Dolores Root

As she remember, "I had an 'aha' moment, and realized museums are really one big classroom for exchanging ideas and encouraging dialogue!"

As an anthropology graduate student at UMass, Dolores Root knew she wanted to communicate beyond the academy.  Today, she weaves threads of her anthropological training throughout her work in community based programming, working with museums, public education, municipalities and more.

Root pursued her doctorate under the guidance of Martin Wobst, and wrote her dissertation in archaeology, on the material dimensions of social inequality in non-stratified societies.  During her time as a graduate student at UMass, she learned to critically question the status quo—not only in anthropology but in other disciplines as well.  But what she came to value most was teaching anthropology to undergraduate students, where she discovered her passion for engaging students in critical thinking, opening perspectives on the past and the present.

Upon receiving her PhD, Root went to work as assistant director, and then director, of a community/regional museum in Brattleboro, Vermont. It was there, she realized, that she could translate her knowledge and interests in anthropology and teaching into civic engagement.

In Brattleboro, Root learned how to work with communities in sustained and engaged ways, creating exhibits and public programs based on community interests and concerns.  And although she hadn't received specific training for such work, she remembers thinking it wasn't all that foreign to her given her knowledge of anthropological practice and of material culture as socially and actively constructed.

The first major exhibition Root produced was formative in her development. The theme of the museum that year was technological innovation and social change.  Root and colleagues chose to focus on a familiar aspect of daily life, kitchen technology from 1830-1985.  Drawing on scholarship from the 1980s that technological innovation does not always mean less work for women, the exhibit created five vignettes of kitchens representing different historical moments.  By inviting community with the questions posed throughout the exhibit.

The Brattleboro Museum experience informs Root's ongoing work, be it creating a community museum with an indigenous community in highland Bolivia, leading a team to develop a place-based curriculum for a new community college, or working with a multi-discipline design team to re-imagine an urban waterfront to better reflect the people and place.  Root recognizes that her work grew out of basic anthropological concerns for cultural diversity and social inequality.  As she said, "it is very important for me to feel grounded in anthropology....It informs the questions I ask."  Moreover, she sees many possibilities for future anthropologists within the burgeoning field of community engagement.

"Anthropologists have something substantive to bring to community engagement," she says, adding that "Anthropological thinking and practice can be brought to bear on many different issues and contexts in the public realm."