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Public anthropology might indeed do these things. It also reflects – but at present, with its focus often more on the expression of passion than praxis or pragmatic engagement (Rylko-Bauer et al. 2006), has not convincingly addressed – a desire, felt quite strongly in medical anthropology today: to have an impact on the world around us. Medical anthropologists have been fairly vocal when it comes to taking stands on issues of concern, such as how health inequities have increased already disadvantaged populations’ vulnerability to COVID-19. However, a thin line separates taking a stand based on careful study, and activism masquerading as academics. Marcus’s warning about the need to “rearticulate” anthropology (2005, p. 694) may be overstated, but we must certainly avoid further disarticulation, demanding of ourselves – and rewarding – more original, pragmatically engaged, theory-generating scholarship.

We cannot deny that what Marcus calls a “strong wave of critical thought” (2005, p. 679) ran through the humanities and then into anthropology in the 1980s. We cannot ignore how so many recent developments in medical anthropology have been built upon ideas from without the anthropological field. Whether medical anthropology can claim future kudos as a key theory generator rather than a mere recipient remains to be seen. But it does seem that much of today’s theory-relevant activity in anthropology is indeed enacted by, and channeled to the parent discipline through, the medical anthropology subfield. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced this trend, and it has done so in ways that suggest medical anthropology has staying power, particularly in regard to questions of privilege and deprivation, rights and responsibilities, and governance and resistance.