Paper short abstract:

This paper takes a critical look at the creation of an 'object' of research in situations of decolonization, the creation of an ''other'' as an object of study and the contribution of hierarchy in the field to the building of anthropological knowledge..

Paper long abstract:

Colonization had provided anthropologists from the dominant regions of the world with ready made and captive objects of study. The power hierarchy between such objects and the academician was a great facilitator that enabled the scholar to collect data from a platform that was politically and economically superior. In the period following decolonization, scholars from the erstwhile colonies made the transition from being 'objects of study' to active agents doing research. This paper takes a critical look at the reconstruction of the "object"'of study and attempts to reestablish the earlier hierarchy between the anthropologist and the 'field''. Most scholars from a country like India, attempt to move from the center to the periphery by moving from the city to the village, from an upper caste ( scholar) to a lower caste ( field); or from an urban sophisticated level to the marginalized 'tribal' area.Even when a scholar attempts to study their own 'community' ; it is from a vantage position of higher knowledgeability. This paper makes an appraisal of the innate tendency to have a power hierarchy in the 'field'' situation and its contribution to the building of anthropological knowledge and raises the issue of the necessity of such a hierarchy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores marginalized positions of scholars from peripheral “First World” nations conducting anthropological research in the U.S. to explore new possibilities in the field.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropologists are traditionally expected to conduct research outside of their "home" society, and the direction of the movement is rarely from the Third world to the First world. This holds true even within the "industrialized," "developed," countries categorized into the "First World." For example, students of anthropology from peripheral "First World" nations attending American universities planning to do fieldwork in the United States, frequently face strong pressure to do fieldwork in their home countries. Even when these researchers succeed in remaining in the U.S. to conduct fieldwork, they are often pressed to use their native language skills to conduct archival studies or interviews with immigrant generation subjects. Although some important research requires language fluency, this reflects the existence of attitudes that students from the outside are only able to contribute to U.S. anthropological fields of study by exploiting their linguistic abilities. This is further complicated when research subjects are ethnic/ racial (or other social) minorities, as another power relationship comes into place between scholars from within, or local to, the community, as opposed to those from the "outside," including white scholars and those from abroad. "Outsiders" are often characterized by "insider" scholars as not having enough credentials for "empathetic" understanding of the subjects. In this paper, I would like to raise questions regarding how those anthropologists—marginalized by the American/ Western European academic hegemony as well as from the academic communities of ethnic/ racial studies could be posed to contribute new findings and direction to the field of anthropology.

Paper short abstract:

In the paper an attempt is made to explain anthropological correlates of ethnography. By using empirical methods, the paper suggests that holistic understanding of the deprivation of marginal communities is necessary in order to draw the conclusions.

Paper long abstract:

The concepts of Deprivation, Poverty and Development have many meanings in contemporary globalised societies. Deprivation is seen in terms of low levels of living standards, livelihoods and lack of resources, assets, and liabilities. Poverty is seen in also seen in terms of total lacking of resources and assets. Development by definition implies desired changes in means of livelihood, improved quality of life and better access to assets and services, etc. However in reality development programmes sometimes have negative consequences, perhaps unintended, multiplying the acute scarcity of resources and opportunities, or reproducing poverty or deprivation. Also, the consequences of developmental programmes often appear to be out of focus, and seen at the ground level, there seems to be a gap between what is intended and what is actualized.

In this framework, the present paper presents a case study of the social, cultural and economic correlates of the development processes in Adadakulapalle, a settlement of Sugali peoples, once a nomadic tribe, in Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh, South India. The paper shows how factionalism and faction politics affects the implementation of development interventions. It also explains the poverty and deprivation in the settlement and also focuses on the type of change that they have experienced with the implementation of different schemes by both government and other agencies. Change is perceived in the present study by using the macro and micro analysis of development programmes of the different agencies.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores other ways of conducting anthropology that challenge a colonial view of what should be studied in the South and gives particular attention to a movement in an opposite direction: Brazilian scholars who became “Europeanists” or “North Americanists”.

Paper long abstract:

As in other Latin-American countries, anthropology arrived to Brazil by boat, encrusted in the bodies and baggage of scholars who came from Europe and the United States in organized missions in the first half of the twentieth century and who soon became known as “Americanists”. Indeed, as if it was a chessboard, the world was divided by scholars from the North into fieldwork areas to be scrutinized by “Americanists”, “Oceanists” and “Africanists”. A French anthropologist went as far as to develop a correspondence between geographical regions and possible objects of research. In a book issued in 1992, she wrote:

"Each region, in fact, raises specific research questions that are linked to the anthropological tradition that was established there, but also to the cultural or social traits particular to it: shamanism and mythology are studied by the Americanists, while Middle East specialists traditionally address technical problems associated with nomadism. " (Segalen, 1992 - my translation).This paper explores other ways of conducting anthropology that challenge a colonial view of what should be studied in the South and gives particular attention to a movement in an opposite direction: Brazilian scholars who became “Europeanists” or North Americanists.