Interview with Muriel Crespi, September 8, 2002

Partial Transcript: --tember ninth and this is Shirley Fiske interviewing Muriel Crespi.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi explains that she did not identify with being an applied anthropologist or an academic anthropologist until she was working outside of university. Crespi describes her work in Ecuador studying haciendas and frustration with the Agrarian Reform Institute, which did not care about the data she gathered, only caring about the movements and membership of communist groups. For Crespi, this was a turning point in how she thought about applied anthropology because she didn't see the point in obtaining the kind of data she had gathered if it wasn't going to be put to use to solve real world problems. Crespi realized that she had to control her emotions regarding the government mistreatment of indigenous people and her frustration with the Agrarian Reform Institute if she hoped to convince them to change things. Crespi's experience in Ecuador helped her distance applied anthropology from individual projects and think of it in terms of larger policy and program implementations. Crespi and Fiske discuss the evolution of applied anthropology in this period of Crespi's anthropological career within the university and academia. The conversation then turns towards Crespi's experience with hostile communists while in Ecuador. Crespi discusses her experience of not being trusted by the local communists who threatened her and discusses a local Indian family who protected her.

Keywords: Agrarian Reform Institute; Agrarian reform; Complex societies; Ecuador; Government; Haciendas; Indigenous people; Policy; Vicos project

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Ecuador; Government policy; Latin America; Society for Applied Anthropology

Partial Transcript: Well, when I left Ecuador, I guess I became more and more interested in doing something that was not quite so academic.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi explains that she sort of drifted from university to university in the U.S., teaching courses largely unrelated to Latin America. After a second trip to Ecuador, Crespi found herself burnt out on Latin American studies and disillusioned with teaching there after being treated as a Yankee imperialist by students. Crespi returned to the U.S. and found new interest in domestic U.S. society. Crespi explains that she was interested in urban society and, particularly, factories and factory workers, but found herself yearning for the countryside. After a lack of success in gaining access to factories in Rhode Island, Crespi found herself involved with Portuguese immigrants from the Azores in American citizenship classes and found her way into some factories this way. However, Crespi explains that she wanted something bigger and something else to do with her life, so she moved to Washington, D.C. Fiske asks Crespi how she regarded applied anthropology at this point in her life. Crespi answers that she still had only regarded herself as a cultural anthropologist until she moved to Washington, D.C.

Keywords: Alliance for Progress; Brown University; Citizenship classes; Domestic U.S.; Ecuador; Factories; Factory studies; Fulbright program; Haciendas; Imperialism; Latin America; Local distrust; Portuguese-Americans; Post doctorate; Post-doctorate; Providence (R.I.); Urban studies; Yankee imperialism

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Society for Applied Anthropology

Partial Transcript: Shirley Fiske is interviewing Miki Crespi and the date is September 8th, 2002.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi expresses her appreciation that Fiske is also someone who has worked in the government and understands the nuances involved with it. Fiske summarizes that, at his point in time, Crespi had just found herself in Washington D.C. with no knowledge of the National Park Service and searching for jobs. Crespi found herself unable to find long-term employment until the National Park Service began looking for someone who could help create programs with Native Americans.

Keywords: American Indians; Indigenous people; National Park Service; Native Americans; Program implementation; Ronald Reagan; Washington (D.C.); Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists (WAPA); Washington, D.C.

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Society for Applied Anthropology; Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists

Partial Transcript: But anyway, so, um, you did say the job--it was a cultural anthropology job and it was to develop a whole program, a wide swathe of things.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi describes the background of the National Park Service and explains that it consists of multiple parts, of which she is only involved in the national park part of it. Crespi then goes into detail about how the budget of the agency is organized, the leadership hierarchy is formatted, and how anthropologists are not considered social scientists by the National Park Service. Crespi and Fiske discuss the relations between Native Americans and the National Park Service. Crespi explains that it wasn't the Indians that were interesting to the agency, but their resources. However, Crespi states that the Alaska National Interest Lands Conversation Act was the turning point because the act addressed Indians as living people. Crespi discusses that it took ten years for the program to take shape.

Keywords: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA); American Indian Religious Freedom Act; American Indians; Cultural anthropology; Department of the Interior; Historic preservation; Indigenous people; National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); National Park Service; Native Americans; Natural preservation; Program implementation

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Bureaucracy; Government policy; Society for Applied Anthropology

Partial Transcript: The associate director Jerry Rogers was a historian and totally committed to history as a process for learning the truth.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi describes the process of getting policy altered to where it recognized cultural anthropology. Once new language was added to the policy of the National Park Service, Crespi was able to justify practices such as ethnography to be utilized in agency programs. Crespi lists several anthropologists who gave their support for ethnography to be added to agency policy and describes the support the program received from the SfAA itself.

Keywords: American Indians; Anthropology; Ethnography; Indigenous people; Native Americans; Policy; Policy revision; Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA)

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Bureaucracy; Society for Applied Anthropology

Partial Transcript: So let's spend a minute or two on the external team.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi states her desire to describe what she terms the external team: individuals involved with establishing the program outside of the National Park Service. Crespi describes the anthropologists who went to Capitol Hill to convince congressional representatives to provide appropriations for the program she was starting and the long difficult process of obtaining congressional support. Crespi emphasizes the support from the SfAA and AAA as big contributing factors to obtaining appropriations.

Keywords: American Anthropological Association (AAA); Bureaucracy; Congress; Congressional appropriations; Cultural anthropology; Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA)

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Society for Applied Anthropology

Partial Transcript: So, what did we do with that money? Well, um, we were able to shift the people in the regional office from being term appointees to being permanent.

Segment Synopsis: Crespi describes the process following the obtaining of funding from Congress. She explains the restructuring of employees in the agency and Alaska's insistence on funding itself. Crespi discusses the introduction of concepts that have become a part of anthropology's vocabulary. She speaks about people attached to National Park land who are not considered important or sought after for public involvement. Crespi explains how a lot of the outreach to the community coming from the National Park Service agency didn't include a significant amount of people not considered important. Crespi describes the issues arising from resistance to public interest groups and a lack of assistance from the AAA and SfAA. In response to Fiske's inquiry about the agency's obligations to special interest groups, Crespi answers that it involves consulting and identification upon established guidelines. The recording ends without a formal conclusion.

Keywords: Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA); American Indians; Consulting; Cultural anthropology; Cultural resources; Indigenous people; National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); Native Americans

Subjects: Anthropology; Applied anthropology; Bureaucracy; Society for Applied Anthropology