About 60 percent of surveyed biological anthropologists have reported sexual harassment during fieldwork and 20 percent have reported assault, according to an online survey regarding the atmosphere of anthropological fieldwork. 

The survey of 124 anthropological field workers was conducted by Kathryn Clancy, an assistant professor of Anthropology at the University, along with Katie Hinde, assistant professor at Harvard, Robin Nelson, assistant professor at University of California-Riverside and Julienne Rutherford, assistant professor at University of Illinois at Chicago.

Clancy said she launched the survey in February after discovering that sexual harassment and assault during fieldwork is a more widespread problem than she had previously thought. She said what she saw in the data surprised her — she herself had never dealt with anything like that during her own fieldwork. 

Clancy said she had been compelled to look into the issue following a conversation with a colleague in 2011. Her colleague revealed that she had been sexually assaulted in the field, making the work she had to complete to finish her doctorate difficult to handle. 

“It was when I first talked to her that I then discovered that there were actually many people,” Clancy said. “I started having these conversations and more people came forward having these experiences.”

She posted two such experiences on her blog anonymously and the posts garnered attention. She then received an invitation to speak at the American Association of Physical Anthropology symposium on ethics April 13.

Clancy realized that she only had anecdotal evidence and decided that a more systematic approach would be necessary. It was then that she launched the survey.

Even though fieldwork occurs off campus, the Women’s Resources Center and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access both deal with these kinds of cases.

The Women’s Resources Center provides resources, support and advocacy services to help students who have dealt with sexual violence. 

Molly McLay, assistant director of the center, said, victim blaming is part of the reason that sexual harassment is underreported by victims. She added that questioning a victim’s decisions or clothing choices undermines the offender’s actions.

“It makes excuses for the people who’ve done it and puts some of the responsibility on the victim to not get harassed or not get assaulted, which is really totally off,” she said. “It should not be that way at all.”

Kaamilyah Abdullah-Span, associate director for the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access said a lot of sexual assaults go unreported.

“Because it’s someone that they know, or they don’t want to relive the incident by having to explain it to the police officer and then if it goes to trial, having to explain it to the jury or to the judge,” she said.

In the meantime, Clancy said she thinks focusing on issues like these would be beneficial to the University.

“I think, in general, one of the things the University of Illinois should be doing in coming years is thinking of gender and racial equity,” Clancy said. “If that were our priority, in terms of our mission as a university, we would come out in front of a lot of other elite public universities and then they would want to follow us.”

Eleanor can be reached at [email protected].