Paper short abstract:

This paper takes inspiration from Trouillot’s insight that, ‘Only in that present can we be true or false to the past we chose to acknowledge.’ (1995: 151), to explore British anthropology’s lack of presence in racial justice struggles of the present.

Paper long abstract:

This paper locates British anthropology’s struggle to engage with the present and presence in its prevailing inadequacy at addressing and actively engaging with issues around racism and racial justice.

With issues of representation and anthropology’s literary and symbolic turn there came abstraction and distraction. Yet as Fabian (1990) so fervently put it, before representation there is presence. But, where were was British anthropology in the most recent calls for racial justice? Where were the urgently needed analyses, voices, commentaries on the current state of racial inequality, imperial debris and continuing colonial violence? This paper takes British anthropology’s lack of presence in racial justice movements as being emblematic of the disciplines inadequacy to tackle the struggles of our present, specifically those surrounding racial inequality.

Acknowledging the past in the present, this paper takes inspiration from Trouillot’s insight that, ‘…even in relation to The Past our authenticity resides in the struggles of our present. Only in that present can we be true or false to the past we chose to acknowledge.’ (1995: 151) Exploring the need for urgency and presence in engagement with struggles of racial justice, I aim to show that anthropology’s past is at the root of its misplacement of the present and by extension, that of a liberatory future.