Community-Centered Praxis: Toward an Alternative Non-dominative Applied Anthropology

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Abstract
Applied anthropologists long have grappled with the problem of determining their appropriate relationship with ''target'' communities. Recently, Johannsen (1992) has proposed the development of a post-modern applied anthropology that would neither impose solutions nor even define community problems in need of response, but rather would use its skills and resources to foster indigenous community initiatives and self-representations. This paper strongly supports Johannsen's goal of developing what is here termed a nonimperialist praxis, but questions whether this goal can be achieved by incorporating the framework of post-moderism. An alternative approach, community-centered praxis, that directly addresses the thorny issue of partisanship, is proposed and illustrated using the case of the Hartford Needle Exchange Project.

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