Introduction: An Otherwise Anthropology (original) (raw)

2019, Cultural Anthropology

In recent years, the concept of the otherwise has been tracking across anthropology to frame political potentialities that are emerging, often drawing on phenomenological and continental theoretical lineages. However, in other fields, especially those founded in social movements, such as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, postcolonial, queer, and gender studies, the otherwise has been understood to enjoin scholars to an enduring struggle for liberation. Within these fields, the otherwise summons the forms of life that have persisted despite constant and lethal surveillance; it brings forth the possibility for, even the necessity of, abolishing the current order and radically transforming our worlds. These liberatory commitments can (and already do) have palpable and challenging effects when smuggled into the space of ethnographic inquiry. Indeed, that is the point. The contributors to this collection are women, femmes, and nonbinary people; Black, Indigenous, people of color, and white accomplices. As junior scholars, we have aligned ourselves with emancipatory, decriminalizing, life-affirming social projects that have unapologetically transformative demands. For the last four years, we have been asking one another and our co-thinkers on the ground: What kind of anthropology can contribute to this deep and enduring practice of otherwise world building? Together, we call for a move from the anthropological study of the otherwise to an Otherwise Anthropology.