As I neared the end of my doctoral degree in early 2025, celebration felt inappropriate. News of federal attacks on research programs and withdrawn funding streams occupied conversation at the center for humanities where my graduate fellowship would soon expire. That year, my doctoral program went into indefinite abeyance. Of the fourteen full-time faculty employed by the anthropology department when I started my degree six years prior, only seven remained. Absent justifiable proof of marketability that determines university budget allocations, the department did not receive new hiring lines to fill these vacancies. Instead, non-tenure-track faculty had their contracts terminated after decades of service. I graduated with a limited network of support, into a desiccated job market. The myth of academic meritocracy has long been critiqued for obscuring realities of precarity and un(der)employment that more accurately reflect the career futures experienced by the majority of anthropology PhDs.…