Contribution short abstract:

In this paper, I describe the historical emergence of new industrial towns in India and in Peru in mid-20th century, whose working classes caught the imagination of Marxists in both countries, and I reflect how their analyses shaped my ethnographic research on local class formation and politics.

Contribution long abstract:

The paper engages with forms of Marxist critiques and politics encountered during ethnographic work on industrial towns in eastern India and in coastal Peru. Both places emerged as major sites of industrial development in mid-20th century and they attracted not only capital and labour, but also the attention and the presence of Marxist unionists, politicians and intellectuals. Expectations were high that the large industrial working classes emerging there could turn into a proletarian vanguard for a socialist or communist revolution. In the cases discussed here, these expectations were disappointed, at least since the late 1970s. However, in both places a circle of committed Marxists remained whom I frequently met during my ethnographic research and/ or with whose writings I engaged. In my paper, I will describe how Marxists in both places analysed (and politically engaged with) local social developments and their relation to wider developments in global capitalism, and I will reflect how their analyses and knowledge shaped my ethnographic research on as well as my anthropological analysis of the specificities of class formation in and around local industries, and on the politics of its working classes.

Contribution short abstract:

Under what conditions do subaltern movements that struggle in an “empirical-Marxist” hegemonic context turn to a reworking of Marxist praxis and when do they instead radically reject the Marxist tradition? This is a question I reflect on by comparing my research experience in Kerala and Cuba.

Contribution long abstract:

Under what conditions do the movements of the most oppressed and marginalized in society that struggle in an “empirical-Marxist” hegemonic context turn to a reworking of Marxist praxis and when do they instead radically reject the Marxist tradition? Is there a role for the critical Marxist anthropologist in enabling the former rather than the latter to take place? This is a question I want to reflect on by comparing my experience of doing Marxist research in Kerala and Cuba – both contexts where “empirical Marxism” has a strong influence. In both contexts, institutional Marxism, supposedly “out of necessity”, becomes a force translating the pressures of global capitalism into the local political economy, leaving little space for a prioritizing of subaltern struggles. The latter, then, logically seek autonomous forms of organizing: in Kerala Dalit-Adivasi activism, in Cuba Black activism. What are the precise breaking points at which such autonomous organizing emerges and beyond which any adjustment by the Communist parties in question is interpreted as hypocritical and/or cooptive? Are there any instances of successful reconciliation (i.e. a genuine re-prioritization of subaltern demands in empirical Marxism) or are the cycles of dis-identification that follow a breaking point so strong that subaltern struggles will inevitably drift towards anti-Marxism? What are the ensuing blind spots in subaltern movements? And what can we learn from the biographies of subaltern activists who have stayed true to Marxism even when fighting a complacent empirical Marxism?

Contribution short abstract:

The paper discusses direct actions in, with, and against oil and gas companies in Central Europe and Eastern Africa. Activists worked with various Marxian theories and constantly struggled for theoretical and tactical understandings of revolutionary aims, as they became shareholders.

Contribution long abstract:

The paper focuses on a recent practice of different Marxian groups that combine direct action against financial capitalist corporations with struggling against climate collapse. The material comes from fieldwork with activists from Austria, Italy, Romania, and Kenya who blocked the European Gas Conference in Vienna in 2023 and started organising tactical actions as shareholders of oil and gas companies. As shareholders of the very companies they sought to dismantle, they intervened in decision-making procedures, risk management strategies, and insurance cost calculations to decelerate or stop fossil fuel explorations by playing “their games” in what they called the “heart of the beast”, the annual general assemblies of shareholders.

These groups were part of more extensive campaigns that brought together different political networks and organizations. Via the social movement concept of “theories of change”, they sought to create temporary alliances despite divergent aims and understandings of political purity. Their debates are instructive in analyzing knowledge production and attempts at “ethical” reconciliations between political purity and dirty tactics among empirical Marxists attempting to change, nudge, or tilt capitalist accumulation strategies.

In the paper, I want to discuss their attempts at finding a) a common language between world systems theories, ecological Marxisms and eco-feminism, accelerationism, and social reproduction theories and b) how to reconcile the ever-lacking interventions with their revolutionary aims.

Finally, the paper discusses modalities of relationship and collaboration between Marxian anthropologies and empirical Marxism from various forms of critique and being “critical friends”.

Contribution short abstract:

Examining Marxist Muslim activism in Indonesia, I argue that activists bring together both traditions/ideologies through establishing affinities between central moral teloi based on negative ethical judgements. I inquire into the usefulness of ethics and morality for an analysis of Marxism.

Contribution long abstract:

In 1960s Indonesia, communists were persecuted and massacred by the military and civil society with the support of Western secret services. Marxism was criminalised and continues to be seen as immoral and anti-Islamic. In spite of this, there have been increasing activist attempts to revive Marxist ideas since the 1980s. Against this frictional backdrop, this paper focuses on my reserach with contemporary Marxist Muslim activist leaders in Java who are engaged in solidarity activism for people confronted with agrarian conflict. Exploring these activist intellectuals' theoretical perspectives as well as practical work, I demonstrate how they employ negative ethical judgements of injustice, oppression, and exploitation to establish affinities between the seemingly distinct traditions of Marxism and Islam. I specifically explore the communitarian ethos that undergirds activists' theoretical and practical work: with regards to their theoretical teaching, emphasising affinities between central moral teloi and principles of both traditions that allows them to disregard metaphysical differences; with regards to practice, focusing on common ground and mutual learning in encounters with the grassroots counterparts they support in solidarity but also the various community leaders and religious authorities they seek to convince to stand up for the former. As a result, activists' practices are quite far removed from the more orthodox Marxist analysis they propose at other times. I engage this friction, enquiring what this may have to say about our conceptual understanding of what counts as Marxism and what doesn't.

Contribution short abstract:

The "Cultural Marxism" of Cultural Studies has only played a minor role within the discipline. I ask about the relationship between anthropology and cultural studies, how the two can learn from each other and help us envision a critical anthropology.

Contribution long abstract:

The "Cultural Marxism" of Cultural Studies has received some attention in anthropology, but has generally only played a minor role within the discipline, even within Marxist anthropology. While it seemed too Marxist for mainstream anthropology, it seemed as too culturalist (or post-Marxist) for economically oriented neo-Marxists, both within and outside anthropology.

This unfortunate constellation precluded both a critical dialogue or a friendly convergence of Cultural Studies and Anthropology. This is unfortunate because Cultural Studies offers an entry point into Marxism, that seems very promising for anthropologist. The focus on popular culture and “the people” seems to fit well with anthropology, without losing sight of political economy and crisis tendencies. Cultural Studies could also help to overcome the “economic bias” so often associated with Marxism, though not by abandoning issues such as class struggle, but by extending it to the cultural domain – which in turn makes it easier to grasp and explore ethnographically.

In my talk I ask about the relationship between anthropology and cultural studies, how the two can learn from each other and help us envision a critical anthropology. I address these questions in relation to my own work. In my older research on Hauptschüler I took inspiration from Paul Willis and Raymond Williams and combined this with an anthropological approach to Marxist notions of ideology and alienation. In my my current research on hooligans, I develop an ethnographic approach to conjunctural analysis, thus building on the writings of authors such as Stuart Hall and John Clarke.

Contribution short abstract:

Building on the decolonial dimensions of Marxist theory, the paper reconstructs the history of mainstream anthropology as a fervent supporter of capitalism's colonial, imperialist, and neoliberal historical fixes. Case studies consider the making of neoliberal anthropology in theory and practice.

Contribution long abstract:

Building on the decolonial dimension of Marxist theories - as exemplified in the works of leading Marxist anthropologists like Eleanor Leacock, Sidney Mintz, and Peter Worsley as well as decolonial thinkers such as CLR James, Samir Amin, and more - this presentation reconstructs the history of mainstream anthropology as a fervent supporter of capitalism's colonial, imperialist, and neoliberal historical fixes. This move to establish a Marxist analysis of the historical complicity of mainstream anthropology with capitalism’s global regime of exploitation and super-exploitation and the mass murdering regimes that come with that is enriched with case studies on the making of neoliberal anthropology in a second step. Critical analysis of the work of Clifford Geertz and others on Indonesia allows for a sophisticated analysis of the deliberate silencing and invisibilising of mass movements calling for socialism in Indonesia, both before and after the 1965 mass killings. This is expanded with an analysis of mainstream anthropology’s deliberate silencing of Marxist movements in the small island state Mauritius in the works of Burton Benedict and Thomas Eriksen in a second case study.

In conclusion, I aim to develop the Marxist history of science approach for anthropology’s capitalist encounter towards a dystopian view for the collaborations that we may see from anthropology with neoliberalism’s emerging successor regimes in the 21st century.

Contribution short abstract:

The theory and praxis of the Indigenous movement in Ecuador, long influenced by Marxism, resonates particularly strongly with Marx's recently-discovered later writings. I suggest that these points of convergence reflect important truths that might inform a contemporary politics of the common.

Contribution long abstract:

Indigenous leaders and intellectuals in Ecuador have engaged with Marxism for a hundred years, beginning with the founding figures of the modern Indigenous movement and continuing until today. During this time, they have developed a political praxis that combines an emphasis on class struggle and contesting state power with the assertion of community autonomy, self-governance, and collective rights, as well as the defence of peasant agriculture and nature against extractivism. This praxis has allowed the Indigenous movement to make common cause with other subaltern groups and position itself as a champion of popular interests, while advancing a critique of capitalist exploitation and the defence and affirmation of the common and collective. While distinct from most orthodox traditions of Marxist politics, the theory and praxis of the Indigenous movement in Ecuador resonates in significant ways with Marx's later writings on ecology, peasant communities, and colonialism, uncovered by recent scholarship on Marx’s archive. I will argue that these points of convergence reflect important truths grasped independently by both the mature Marx and Indigenous intellectuals, and advance some suggestions for how they might inform a politics of the common in the face of the contemporary capitalism’s challenges to collective life.

Contribution short abstract:

My talk argues for the great use value of an anthropological Marxism focused on 'webs of life', relations of social reproduction, contradictions, and shifting 'regimes of value'; posing this against the idealist 'webs of meaning' that continue to dominate the discipline and its research agenda.

Contribution long abstract:

In an age of the hyper politics of identity and the public struggle between liberal moralisms and populist nationalisms, an updated and interdisciplinary Marxist anthropology grounded in relational realism can be of great use value, politically and analytically. If neoliberalism represented 'the counter revolution of capital' (David Harvey), progressive neoliberalism (Nancy Fraser) offered a series of 'cultural turns' that celebrated cultural diversity and intersectionalism while leaving 'living labor and lived social reproduction' up for grabs, politically and intellectually. Anthropologies of labor and class, and a new economic anthropology and anthropological political economy have emerged in the last twenty years to bring the 'lived' struggle for social reproduction back into focus. But they have been cautious in openly calling themselves Marxist, while some Left feminist perspectives in anthropology ('feminist substantivists') keep being openly hostile to Marxism and imagine they can deal with social reproduction without the contradictions of class and value that Marxism is centrally about. I will argue that this is nonsensical and self-defeating and that we need a Marxist anthropology of uneven and combined development (rather than 'difference'), of capitalism as a form of society rather than just an economy, with a focus on regimes of value, in particular on use value. I will illustrate this with a Marxist anthropological account of the rise of the revanchist and 'sovereigntist' Right in the Global North, and its emerging antinomies.