Critique of Anthropology recent issues

'Masculine Domination': Desire and Chinese Patriliny

Sangren, P. S. — 2009-09-08

This article reprises 1970s discussions of gender inequality in feminist anthropology to critique contemporary assumptions regarding gender construction, advocating a psycho-cultural explanation for the ubiquity of masculine domination. The currency of what I term ‘culturalist empiricism’, in its emphasis on cultural difference, downplays inquiry into human commonalities with respect to gender and entails questionable assumptions regarding how culture operates to construct. Analysis of Chinese patriliny understood as a ‘mode of production of desire’ provides a case in point toward rethinking how cultures can differ with respect to gender construction without abandoning anthropology’s commitment to comprehending human commonalities. The approach is relevant beyond China’s culturally particular context, and it suggests substantial revision of idealist assumptions regarding anthropology’s object — culture.

In the Shadow of the Gun: 'Not-War-Not-Peace' and the Future of Conflict in Northern Ireland

Sluka, J. A. — 2009-09-08

Despite over fifteen years of ‘peace process,’ political violence in Northern Ireland has continued and a situation characterised as ‘not-war-not peace’ has prevailed. In the euphoria surrounding the establishment of the ‘power-sharing government’ in 2007, the media reported this event as representing the end of the ‘troubles’ or conflict. However, significant political violence has continued throughout the peace process and the heavily armed Loyalist paramilitaries, unlike the IRA, have not begun to disarm and have no intention to do so, despite this being a fundamental requirement of the peace process. They are reserving the option and are fully prepared to return to violence in response to any movement towards a united Ireland, and this ‘threat’ is growing because Catholic-nationalists will become a voting majority in the province over the next decade or so. This paper argues that there is no peace in Northern Ireland now, that the peace process has not been successfully completed, and that the prognosis for the future of the gun and political violence in Northern Ireland is not good. History and Protestant political culture strongly suggest that the most likely future scenario is a resurgence of Loyalist violence and a renewed paramilitary campaign, rather than a real and lasting peace.

Monks, Monarchs and Mountain Folks: Domestic Tourism and Internal Colonialism in Northern Thailand

Evrard, O., Leepreecha, P. — 2009-09-08

The development of domestic (or national) tourism in Thailand in the second half of the 20th century relied on a new kind of relationship between the state and local cultures. Rural spaces have been reinvented and transformed into appealing visual and conceptual archetypes which sustain discourses on both local and national identity and history. Thai tourism allows a kind of pacification of the relations between the centre and the periphery, but it also perpetuates an internal colonialism, both towards Tai and non-Tai populations. This article investigates the social significance of domestic tourism in Chiang Mai and the links between non-Western representation of travel, nationalism and localized identity. It focuses on three attractions scattered along the road going up to the mountain of Suthep (Doi Suthep), one of the most famous tourist destinations in northern Thailand: a Buddhist temple, a royal palace and an ethnic village. These three attractions provide crucial insights into the history of domestic tourism in Thailand: its similarities to and differences from previous forms of travel, its relations to the idealization of the rural and its role in the pacification of the relations between the Thai state and its geographic and social margins.

Notes on the (post)colonial in the Maghreb

Hannoum, A. — 2009-09-08

This article examines the formation of French colonial culture in the Maghreb and the power relations it has generated. Through an analysis of colonial knowledge, the author shows the different and changing discursive strategies put in place to comprehend and control the local population. He also argues that the effects of this colonial knowledge continue in the present and, far from debunking it, national reactions by historians helped make colonial categories and understanding part of the present.

The Ethics of Apology: A Set of Commentaries

2009-09-08

On 13 February 2008, the Australian government apologized to the ‘stolen generations’: those children of Aboriginal descent who were removed from their parents (usually their Aboriginal mothers) to be raised in white foster-homes and institutions administered by government and Christian churches — a practice that lasted from before the First World War to the early 1970s. This apology was significant, in the words of Rudd, for the ‘healing’ of the Australian nation. Apologizing for past injustices has become a significant speech act in current times. Why does saying sorry seem to be ubiquitous at the moment? What are the instances of not saying sorry? What are the ethical implications of this era of remembrance and apology? This set of commentaries seeks to explore some of the ethical, philosophical, social and political dimensions of this Age of Apology. The authors discuss whether apology is a responsibility which cannot — and should not — be avoided; the ethical pitfalls of seeking an apology, or not uttering it; the global and local understandings of apology and forgiveness; and the processes of ownership and appropriation in saying sorry.

Between Flexible Life and Flexible Labor: The Inadvertent Convergence of Socialism and Neoliberalism in South Korea

Song, J. — 2009-05-27

This article contextualizes the historical emergence of liberal socialism (socialism with a strong stance against the state and social power over individual) in South Korea and its inadvertent convergence with neoliberalism. By observing experiences of three leftist single independent women who embodied liberal socialism through the democratization movement towards neoliberalization (1987—2007), this article situates ways in which South Korean leftist intellectuals enjoy a flexible lifestyle and at the same time criticize flexible labor. On the one hand, the article elucidates that liberal individualism was both means and product of socialist struggles against the late-developing authoritarian capitalist state in South Korea. However, it argues that socialist adaptation of liberal values is no longer effective in countering a neoliberal capitalism that requires flexible labor and autonomous individuals.

Doing Things with Wood: Builders, Managers and Wittgenstein in an Idaho Sawmill

Richardson, P. — 2009-05-27

Centered upon fieldwork as union labor in an Idaho sawmill, this article investigates the relation between labor, language and rules on the one hand, manager and managed on the other. Wittgenstein's `builders' — a form of life he created to show the relation between language and action — help us understand the sawmill's labor process and demonstrate how language, when used to rule practical action, `bewitches'. Wittgenstein, though often thought of as a theorist of language, will be invoked alongside Manchester school social anthropology's insights on conflict to frame what I will term rule fetishism. Rule fetishism occurs when persons (here managers) disavow their agency in relation to rules, ascribing instead agency to the rules themselves. Those managed in such social situations show they share Wittgenstein's understanding of rules when they regularly undercut authority, and demonstrate the impotence of rules (for example, by following rules exactly).

Of Words and Things: Reply to Williams

Fletcher, R. — 2009-05-27

This article responds to Williams' recent critique within this journal of a Foucault-inspired perspective on resistance, espoused by myself and others, that seeks to collapse the distinction between power and resistance. Drawing on ethnographic research with alternative globalization activists in France, Williams observes that his informants tend to describe their activities as a self-conscious attempt to gain `autonomy' from something they explicitly label `power' and thus contests my view of resistance as itself a function of power. I suggest, however, that Williams' critique argues past my analysis, for it fails to recognize the conceptual and epistemological differences involved in competing definitions of the term `power' and ignores the fact that my position was primarily intended to draw attention to the important issue of the origin of resistance, efforts largely neglected by research to date, Williams' included.

Patenting Hominins: Taxonomies, Fossils and Egos

Derricourt, R. — 2009-05-27

Palaeoanthropology — the study of hominin evolution — has features which differentiate it from most other sciences. It has long been characterized by the announcement of a dramatic discovery of fossil hominin remains — often following a long and arduous process of field exploration. Commonly this has been accompanied by naming a new species, or even a new genus, to mark the importance and uniqueness of the find. In time, the discipline of palaeoanthropology erodes these claims to uniqueness and merges the claimed individual species with other finds, while in turn new claims to uniqueness accompany new discoveries and announcements. The potential ways in which any set of materials can be classified is vast, and subjective elements determine classificatory schemes. In the study of fossil hominins such schemes do not just reflect preferences between `lumpers' and `splitters' but nationalisms, egos and the maintenance of the image of the scientist-hero.

Spinning the Market: The Moral Alchemy of Everyday Talk in Postsocialist Russia

Patico, J. — 2009-05-27

Ethnographies of postsocialist Europe and Eurasia have observed the moral resistance of post-communist communities in the face of an impinging capitalism, highlighting the continuity of such sentiment with both pre-communist and 20th-century ideologies of social justice. This article suggests that, valuable as these accounts have been, together they can leave the false impression that post-Soviet change is a confrontation between two separate, antagonistic forces: a local world of social embeddedness and moral obligation versus an exterior, supercultural, individualistic market logic. To challenge that notion, this article draws upon ethnographic observations in St Petersburg (1998—9, 2003) to treat the so-called `transition to capitalism' as a set of questions and moments of interpretation: junctures when people consider the multiple implications and valences of the practices in which they might engage. Such morally charged performance can have important and cumulative social effects, but cannot be adequately understood in terms of set moral `codes' that work in opposition to the marketplace.

Whither Anthropology without Nation-state?: Interdisciplinarity, World Anthropologies and Commoditization of Knowledge

Poblocki, K. — 2009-05-27

Debates on `native anthropology', `anthropologies of the South', `peripheral anthropologies' and so forth have usually focused on colonialism as the main culprit of asymmetric relations between anthropological knowledges. By bringing the recent dispute between Western and `native' anthropologists of post-socialism into the `world anthropologies' debate, I seek to highlight those aspects of current epistemic inequalities that are not postcolonial in nature, but result from global commoditization of knowledge. I ponder why Western anthropologists who started visiting Eastern Europe from the 1970s, concluded that `native' academic knowledge is inferior to their own output. This was not due to a prejudice brought from afar, I argue, but rather was a result of their field experiences. I discuss how three types of native `captive minds' (communist, nationalist and neoliberal) emerged, and how encountering (or learning about) them made Western anthropologists uninterested in (and distrustful of) local epistemic production. I focus on the putative nationalist `captive mind', and argue that the straw man of East European `positivist' science (as opposed to the superior `theory-oriented' Western anthropology) emerged due to recent changes in the political economy of the academia. I show how the `theoretical turn' was experienced differently in Western and Polish academia, and how these changes, explained by the different regimes of value, show that there has been an increase only in `ritual' exchange between parochial and metropolitan anthropology rather than meaningful communication.

Introduction -- Urban Charisma: On Everyday Mythologies in the City

Blom Hansen, T., Verkaaik, O. — 2009-03-18

Cities are charismatic entities. Both in and of themselves by virtue of their history and their mythologies, but also as sites where charismatic figures emerge on the basis of their capacity to interpret, manage and master the opacity of the city. The specificity of the urban can neither be understood through the city's functions nor the dynamics of its social networks. The urban is also a way of being in the world and must be understood as a dense and complex cultural repertoire of imagination, fear and desire. We propose to understand the urban and its charismatic potential through three registers: the sensory regimes of the city; the specific forms of urban knowledge and intelligibility; and the specific forms of power, connectivity and possibility which we call urban infra-power.

The Horror of the Mob: The Violence of Imagination in South Africa

Buur, L. — 2009-03-18

Images of uncontrolled mob violence continue to influence political concerns and float media reportage in South Africa. The images resemble those of angry and destructive black `struggle' youth toyi-toying in front of burning tyres, cleansing the township of its enemies and attacking state officials during the apartheid era. Today, such actions are portrayed as the manoeuvres of a lost generation destroying the fruits of democracy and undermining their own black government. Nevertheless, the image of the angry, uncontrolled mob has its roots in resistance to both colonialism and apartheid, where large crowds and mobs descended on cities or operated in the city's Other (its adjacent black townships). This article explores the ways in which the images and horrors of uncontrolled mob violence continue to haunt the imagination of the new democracy. Further, it links collective fantasies about mobs to the constitution of sovereignty.

Gendered Connections: Politics, Brokers and Urban Transformation in Cape Town

Jensen, S. — 2009-03-18

This article explores the gendered nature of urban politics in Cape Town by focusing on a group of female, township politicians. Employing the Deleuzian concept of `wild connectivity', it argues that these politically entrepreneurial women were able to negotiate a highly volatile urban landscape by drawing on and operationalizing violent, male networks — from struggle activists' networks, to vigilante groups and gangs, to the police. The fact that they were women helped them to tap into and exploit these networks. At the same time, they were restricted by their sex, as their ability to navigate space also drew on quite traditional notions of female respectability. Furthermore, the article argues, the form of wild connectivity to an extent was a function of the political transition, which destabilized formal structures of gendered authority. It remains a question whether this form of connectivity might endure, as Capetonian politics assumes a post-apartheid structure.

At Home in Karachi: Quasi-domesticity as a Way to Know the City

Verkaaik, O. — 2009-03-18

Cities are difficult to control. The moral panic that is part of much social scientific and military research on cities for more than a century is still manifest today. In Pentagon sources Karachi is mentioned as one of those `feral, failed cities' that are expected to become the sites of future conflicts that will take the form of asymmetric combat within non-nodal, non-hierarchical urban terrains. But the strategies proposed by the US army have already been put into practice by the Pakistani military for several decades. This article looks at what these military measures do to people living in the city. It does so by focusing on the concept of `home' or `quasi-domesticity', and distinguishes three phases in patterns of how Karachiites felt at home in their city: the postcolonial period, when it was still possible to feel `at home' in the city as a whole; the time of mass migration, when `home' retreated into bastis and neighbourhoods; and the more recent times of ethnic and religious conflict, when `home' became a deterrorialized, mobile and ethnicized form of local cosmopolitanism.

Sonic Supremacy: Sound, Space and Charisma in a Favela in Rio de Janeiro

Oosterbaan, M. — 2009-03-18

This article discusses the soundscape of a favela in Rio de Janeiro. It argues that sounds, and music in particular, play an important part in the creation and maintenance of boundaries between groups in the dense urban space of the favela. The politics of presence excercised by different groups constitutes the sonic charisma of the favela. Especially in relation to Pentecostal faith, it becomes obvious how the charisma of the city and in the city are related. A focus on the soundscape of the favela highlights the fact that electronic media are woven into the fabric of its social life and are part and parcel of the production of locality. Yet the mass-mediated sounds, employed to mark space and identity also demonstrate that identity is not produced either locally or supra-locally, but rather trans-locally and that electro-acoustic technology is essential to the deterritorialization and reterritorialization of religion.

The Play of Race in a Field of Urban Desire: Soccer and Spontaneity in Post-apartheid Johannesburg

Worby, E. — 2009-03-18

The brutal history of racially based segregation in Johannesburg, as in other post-apartheid cities, would appear to condemn its inhabitants to live in perpetual fear of violence based on perceptions of racial and national difference. Yet urban pick-up soccer recreates spaces in which that history can be suspended, if not forgotten. In creating evanescent form out of spontaneous play, such games may be understood as artful conversations among bodies-in-motion. Players have the freedom to engage in charismatic self-fashioning, inventing a fantasy persona on the field that is larger than the life they live at other times and places in the city. In this way, participants project themselves into a social future beyond race that they might not otherwise be able to imagine.

Book Review: Alberto Corsin Jimenez (ed.), Culture and Well-being: Anthropological Approaches to Freedom and Political Ethics. London: Pluto Press, 2008

Calestani, M. — 2009-03-18

Book Review: Gwyn Williams, Struggles for an Alternative Globalization: An Ethnography of Counterpower in Southern France. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. Jeffrey S. Juris, Networking Futures: The Movements Against Corporate Globalization. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008

Mathers, A. — 2009-03-18

Book Review: Sophie Day, On the Game: Women and Sex Work. London: Pluto Press, 2006

Sariola, S. — 2009-03-18

Recently Published

2009-03-18

The Wisdom of Way Kot: Art, Rhetoric and Political Economy

Loewe, R. — 2008-11-13

In this article I examine how commerce and the global economy are represented locally through the analysis of a popular Yucatecan tale. Way Kot depicts a veritable fantasy world in which human beings become winged beasts and animals betray their natural instincts; however, unlike the authors of many studies that explore the intersection of different modes of exchange, I do not view these images as projections of a mystified mind. On the contrary, building on Marx's discussion of money, and the aesthetic theory of the Frankfurt School, particularly Adorno's notion of `exact fantasy', I demonstrate the myth's rigorous logic by showing how it unravels the mysteries of the commodity form. In addition, I highlight the critical function of the tale (c. 1935), as rhetorical counterpoint to the commodity aesthetics of the era. While agents of a rapidly modernizing state were eager to make commodities enchant, Way Kot presents commerce as a form of witchcraft, and consumption as a form of cannibalism, in which unsuspecting Maya consume their relatives.

You Pig!: A Regional Approach to Environmental Ethics in the Sertao of Northeast Brazil

Hoefle, S. W. — 2008-11-13

A political ecology approach is used to revisit the 1970s debate between Douglas and Leach on one side, and Harris on the other, in order to highlight methodological issues concerning spatial differentiation expressing cultural complexity as well as to demonstrate how opposing phenomenological and rationalist epistemologies can be mediated. The two sides of the debate concerning pigs as ambiguous and taboo creatures are shown to be related to two different sets of human—animal relationships and to vary spatially in different parts of the Sertão of Northeast Brazil. Consequently, the combination of the two contrasting approaches in one unified theoretical perspective results in a better overview than that produced by each one taken by itself.

Mercenaries, Missionaries and Misfits: Representations of Development Personnel

Stirrat, R.L. — 2008-11-13

The argument of the article centres around three stereotypes of the development worker: mercenary, missionary and misfit. The origins of this tripartite characterization of the aid community are unclear but certainly it has a currency, or at least a resonance, within the industry. The argument is not so much concerned with the truth or otherwise of this characterization. Rather it seeks to use these stereotypes as an entry point for exploring the tensions and contradictions in ways in which people working in the industry view themselves and others. While there are individuals who can be recognized as approximating to each of the three stereotypes, in general people veer between them, at different points in their careers and even at different points on the same day. Finally, although these three characterizations — missionary, mercenary and misfit — appear to be contrasting, this article will argue that they are in fact variations on a common theme and a modern version of what people in the industry tend to see as the new `white man's burden'.

Paired Opposites: Dualism in Development and Anthropology

Yarrow, T. — 2008-11-13

Over the past two decades, anthropological studies have highlighted the ways in which overtly progressive ideas of `development' have been used, paradoxically, to consolidate inequality and perpetuate poverty on a global scale. Such critiques have fed into a wider `postmodern challenge' which has importantly questioned previously held assumptions about development. However, this prevailing critical approach has led to a number of problems. In particular the deconstruction of development discourse has unwittingly re-inscribed many of the binary oppositions it seeks to overcome, without appreciating the complex ways in which development workers employ these. Moreover, a critical impulse to uncover what development practice `hides' focuses attention away from the ideas and practices that development practitioners actively privilege. In this article I argue that it is necessary to go beyond a critical, deconstructive approach in order to appreciate the socially and discursively complex ways in which development workers employ such oppositions. Through an ethnographic account focusing on how oppositions between `local' and `global' and `policy' and `practice' are used to frame a variety of development interventions in Ghana, I outline the mobile ways in which such oppositions are deployed and highlight the diverse ideas and agendas that they are used to articulate.

A Life In and Out of Anthropology: An Interview with Jack Sargent Harris

Yelvington, K. A. — 2008-11-13

This article presents an interview with Jack Sargent Harris (1912—2008), an anthropologist who earned his PhD at Columbia University in 1940 and was one of the first US anthropologists to do fieldwork in Africa, showing an interest in materialistic theoretical approaches. As a merchant seaman before becoming an anthropologist he traveled the globe, including trips to the Soviet Union, Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America. During the Second World War, Harris became a clandestine operative engaged in counter-espionage for the United States' Office of Strategic Services in West Africa and in South Africa. Returning to the United States, he was hired by the fledgling United Nations as part of its decolonization efforts. However, Harris fell victim to the McCarthy-era witch hunt and was purged from the United Nations. He moved to Costa Rica in 1954 where he became a successful entrepreneur.

Book Review: Henrika Kuklick (ed.), A New History of Anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008

Laister, J. — 2008-11-13

Book Review: Xiang Biao, Global `Body Shopping': An Indian Labor System in the Information Technology Industry. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007

Pal, N. — 2008-11-13