Paper short abstract:

Discussions of method can become predictable in the teaching factory where social anthropology is taught en masse. Taking up the themes of 'transgression' and 'transgressors' central to the anthropological writing of Klaus Peter Köpping seems highly appropriate. This talk introduces the panel.

Paper long abstract:

Discussions of method can become predictable in the teaching factory where social anthropology is sold for export dollars (pounds, euros) in an international education market. It is to the credit of some teachers of anthropology that the old ideals of ethnographic practice, criticism, doubt, and even paranoia, can maintain an anthropological pedagogy that does not succumb to formulaic closure. The idea of open-ended inquiry persists, and is valued. Whether it be the 'surrender and catch' of Kurt Wolf's ethnographic engagement, or the cunning inversions of the trickster figure who bumbles through to the solution no-one could anticipate, the injunction to challenge, upset, provoke and outrage refreshingly innovates where so much anthropology battens down.

Taking up the themes of 'transgression' and 'transgressors' that have been central to the anthropological writing of Klaus Peter Köpping over many years then seems highly appropriate. This talk introduces the panel.