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- Convenors:
-
Shalini Grover
(International Inequalities Institute (III), London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))
Sara Camacho Felix (King's College London)
Poornima Paidipaty (Kings College London)
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- Format:
- Roundtable
Short Abstract:
For the longest time, anthropology and history have been in conversation (Cohn 1980) yet remaining self-contained disciplines. For strengthening the meeting points for decolonizing knowledge, teaching and practice, we push for convergences between archives and ethnography.
Long Abstract:
Ethnographic research equated with the discipline of anthropology and archival research aligned with the discipline of history, are often seen in opposition, rather than a lens of ‘productive tensions.’ Archives are being more and more equated with official perspectives, while ethnography invites voices, subjectivities, lived experience and the emotional landscape of people’s lives. This roundtable calls for a closer and nuanced examination of the tensions between archives (private and public) and ethnography, for demarcating decoloniality, power dynamics and other dissonances. This examination is especially important as decoloniality critiques the assumed boundaries of the disciplines (as part of a wider epistemological project to undo modernity/coloniality), and dissolve barriers between categories (Quijano 1999; Dube 2016). This includes the categories of ‘anthropology’ and ‘history’ and the methods belonging to those disciplines. We invite participants to share the conundrums they face with journeys involving archival research and ethnography, whether in the fieldwork, classroom or other practice driven environs. Against the backdrop of theoretical conflicts and disciplinary boundaries (e.g. Appadurai 2020), the roundtable will energize new debates and directions between the two disciplines.
Accepted papers:
Paper short abstract:
Based on a project combining archival and ethnographic fieldwork this contribution argues that we need to look towards history to be able to uncover the colonial entanglements that shape African realities today.
Paper long abstract:
This contribution draws on the experience of over three years work on a mixed methods project at the intersection of history, anthropology and sociology. The project, ‘Cartographies of Cancer: epidemiologists and malignancy in sub-Saharan Africa’, offers a long durée analysis of the creation and production of cancer research and cancer data in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on archival work in over 12 archives in the UK, US, France, Kenya, South Africa, Ivory Coast and Uganda, the project shows the historical and colonial roots of the emergence of cancer research on the continent. This is coupled with ethnographic fieldwork at cancer registries in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ivory Coast and Zimbabwe which unpack the current practice of cancer data production. This mixed methods approach shows the importance of combining history and anthropology in order to show the recursive histories (Ann Stoler) that shape and form contemporary African realities. With this contribution I would discuss both the difficulties of undertaking such a mixed methods approach, as well as the importance of doing anthropology with history in order to engage in decolonial practices.
Paper short abstract:
Armenian dealers are of interest to museums in establishing provenance of contested objects. Ottoman archives have conflicting materials on legality and illegality. Family papers show few traces of businesses. How can historians navigate responsibilities/legacies and obtain accurate histories?
Paper long abstract:
Many of the most influential art and antiquities dealers of the first half of the 20th century were Armenians originating from the Ottoman Empire. Use of the Ottoman archives for the purpose of ‘provenance studies’ is only just beginning. Museums, under pressure to unpick the entanglements of their objects, see the Armenian dealers as key to resolving provenance blackspots. Museums work to establish legality or illegality with little regard for the twists and turns of the life stories, - and certainly not the intentions, - of those who left these traces – and who, in several cases, went to the step of destroying any remnants of business correspondence or notetaking in their own archives. Most of these Armenians left the empire after the Hamidian Massacres of 1894-6, which killed over 200,000 Armenians. Other dealers or relatives that remained became embroiled in political murders. Family members, and supply networks, were eradicated in the Genocide of 1915, if they had survived the 1890s. This contribution begins to discuss the tensions inherent in the vast archival material that can be consulted when researching these individuals: from ‘Family Papers’, to correspondence in museum archives (and comments behind the scenes), to the Ottoman archival surveillance, to controversial goings-on in war time. It asks: how can we understand these life stories on their own terms, and show responsibility towards legacy (of people, and of museum objects), whilst also piecing together an accurate history?
Paper short abstract:
What do anthropologists and historians do to connect the dots between fragmented sources of information? I argue for speculation as a critical approach in both disciplines, used to fill in the gaps left by elusive documents as much as to engage with our interlocutors’ future-oriented anxieties.
Paper long abstract:
Global history has drawn compelling models for understanding British imperialism and the international sugar trade. However, when analysing ‘the human dramas that make history come alive’ (Andrade 2010: 574), historians frequently lose track of their actors: the paper trails left by an Italian language teacher in 1578 London (Gallagher 2019), a Chinese farmer in 1661 Taiwan (Andrade 2010) or an Esperanto-speaking globetrotter in 1959 Warsaw (Fians 2024) are not as comprehensive as historical records on Adolf Hitler or Abraham Lincoln. How can we address the gaps created by archives that may no longer exist?
In many ways, this challenge is equally pertinent to anthropologists. After all, oftentimes our interlocutors show concern about what will be left of their traditions once their language dies (Kulick 2019), or about what to do regarding their uncertainties in the face of the economic shrinking of their hometown (Ringel 2012). How might we engage with the ways our interlocutors envisage their futures?
Drawing on my own experiences conducting archival research and ethnography, I argue for embracing speculation as a methodological approach that bridges anthropology and history. Through speculating about what is not there anymore/yet, researchers in both fields deal with what is missing. Just as those studying the past speculate to navigate the absences in archival records and paper trails, those studying the present may also speculate to partake of their interlocutors’ anxieties and aspirations.
Paper short abstract:
Following the returning of British anthropologist, Gregory Bateson's archives to the Iatmul communities where he worked, I will explore how putting in discussion the “archive” and the “field” provoke frictions with the status of the archives are interrogate what can be done with them.
Paper long abstract:
Working both with the “archives” (Library of Congress, Washington D.C., US and University of Cambridge, UK) and in the “field” (Iatmul region, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea), my project forces me to rethink the boundaries between historical and ethnographic methods. Driven by the desire to highlight past and present marginalised voices and epistemologies, I investigate how bringing an ethnographic sensitivity to the archive cracks open its apparent dryness and intends to listen to the humans behind the documents. Against the vision of archival interpretation as a solitary practice, the return of archives to the related communities showcases overlaps, tensions and frictions between my own understandings of the “Archive” as defined and discussed in academia and the local definition of the Archive and its relevance for the present and future community. This project highlights “informants” as co-creators and critical thinkers, rather than passive providers of knowledge. Taking them and their (hi)stories seriously brings to the forefront new epistemologies that have the potential to redress colonial and racial narratives and erasures. Research therefore not only illuminates the complexity of interrelationships across time and place but also helps us to critically reflect on Western extractivist epistemologies and methods. These frictions have helped me to critically rethink knowledge dynamics of power. In this way, I will argue that historical and ethnographic methods should be used with respect and consideration of Indigenous protocols around sensitive material and knowledge in order to protect their right to remain ‘opaque’ following Edouard Glissant’s concept.