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- Convenors:
-
Alison Macdonald
(University College London)
Alice Elliot (Goldsmiths, University of London)
- Formats:
- Panels
- Stream:
- Anthropology
- Location:
- Examination Schools Room 11
- Start time:
- 19 September, 2018 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
"Diversity" is one of anthropology's key concerns, yet it is strikingly scarce in the practical experience of teaching and learning the discipline. The panel opens a critical conversation about diversity in anthropology as a way to creatively reimagine what anthropology may be and could become.
Long Abstract:
"Diversity" is one of anthropology's core ethnographic concerns and key sources of conceptual excitement - but when it comes to the practical experience of teaching and learning anthropology, diversity is often strikingly absent. Students and academic staff of non-white descent and from non-selective state schools are substantially underrepresented in UK anthropology departments, and anthropology curriculums are coming under increasing scrutiny for the lack of diversity of the thinkers and texts with which students are required to engage. Bringing together anthropology teachers and students, researchers and practitioners, this panel opens a critical conversation about diversity in anthropology as a way to creatively reimagine what anthropology may be and could become. The panel addresses two interrelated themes about "diversity." First, we address practical concerns about and creative engagements with (lack of) diversity within and beyond the anthropology classroom. How might the teaching of anthropology be subject to, and potentially productive of, the intersectional entanglements that constrain diverse participation in the discipline? And how might creative practices of inclusion - from foundation courses to diversifying the curriculum to diverse academic hiring panels - engage with these constraints? Second, the panel aims to open a space where we reflect critically about diversity itself. How may we mobilise our long tradition of producing critical knowledge about diversity to interrogate institutional projects such as 'Widening Participation' and wider public discussions about diversity in the academy? What might an anthropology of the contemporary debate about diversity in academia look like - and why might we need it?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Doing fieldwork with sight loss sometimes forces researchers to ask informants for support with describing visual details and getting around. This paper considers how building this familiar rapport may add rather than detract value from any research- as both disabled and non-disabled scholars.
Paper long abstract:
The rise of an increasingly reflexive, collaborative anthropology has helped us to move away from a rigid version of the researcher-informant relationship. In fact, the notion of outsiders being informed from the inside now seems to suggest unhelpful holist conceptions of culture and the bygone archetype of a colonial era anthropologist. Yet, the rapport between researchers and those we study is still often defined by maintaining some distance and preserving the ethnographer identity, especially through adopting participant observation.
As a blind ethnographer, I found myself closing the distance, since when I could not observe and needed support to participate, I asked my informants, theatre audio describers. Despite regularly describing visual details in productions for visually-impaired theatre-goers, they were much more reluctant to discuss skin colour, body language, and attire beyond the auditorium. This, and my request to be guided in new locations by linking arms, required us to quickly build trust and familiarity. Having absorbed thinkers who praise the researcher's unobtrusive, independent presence in the field, I was anxious about letting familiarity undermine the quality of my findings, to the extent that I did not always reap the benefits of greater immersion.
This paper will first highlight some advantages I experienced after accepting proximity with informants. It will also call on anthropology teaching to explore how to best use familiarity and dependence in researcher-informant relationships, stressing the value of these considerations for disabled and non-disabled scholars.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents part of the research I have conducted for my DPhil in Anthropology at the University of Oxford, and the perspectives I have developed on how to decolonise anthropological research as an Aboriginal Australian working for and with other Indigenous peoples.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropological methodologies and methods have long been criticised by Indigenous communities. "Here come the anthros" is a phrase I have heard on a number of occasions from other Indigenous community members when reflecting on the obtrusive and sometimes exploitative experiences of their past, and that of their ancestors. It is with this understanding that I have needed to be critical and reflexive in planning my anthropological research for my DPhil at the University of Oxford. My identity as an Aboriginal Australian has had a significant influence on my thinking and approaches to this project. I have had to occupy many roles during my study and fieldwork and have had to adapt my approaches to fulfil both the goals of my research, and my socio-cultural responsibilities as an Indigenous person. Researchers contemplating their positionality and being reflexive in their practices is one of the biggest tools for conducting decolonising research. However, it is crucial that this decolonisation begins with the self, and then with the research as an anthropological endeavour. The necessity of this process is not often taught at an institutional level, reflecting (and perpetuating) the enduring power imbalances between researchers and the Indigenous communities with whom research is conducted. What this highlights is the need for research for, with and by Indigenous academics, and the need for allies in the academy who recognise the importance of decolonisation and diversity within anthropology.
Paper short abstract:
For many public institutions, 'doing diversity' exists as a policy writing act espousing egalitarian principles without wholesale implementation. Can anthropology's failure to move from theory to praxis be solved by a pedagogic rebalancing with 'native' staff employed to decolonise the 'white' gaze?
Paper long abstract:
Western anthropology has long resisted its characterisation as 'the hand maiden of colonialism'. Its beautiful calling card as 'the most humanistic of the sciences and the most scientific of the humanities' has seen its ethnographic exploration of human diversity provide a solid foundation establishing various important conceptual tropes. However, embedded within the discipline remains an unresolved paradox between what is taught as the ideal method of inquiry and those accepted as the ideal instrument to utilise it. Trainees in the use of participant-observation are typically warned about the dangers of 'going native' - lest they become so close to their subjects of study they lose critical distance.
But in truth, whilst the debate of what it means to 'go native' is typically discussed through the lens of anthropologists like Malinowski and his Papua New Guinea study, it may be more accurate to suggest that this is not merely an issue about going native, but also the perceived consequences of becoming or being native. Encoded in these often, racist anthropological teachings, is the inference that we don't go native because the category of 'native anthropologists' is traditionally reserved for those who are native. Eg. non-western(ised) and/or non-'white'.
As such, 'diverse' cohorts are assumed incapable of intellectual objectivity by gatekeeper disciples who fear change based on egalitarian principles, a fact reflected in the homogenised state of the curriculum and teaching staff in UK anthropology departments. Would increasing and embedding collaborative knowledge production with 'native' teachers and students lead to progressive change?
Paper short abstract:
This paper draws on personal experience of being a working-class anthropology student. Through a critical reflection of diversity, I argue that through the notion of intersectionality we are able to avoid the trap of tokenised diversity.
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws on personal experience of being a working-class anthropology student. Through a critical reflection of moments of unease, affects and at times direct classism experienced, I situate myself, a self-professed 'scholarship boy', within the call for diversity in anthropology. By thinking through the notion of intersectionality, and reflexive practices within the discipline, we can avoid the trap of tokenised diversity. Without such engagement, we do an injustice to both ourselves in the discipline, those students that are newly entering, and those we engage with during ethnographic research.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation explores the potential for "contextual admissions" in recruiting a more diverse community of UK anthropology undergraduates and postgraduates in the UK, and the challenge of defining "context".
Paper long abstract:
Working for a more diverse anthropology is a pedagogic and institutional challenge. Rethinking the curriculum may be the easy part. Much harder will be reforming the hardening status hierarchies within UK higher education, reinforced by current admission procedures based on A level grades and predictions. The best-resourced schools and parents ensure their students successfully navigate this system through individualised pedagogies of aspiration.
Student number growth at Russell Group universities (50% increase in anthropology students in 5 years) increases middle-class participation and makes fairer access to the discipline more of challenge. Working-class and ethnicity-minority students remain firmly disadvantaged in competing for places at 'elite' universities. These inequalities also shape access to postgraduate education. The growing policy call for 'contextual admissions' to redress these inequalities requires thought around the definition, deployment and measurement of "context".
Paper short abstract:
This presentation takes seriously Ulf Hannerz's suggestion that diversity is anthropology's business and analyses how it has come to matter in England's higher education system. Specifically, it examines how participants in a university's diversity initiatives theorise diversity.
Paper long abstract:
The Thatcher government's policies which hastened de-industrialisation, encouraged privatisation and grew the financial sector continued under the Major and New Labour governments. Much of Britain's manufacturing was eliminated and the economy became dominated by the service sector. It brought with it an increased emphasis on the university system's role in preparing the young people for the new forms of labour now required. However, the largest increase in university entrance was from those from a middle-class background. In response governments since the 1990s have pursued a widening participation (WP) agenda. They have stressed that not only have universities to increase entry from under-represented groups, they also have to change their course offerings to more adequately serve the economy and their pedagogical and pastoral practices to serve the new, diverse, attendees.
Diversity might be anthropology's business (Hannerz, 2010), but the discipline has paid relatively little attention to WP. Instead, it has been studied principally by sociologists and education scholars who have emphasised how it has failed the working class, see for example Diane Reay's 'Miseducation'. In this presentation, I draw on ongoing fieldwork conducted with current and former WP participants to address anthropology's oversight and offer a new perspective. Specifically, I focus on how WP participants come to think about diversity. Ultimately, by exploring this phenomenon, I contribute to an ongoing conversation within the anthropology of Britain on the development of English ideas of otherness.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how the current wider educational context might contribute to the debate about the lack of diversity among anthropology students at university. This paper explores some of the obstacles to selecting Anthropology along with potential solutions to facilitate change.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how the current wider educational context might contribute to the debate about the lack of diversity among anthropology students at university. With a lack of anthropology subject matter in schools, and with the final A level in anthropology being taught this year, increasing pressure is put on university Widening Participation teams to attract students to anthropology from a diverse range of backgrounds. How can we better understand the pressures and constraints experienced by young people as they decide to study anthropology, or indeed, attend university at all? Drawing on my extensive teaching experience in comparison with my Widening Participation activities and training as an MSc anthropology student, I will explore the kind of obstacles that young people face when selecting Anthropology, together with the potential solutions to facilitate change. In doing so, this paper highlights possible strategies and pedagogical approaches to provide anthropological experiences for young people, whilst also revealing the lived realities of young people themselves as they debate future aspirations.
Paper short abstract:
We argue that to study and 'do' diversity in anthropology, three theoretical perspectives that take power relations into account are crucial: unlearning, decoloniality, and intersectionality. With these as starting point, we develop a practical toolbox to enhance diversity in anthropology teaching.
Paper long abstract:
In the Netherlands, debates about diversity in and decolonising the university have intensified over the last years. At the department of Cultural Anthropology of the Utrecht University, we as teachers and PhD-candidates have started a project called Toolbox Diversity in Education. In this project, we develop a toolbox for anthropology teachers and lecturers that offers practical tools to integrate diversity in an innovative and concrete manner into our educational practices. Our goal is to create a more inclusive environment in which students with diverse (ethnic/racial, gender, class, sexuality, migration, dis/ability, etc.) backgrounds, positions, and experiences can recognize themselves. In this presentation, we will present the findings from our research on diversity in education at our department, and place this in what we call a "paradox of diversity" in anthropology. To pay critical attention to diversity, we argue that a focus on power relations in knowledge production is crucial, and therefore we approach diversity from the theoretical perspectives of unlearning, decoloniality, and intersectionality. These three perspectives form the starting point for the practical tools we are developing; and which we would like to share and discuss with you in the presentation: a literature scan; how to diversify and decolonise your readings/literature; critical author-positioning; critical self-positioning; decolonising anthropology; inclusive dialogues in the classroom; how to discuss racism, sexism, and other -isms (including privileges and lived experiences); inclusive language use; and diversifying ethnographic research: where (not) to go for fieldwork.
Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses the challenge of inclusion in current anthropological theorizing. It proposes that decolonizing its tenets and widening notions of expertise will create spaces for multiple voices and understandings currently marginal to its epistemological repertoire.
Paper long abstract:
This paper enters into critical conversation about diversity, decolonization and inclusion, to reimagine what anthropology could become. It is based on four year's teaching in a widening participation university and the recognition that inclusion means not just more diverse students, but ensuring that diversity is present in the researchers, lecturers, and theorists. Increasing access is not equal to increasing inclusion (Wilson-Strydom 2011); a deconstruction of accepted approaches is needed.
The absence of theoretical interpretation from those who are often the subjects of anthropological inquiry constitutes a form of 'epistemological violence' (Spivak 1988; Teo 2010), where, as Teo argues, researcher interpretation of evidence can be mistaken for knowledge about others. This can re/produce negative impacts, including misrepresentation and the perpetuation of pervasive power structures. Decolonizing in this context means 'a revaluation of the conventions of analytical thought' (Hesse and Hooker, 2017: 445), where analysis isn't based on pre-existing ideas (Hansen, 1997: 8), but explicitly foregrounds previously classified 'others' as theoretical experts with whom we engage. Hall (1996, citing Derrida) notes that this entails an ongoing dialectic between reversal and emergence, of working with the problem explicitly in order to formulate potential transformations. Engaging with actor-determined theoretical, literary and other texts could be one way to enhance this conversation.
This paper offers that the challenge for diversity entails widening and diversifying the practice of anthropology for its own enrichment and to become more widely meaningful through greater epistemological inclusivity.