The making and unmaking of differences. Anthropological, sociological and philosophical perspectives (original) (raw)

Anthropology at the crossroads: From the age of ethnography to the age of World systems

Social Dynamics, 1998

As we approach• the millenniumn the discipline of anthropology occupies a hiighly contested terrain, a battle-ground on which scientistic, humanistic, political-economic, anld postmodern agendas are puttinlg forth conficting claimns anid vying for hegemony (Lee 1992).,Onie readinig of anithropology is that it is a part of the discredited canon conlstructed by dead white males, architects and apologists for capitalismn and imiperialism. But despite the vogue fo'r anthropology-bashing • in some circles, I believe that quite differenlt r•eadigs are possibl: and I would like to present onie here. Anthropology's br•ief history as a discipline has beenl marked by both successes and failures. It is commiionplace to say it is a discipline in crisis; but on•e could argue thiat thiis has beenl true of its enltire history. Whiat I would like to do is give you a personal view of some of its strenigth~s and weaknesses; wher•e the disciplinie has come fromT and where it is goinlg. If I have anything to add to the usual rumninations on this subject it is thiat I feel that anthropology's politics are as muchi a part of its histo'ry and future as is its bodies of method, theory, anld knowledge. The paper will draw examples from anthropology generally but the ma7in line of marchi is to use a broad overview of th~e crisis and tranisformnation in anthropology as a point of departure to examine aspects of South• African society in the first post-Apartheid years. Regarding the disciplinie as a whole mny thesis is this: anthropology is un•dergoing a tranlsformnation that is pregniant with possibilities, but to paraphrase Gramnsci: whenever the old order is dyinlg anid the new struggling

Forum Introduction: Anthropological Boundaries at Work

This Forum sets out to contribute to the understanding of anthropolo-gists' identification with their discipline, the homogeneity of anthropologists as an academic group, and how our disciplinary boundaries are constructed and embodied. It provides different angles on the academic demarcations influencing how anthropology is practiced in Europe. Four colleagues explore different ways of questioning the boundaries of our discipline, opening up spaces for remaking anthropology (what can be said and done, and by whom). In relation to practices of authority, authorisation and disciplinary jurisdiction, boundaries are key knowledge-making devices. They have effects in bringing particular relations to the fore (Lamont and Molnár 2002). Moreover, and despite being contingent social constructs , boundaries are real in their consequences and require continuous work of maintenance. They equally require defence and policing, altering along the relationship with other disciplines and methodologies. And yet demarcations are not enough to form a discipline. We thus reflect on how definitions of what counts as anthropological knowledge are embedded in specific frames of value, enacting their own notion of significance, and therefore to be considered as contingent and per-formative (Lury and Wakeford 2012; Strathern 2000, 2006). These discussions come to update, complement and in some cases correct past calls for interdisciplinarity, seen as an institutional solution to all kinds of research problems (Barry et al. 2008; Strathern 2007). As described by Regina Bendix in this Forum section, we are asked to dedicate a lot of time to raising funding for research, to designing interdisciplinary formats, and to disciplinary quality control, often at the expense of being in the field or having a voice beyond academia. Also, the demands of the grant-writing process force anthropologists into a position of 'translating their idiom, distorting their paradigms, and misrepresenting the logic of their procedures' to align with the goals of the funding agencies, affecting along the way how qualitative outputs are measured (Bendix et al. 2017: 7).

Syllabus for History of Anthropological Theory II (spring 2015)

This course will introduce and interrogate a variety of ideas that underlie and inform the work of anthropologists in recent decades. Contemporary anthropology draws both on its own disciplinary tradition and its voracious appetite for ideas from the fields of philosophy, history, sociology, and political science, and from the reflection that takes place in movements like feminism and anticolonialism, among other sources. Far more than in early periods, the shared reading list of anthropological scholars since the mid-twentieth century is interdisciplinary. We will use some of the course to address the late 20th century “crisis” in anthropology, when a combination of ethnographic subjects writing back to those who studied them, and postmodern critiques of scientific certainty threw the discipline into a self-questioning mood. This is an era of post-’s and of “turns,” moments in which critical masses (or critically located clusters) of anthropologists proposed (and continue to propose) new approaches to the work of describing human life. We will also devote a great deal of time to theories of power that emerged in the last fifty years, including feminist approaches, work by Foucault, retheorizations of Marx, and subaltern studies. We’ll take on theoretical approaches to the colonial order, performativity, materiality, practice, and the construction of knowledge. This course is intended to supply others’ ideas and trace their influence, but also to draw you and your mind into dialogue with these theorists and their claims. It’s a place for patient encounter with the complexity of what you read, and a place for urgent critique of what you find most troubling, and a place for patience again as you gestate your own perspective and assemble your ensemble of familiar theoretical tools. Being fully and thoughtfully present, intellectually and personally, in these discussions is vital to what we will all get out of the experience.

transnational anthropology Fin-dSNT DM ed May 121 2018 docx.doc

To forge an anthropology that speaks to the full range of human experiences, especially our domains of commonality, we need to critically examine the historical and locational positioning of the anthropological project. In this essay, I argue that is best to understand anthropology in terms of a history of transnational schools of anthropology, rather than in terms