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- Convenors:
-
Tom Neumark
(University of Oslo)
James Wintrup (Chr. Michelsen Institute)
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- Stream:
- Evidence
- Sessions:
- Friday 2 April, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In recent years, academic critique recently has been put under scrutiny. Our panel joins this on-going debate by asking, what are our responsibilities, as anthropologists, to provide critical evidence on objects that we support, find desirable, and wish to see existing in the world?
Long Abstract:
How should we engage in critique when we are studying objects that we support and wish to see existing in the world? What responsibilities do we have when we engage in this kind of supportive or sympathetic critique? What new responsibilities emerge when we critique things that we support and even "love"? (de Laet and Moll 2000). As anthropologists working on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) - the ambitious proposal to ensure that all citizens on the globe have access to quality healthcare - we are concerned with what critical evidence might look like in relation to such desirable ambitions. Scholars have argued that, in the current climate, academic critique can run the risk of being irresponsible. Critique can end up undermining the authority of scientific knowledge (Latour 2004) or reinforcing a "politics of the anti" (Ferguson 2010) in which scholars spend time opposing what they dislike, without offering any viable political solutions. For some scholars, the irresponsibility of providing this sort of evidence provokes them to move beyond critique altogether. But if critique can be irresponsible, then how might we instead engage in a more responsible form of critique? In this panel, we consider what this kind of critique might look like when we are studying things that we approve of and wish to see in the world. These objects could be moral values, political proposals, technologies or something else. We welcome contributions from those wishing to reflect on their experience of studying things that they similarly have a positive attitude towards.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 2 April, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Boxers’ attitudes towards violence and racism in their sport challenge anthropologists’ anti-violent disciplinary (and personal) ethics. In this context, I ask whose ethical orientations should inform a ‘productive critique’ of the sport and for whom critique should be productive.
Paper long abstract:
One response to a ‘politics of the anti’ is to suggest progressive changes to practices we like, which build on our interlocutors’ experiences. However, this process assumes a shared political and ethical orientation between researchers and their interlocutors – that the ‘good’ changes we suggest align with our interlocutors’ desires and strategies for navigating the world. This paper explores what form ‘productive critique’ takes when they do not align.Building on research with Ghanaian boxers, I explore the problems of ‘productively critiquing’ boxing; a sport I like and want to exist, but which is at odds with anthropology’s anti-violent ethics. My research has led me to critique boxing’s violence (some of which I participate in) in ways that reflect anthropology’s disciplinary ethics. Yet, at times my critique contradicts the aspirations and life strategies of the athletes I work with. Boxers’ attitudes towards physical violence, their strategies for navigating the boxing industry’s structural violence and their co-opting of racial stereotypes all jar against anthropological critiques of these phenomenon.These tensions highlight questions of responsibility when ‘productively critiquing’ practices we like or support. Should we represent the ideals of those we work with (as collaborative methodologies suggest) when their life strategies do not reflect our personal or disciplinary ethics? Or should we articulate critiques we consider morally ‘right’, but which might adversely affect our interlocutors? Where boxers’ attitudes towards violence and racialisation challenge anthropologists’ disciplinary and personal ethics, can ‘productive critique’ avoid paternalism and for whom should it be productive?
Paper short abstract:
Based on 18 months doctoral fieldwork studying libraries, literacy and children’s book in rural Malawi, this paper asks how one can go about critiquing these concepts that seem to hold an unequivocal good. It suggests that a concrete focus on relations of power can help navigate this terrain.
Paper long abstract:
Surely, everyone thinks libraries, children books and literacy are unequivocally good things? So how does one go about critically studying them? This paper reflects on 18 months doctoral research in a village in northern rural Malawi studying libraries, literacy, and children’s books. It reflects on the difficulties of taking a critical stance on practices and objects - libraries, literacy and books - that are so deeply tied into conceptions of positive good(s) that many find it incredulous that one would want to critique them. In the paper I explore how I tried to navigate the tension of seeing potentially destructive and oppressive relations of power at play in the production of literacy practices, building of libraries and the distribution of children’s books, with the feeling, held by myself as well as others, that these things are in some way inherently good and that all children should have access to them. By unpacking the ways in which libraries and imported and donated Anglophone children’s books circulate into the villages on lines of colonial entanglement, I explore how this can lead to a reproduction of colonial hierarchies and exclusions. I suggest that paying close attention specifically to the relations of power that these are entangled in, and the marginalisations and inequalities that these relations produce can help us navigate the difficult tensions of critiquing what we like.