Dr. Paula L. W. Sabloff

Senior Research Scientist, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Adjunct Associate Professor Department of Anthropology

Professional Biography

Paula L.W. Sabloff is a political anthropologist whose research focuses on issues of democratization, globalization, political economy, and patron-client relations. She has worked in Mexico (graduate work), the United States, and, most recently, Mongolia.

Dr. Sabloff joined the University of Pennsylvania community in 1996 following teaching and administration at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of New Mexico. After receiving her BA (magna cum laude) from Vassar College, she started graduate school in Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, completing her Master's and PhD at Brandeis University.

A political anthropologist, Dr. Sabloff began conducting research in Mongolia in 1996. While her first project (sponsored by IREX) concerned patron-client relations, her subsequent and continuing work (sponsored by NSF, IREX, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum) focuses on the cognitive analysis of Mongolians' ideas on democracy and market economy. This work was featured in the joint exhibition of the University Museum and National Museum of Mongolian History (Ulaanbaatar), MODERN MONGOLIA: RECLAIMING GENGHIS KHAN. A book of the same title accompanied the exhibition, which travels to the Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History) July-December 2002 and Middlebury College in 2003. Dr. Sabloff has presented her research on this topic to various professional organizations (American Anthropological Association, Association for the Study of Nationalities, Mongolia Society, a workshop on Mongolian research at the Smithsonian Institution), CENTRAL ASIAN SURVEY (vol. 21, No. 1, 2002), and several public lectures.

Prior to conducting research in Mongolia, Dr. Sabloff conducted various political anthropology studies which resulted in several books, monographs, and professional papers. The books and monographs published in the last decade include MODERN MONGOLIA: RECLAIMING GENGHIS KHAN (University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2001), CAREERS IN ANTHROPOLOGY: PROFILES OF PRACTITIONER ANTHROPOLOGISTS (NAPA Bulletin 20. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology, American Anthropological Association, 2000), HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE POST-COMMUNIST WORLD: EIGHT CASE STUDIES, (Garland Series in Higher Education, vol. 14, Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999), CONVERSATIONS WITH LEW BINFORD: DRAFTING THE NEW ARCHAEOLOGY (University of Oklahoma Press, 1998), REFORM AND CHANGE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES. (edited with James Mauch, Garland Press, 1995), and WILL STATE LEGISLATURES INCREASE RESTRICTIONS ON PUBLIC UNIVERSITY AUTONOMY? (University of Houston Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance Monograph 93-4, 1994).

Dr. Sabloff is currently working on a book about her Mongolian research and plans to return to Mongolia to conduct further fieldwork.

Research

Dr. Sabloff's 1998-99 project is a cognitive analysis of Mongolians' concepts of democracy and capitalism. Comparing the capital city of Ulaanbaatar with the western provincial capital of Hovd, she is using cognitive techniques to learn whether or not parts of the population (age, gender, education, ethnicity, religion, occupation, political ideology, etc.) define these two terms differently. During the Communist years (1921-1989), many Mongolians adopted the Soviet (Leninist), economic definition of democracy and considered capitalism to be evil; following the collapse of the Soviet Union, some Mongolian citizens changed to the Western, political definition of democracy and acceptance of capitalism. The point of the research was to find which parts of the population subscribe to the old Communist or the new Western definition of these terms. Dr. Sabloff is using the rich database of over 860 interviews to further anthropological knowledge of Mongolian political culture as well as test theories of cultural knowledge flow proposed by Dan Sperber, James Boster and Jeffrey Johnson on the one hand and Edward Laumann on the other. The data have also been distributed to Mongolian and international NGOs working for democratization in Mongolia.

Dr. Sabloff plans to continue her research on Mongolians' concepts of democracy and market economy with additional fieldwork in 2003. By asking the same questions, she hopes to learn whether or not Mongolians have reverted to a pre-democracy period conceptualization of democracy and capitalism. Since the 1998-99 research was conducted, Mongolia has experienced four years of zud (summer drought and winter freezes that prevent the herds from grazing) and three years of return to Communist Party. Has the new situation influenced Mongolians to return to the Soviet perceptions of democracy and capitalism, or have the Western definitions held through difficult times?

Previously (spring 1996), Dr. Sabloff conducted a study of patron-client relations between the Mongolian government and its public higher education institutions. The project was sponsored by IREX.

Courses Taught

Research Methods in Sociocultural Anthropology (Anth 518)

Anthropology and Policy: History, Theory and Practice (Anth 305/609)

Culture Clash (Anth 115)

Analyzing University Life: An Anthropological Approach

History of Anthropology

Exhibitions, Public Outreach

Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan. An exhibition on Mongolia covering 1206 - 2000. Curated for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in collaboration with the National Museum of Mongolian History. Scheduled venues: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (2001-2002), National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution, (2002), Middlebury College Museum of Art (2003). See the website.

In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan: Mongolia Today. Lecture given to the Friday Colloquium, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution on Friday, September 13.

Reclaiming Genghis Khan. Lecture given to the Smithsonian Associates, Smithsonian Institution (National Museum of Natural History) on Monday, July 8.

Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan. Lecture given at the Memorial Library of Radnor Township (PA) on Friday, May 3.

Mongolia: In the Footsteps of Genghis Khan. Public lecture at Rowan University, Glassboro NJ, April 19.

For the University of Pennsylvania Museum International Classroom. 2001 Genghis Khan Lives! Lecture given to the Cosmopolitan Club of Philadelphia on December 13.