We’ve all lost a great friend in Mike. He came to dinner one night here in New York City while he was doing fieldwork commissioned by Sloan Kettering, trying to figure out a better relationship among patients, institution, and physicians. On that particular project he was as full of great ideas as he had been about drug reform. I remember that night as stimulating, warm, and full of laughter. Ten or so years later, when I visited a patient at Sloan Kettering, I could see the hospital had certainly taken some of Mike’s suggestions to heart.
Goodbye, dear Michael. > On May 23, 2017, at 12:59 AM, Stephen Guerin <[email protected]> > wrote: > > FRIAM has lost a great friend. Mike Agar, a great mentor to me, passed away > on Saturday after a battle with ALS. A few of us had the special privilege of > watching him work in the field on a few projects. He taught me, a novice, how > ethnography is done as an old master. I will miss his insight, his wry humor > and his warm friendship. Mike wrote his own obituary below. It's some comfort > to read it and imagine his voice. And of course, as always, Mike gets the > last word. > > <MikeAgar960.jpg> > > from http://www.redfish.com/mikeAgar.html > <http://www.redfish.com/mikeAgar.html> > > The Professional Stranger > > in his own words: > > Michael H. Agar was born in Chicago right around the time of the German > surrender at the end of WWII in 1945. After an uneventful childhood of dirt > clod wars at housing construction sites and memorized recitations of the > Baltimore catechism, he was forcibly relocated to Livermore, California, in > 1956, when his father took a job at the new Lawrence Radiation Lab. He always > considered it his hometown, strange mix of cowboys and science that it was. > Since he was particularly good at multiple-choice tests, he was able to > attend Stanford, courtesy of the then abundant – and now endangered – concept > of financial aid, graduating with a degree in anthropology in 1967. While > there he arranged his own year abroad program with the help of a > crypto-anarchist dean and anthropology professor Alan Beals. Mike worked in a > small village in South India and then returned to enjoy the shift from beer > to marijuana that had occurred in his absence. He had turned into an > internationalist – and, therefore, in the eyes of many of his friends' > parents, a communist – with his experiences during high school as an exchange > student in Austria and as a fieldworker in South India. Off he went to grad > school at the Language Behavior Research Lab at Berkeley, leaving with a PhD > in 1971. Life changed with the Vietnam War when he gratefully accepted a > commission in the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service during > graduate school. Instead of becoming a South Asianist, with the help of his > graduate advisor, Paul Kay, he turned into a lifelong drug expert, an ironic > career for a 60’s Berkeley student. He taught at several universities, > foreign and domestic, the most noteworthy of the foreign gigs being two > stints in linguistics at the University of Vienna and several at the > Intercultural Management Institute at the Kepler University in Linz. His most > extensive domestic position was in the Department of Anthropology at the > University of Maryland where he helped develop and run a program to train > practitioners, rather than academic researchers. By the mid-90’s he set off > on his own as Ethknoworks, and, in fact, will be available as a ghost for a > while on the home page ethknoworks.com <http://ethknoworks.com/>. > > He wrote a lot – son of a journalist and a photographer – and considered > himself a craftsman who worked with ideas rather than materials. His main > reward was when a student came up after a talk and thanked him for help in > solving a problem in the student’s own work. His concept of "languaculture," > modified from Friedrich's original "linguaculture," had a major impact in > applied linguistics, and his article on the crack cocaine epidemic helped > change discriminatory drug laws. His first book, Ripping and Running > <https://www.amazon.com/Ripping-Running-Formal-Ethnography-Addicts/dp/0127850201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521345&sr=8-1&keywords=+Ripping+and+Running>, > opened new directions in ethnography and helped start the field of cognitive > science. The Professional Stranger > <https://www.amazon.com/Professional-Stranger-Informal-Introduction-Ethnography/dp/0120444704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521120&sr=8-1&keywords=professional+stranger> > served as a resource for many students embarking on their first fieldwork. > There were other books – Independents Declared > <https://www.amazon.com/INDEPENDENTS-DECLARED-Smithsonian-Ethnographic-Inquiry/dp/0874742501/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521191&sr=8-1&keywords=independents+declared>, > Speaking of Ethnography > <https://www.amazon.com/Speaking-Ethnography-Qualitative-Research-Methods/dp/0803924925/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521273&sr=8-1&keywords=Speaking+of+Ethnography>, > and Dope Double Agent > <https://www.amazon.com/Dope-Double-Agent-Naked-Emperor/dp/1411681037/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521303&sr=8-1&keywords=Dope+Double+Agent>, > to name a few. His last was a book called The Lively Science > <https://www.amazon.com/Lively-Science-Remodeling-Social-Research/dp/1626521026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495521470&sr=8-1&keywords=the+lively+science>, > an attempt to show how human social research was a different kind of > science. Mike also left behind a draft manuscript behind called Culture: How > to Make It Work in a World of Hybrids. He received an award here and there, > but those never mattered much to him, except for the Career Award from the > National Institutes for Health (NIH), which bought cash to free him from > faculty meetings for several years. He sought work that passed the "trinity > test" – intellectually interesting, with moral value, which paid the rent. He > was grateful that so much of life was filled with work that met those > conditions. > > Mike will miss his life partner of many years, who recently became his wife, > Ellen Taylor, his sister, Mary, and brother, Tom, and their kids and > grandkids, a few friends who endured over the years, and the birds and > animals who still drop by the acre of New Mexican desert that he and Ellen > called home, for food and water. > > Mike died peacefully in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on May 20, 2017. He would be > honored by any donations in his memory to Somos Un Pueblo Unido > <http://www.somosunpueblounido.org/>, La Familia Medical Center > <http://www.lafamiliasf.org/>, or any Santa Fe-based animal rights > organization or sanctuary. > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
