
of Anthropology |
BA, MA |
Emphasis
on archaeology and maritime studies |
1. Cross-Disciplinary Emphasis
The faculty and programs of FIU’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology hold a steadfast commitment to cross-disciplinary inquiry and training (see Appendix B). This includes synergy between sociology and anthropology, on one hand, and between these and other disciplines, on the other. As scholars worldwide have come to question the efficacy of traditional disciplinary boundaries,[6] we believe that cross-fertilization capitalizes on the theoretical and methodological strengths of sociology and anthropology to explore the layers of South Florida’s interplay with the wider world. Our cross-disciplinary commitment underpins our training of undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the various other Departmental strengths that are discussed below.
With regard to research, recent examples of the Department’s cross-disciplinary activities include the following:
§ "Anthropogenic Change in Neotropical Landscapes": William Vickers, research project with Brad Bennett and Maureen Donnelly (Principal Investigators, Biological Sciences, FIU)
Professors Kathleen Martín and Lois West have done considerable cross-disciplinary program building in comparative/global gender studies, including through FIU’s Women Studies Center. Promising to deepen the Department’s cross-disciplinary linkages are proposed new graduate and undergraduate certificates in Sustainable Communities, which Professors Laura Ogden, Hugh Gladwin, and Richard Tardanico have taken the initiative to organize; and a proposed undergraduate certificate in Ethnicity & Immigration Studies, organized by Sarah Mahler and Alex Stepick. The proposed certificates would cut across not only departments in the College of Arts & Sciences but also FIU’s Colleges and Schools.
3. Undergraduate Senior Capstone Seminar (SYG 4972)
5. External Grants Funding in Transnational Migration/Race-Ethnicity
While the Department has recently lost considerable grants capacity due to faculty departures to other universities (Professors Walter Peacock in disaster research and William Avinson in medical sociology) and to retirement (Professor Betty Morrow, disaster research), its grants record in transnational migration/race-ethnicity studies remains strong (see Appendix F). This record has been anchored by Professors Alex Stepick, Sarah Mahler, and Jean Rahier (who has a joint appointment in Sociology & Anthropology and African-New World Studies). Such grants have enabled the Department’s many graduate students to hone their skills in actual research projects. This is a key reason why many of our Ph.D. graduates have obtained faculty positions in sociology and cross-disciplinary programs (see Appendix G).
It is anticipated that Professor Laura Ogden (an assistant professor of anthropology who began at FIU in Fall 2003 and who specializes in environmental anthropology) will spark considerable grants activity within the Department’s specialization in environmental studies, including in collaboration with Professor Hugh Gladwin. It is also anticipated that the 2003-04 searches for two new faculty members in environmental anthropology will bolster grants activity in this specialization. Grants collaboration with FIU’s Department of Environmental Studies, as well as via LACC and the Center for Transnational & Comparative Studies, should become an integral part of this equation. If these searches prove successful, then FIU’s Department of Sociology & Anthropology and Department of Environmental Studies could combine to anchor the nation’s preeminent program in environmental anthropology. This anticipated strength, which would revolve around South Florida and Latin America and intersect with LACC’s Institute for Sustainability Sciences and with the Center for Transnational & Comparative Studies, can be expected to underpin a major upswing in external research funding.
The 2003-04 search for a specialist in social demography, comparative/global studies, immigration studies, and research methods/statistics stands to bolster external research funding in transnational migration/race-ethnicity studies. This, too, promises to deepen the Department’s funded-research ties with LACC and with the Center for Transnational & Comparative Studies.
6.
Training Graduate Students from Other FIU Departments & Colleges
There is
considerable enrollment in the Department’s graduate courses by students from
other Departments and colleges. The
principal attraction for such students is the Department’s expertise in
research methodology. Research
Methods I (SYA 6305, taught by Sarah Mahler) enrolled 27 students in Fall
2002 and (taught by Alex Stepick) enrolled 28 students in Fall 2003, of whom
more than 40% have been from other programs (mainly from the M.A. Program in
Latin American and Caribbean Studies, but also from various other
programs). Qualitative Research
Methods (ANG 6497, taught by Betty Morrow) enrolled 12 students in Spring
2002, of whom 58% were from other Departments.
Social Research & Analysis (ANG 5496, taught by Richard
Tardanico) enrolled 22 students in Fall 2002, of whom 41% were from programs as
diverse as Environmental Studies, International Relations, Political Science,
Religious Studies, and Biology. Sociology
of International Development (SYP 5447, taught in recent years by Anthony
Maingot) is populated mainly by graduate students from the M.A. Program in
Latin American and Caribbean Studies and from the graduate programs in the
departments of International Relations, Political Science, and History.
7.
Innovators of “The Miami School” of Urban Studies
The Department’s national and international leadership in studying Miami has coalesced into a “Miami School,” which emphasizes how multicultural immigration and transnational communities have fundamentally reconstructed South Florida, turning an “Anglo” dominated, relatively marginal U.S. city into what some Latin American observers are today calling “Latin America’s most globalized city” (e.g., Workshop on Globalization & Urban Studies, Vienna, Austria, October 2002). Arguably the Department’s faculty has written the definitive social science books on Miami. Among these are the award-winning City on the Edge,[7] by Alex Stepick and Princeton sociologist Alejandro Portes; Miami Now! by Guillermo Grenier and Alex Stepick; Hurricane Andrew by Walter Peacock, Betty Morrow, and Hugh Gladwin; and Miami Beach in 1920 by Abraham Lavender. Lisandro Pérez has made seminal contributions on the topic though his many publications on Cuban immigration and assimilation, including his recent work on second-generation Cuban immigrants.
This expertise is becoming diffused among European academicians and students by means of Douglas Kincaid and Sarah Mahler’s leadership in building the international, inter-university consortium, “Transnationalism, International Migration, Race, Ethnocentrism and the State” (TIRES). Kincaid (as Vice Provost of International Studies) is laying the groundwork for the Department’s faculty to begin to undertake research on contemporary immigration in Europe.
The Department offers FIU’s widest array of undergraduate and graduate courses on Greater Miami in transnational perspective. Such offerings play a vital role in FIU’s urban and international missions at the undergraduate and graduate
levels.
8.
Pioneering Gendered Disaster Research
Emeritus Professor Betty Morrow (who retired in Spring 2003) has received national and international recognition for having pioneered gendered research and policy approaches to disaster preparedness, impact, and response. Professor Morrow’s research was funded by the National Science Foundation and carried out in the Laboratory for Social and Behavioral Research in FIU’s International Hurricane Research Center. Sociologist James Rivers, who holds an affiliated faculty position with the Department of Sociology & Anthropology, is continuing this line of work in the Laboratory for Social and Behaviorial Research.
9. Faculty Leadership in Disciplinary & Cross-Disciplinary Scholarly Associations & Journals
The Department’s faculty
has played leadership roles in the American Anthropological Association (AAA),
the American Sociological Association (ASA), the International Studies
Association (ISA), the Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), the Latin American
Studies Association (LASA), and so forth, as well as in scholarly
journals. For example, Jean Rahier is
editor of the Journal of
Latin American Anthropology; Kathleen Martín is chair of the AAA’s Ethnics Committee;
Janet Chernela has served on the AAA’s Task force on El Dorado (involving a major international controversy over
research ethics); Alex Stepick serves on the AAA’s Margaret Mead Award
Committee; and Douglas Kincaid is a member of the executive committee of the
ISA and chairs the international component of the ASA’s 2005 Centennial
Celebration.
10. FIU Institution-Building
The Department’s cross-disciplinary commitment has also been reflected in the faculty’s vigorous role in building FIU’s extra-Departmental programs, which have been essential to the university’s research, teaching, and service missions. Here are some major examples: