But what of the humanities? If an anthropologist with a PhD is not employed as an academic in a university, are they any less an anthropologist? For many traditional academics it is almost inconceivable to remain a scholar without being either in a tenure-track position, or on the road to one. The number of people willing to take poorly paid adjunct positions to stay on the treadmill is testament to the persistence of this idea, and even in the sciences the culture is slow to change as we’ve noted previously. Twitter and the blogosphere is overflowing with discussions of “alt-ac”.

In a…