Paper short abstract:

There have been numerous reactions to recent incidents of racial intimidation and humiliation on South African campuses. Most have focussed on the persistance of racism, but we argue in this paper that an important prior step is to recognise the widespread adherence to ethno-racial classification as a mode of knowledge production – a way of knowing about the world – at these universities.

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of several incidents in which black university students and workers were intimated and humiliated, there is much discussion of continuing racism on South African campuses. University Principals have appointed a commission to examine the problem, and newspapers have attempted to pin down its precise nature. While the recent, publicised incidents of outright racial insult are seen as outside the norm, as they involved only a handful of perpetrators at specific universities, there is also a widespread assumption that these episodes are, in another sense, only the tip of the iceberg.

But what is the iceberg? Commentators appear to believe that the problem is 'racism', defined as negative attitudes towards members of other 'races' and/or 'cultures' and the discriminatory behaviour flowing from such attitudes. This is evident in arguments about the ostensible importance of 'everyday racism' and 'hidden racism', the latter, in particular, to be revealed by strict (and politically correct) discourse analysis of selected texts and behaviours.

We attempt to counter this bias towards psychologising by offering a more anthropological assessment of the issues at stake. Without discounting the significance of racism, we suggest, on the basis of materials available at the University of Pretoria, that a prior problem consists in widespread adherence to the notion that 'races' and 'cultures' are natural entities and the basic building blocks of humanity, and that belonging to entities of this nature determines an individual's identity. Here is one important instance in which 'seeing beyond ethno-racial classification' is of crucial significance.

Paper short abstract:

The main politics of museum activities is to represent culture/cultures. The Museum of African Art is a unique institution of its kind in the region of south-east Europe. The MAA in Belgrade can be observed in the light of today’s discussions on mutuality and diversity by examining the MAA’s programs in the time span dating its establishment in the late ‘70ies to the present day.

Paper long abstract:

In dealing with the methodology, programs and main concepts of the Museum of African Art's work in the 30 years of its existence there can be revealed several points of interest for anthropological discussion on diversity and mutuality:

1) The socio-political climate at the time of founding and the changes that influenced the Museum's field of work;

2) Working in accordance with cultural dynamics and trends of technological development.

The Museum of African Art with its collection opened its doors to the public in 1977 in the light of Tito's non-aligned movement and its specific understanding of what is today termed (to a certain extent) as diversity. The changing socio-political climate which weathered this institution: the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the 10-year-sanctions and the following period of a budding democracy have defined the policies of representations (through different programs) and offer insight into the changing concept of diversity.

Paper short abstract:

Wary of ethical implications, Anthropology is hesitant of applied political research. Yet between host countries, anthropological associations and invested sponsors, no ethnographic encounter is apolitical. This paper examines how academics in the Human Terrain System navigate such political waters.

Paper long abstract:

Wary of, and occasionally apologetic for, its association with covert operations through the 20th century, the discipline of anthropology appears to have sought to distance itself from the dangers of applied political anthropology. Yet no ethnographic encounter is apolitical, whether it involves seeking visas and official research permits from host countries or signing and adhering to a set of ethical standards in order to get research approved by the academy. Caught between the ideals of an objective anthropological institution and those born of a desire to make a difference, applied anthropologists walk a tight political line. And yet, rather than being above politics, anthropological institutions' reactions to such applications of anthropology reveal that they are actually fully implicated in political maneuvering. On top of this, applied anthropologists are responsible to and must negotiate with their sponsors and employers, itself a highly politicized situation, especially when the research in question is in the context of a conflict zone. This paper will present an ethnographic examination of how anthropologists and other academics who participate in the much-debated Human Terrain System navigate these waters, and how they are attempting to come to terms with and resolve their precarious ethical and political positions.

Paper short abstract:

Although there is no shortage of anthropological considerations of politics, there are very few ethnographic analysis of, political parties, a widely disseminated political form within states, especially modern states that embrace some notion of democracy and elaborate a model of citizenship. This paper examines deployment of anthropological concepts of “power” and “politics” in order to understand why political parties, widely considered to be a prime instrument of politics by natives themselves, appear such an unpromising area of anthropological theorization.

Paper long abstract:

Eric Wolf councils that "we must not confuse the theory of state sovereignty with the facts of political life, however, the absence of the analysis of political parties within the writings of political anthropology, in effect constitutes an assertion regarding the relative unimportance for political parties as a form of social agency. Not only are political parties almost absent from the encyclopedic, Companion to an Anthropology of Politics, (eds. David Nugent and Joan Vincent, 2004) but a review of the literature regarding politics within states shows multifarious topics that receive higher billing: peasant, tribal and chiefdom organization within states, clientalism, ritualization of politics and political campaigns, local politics, factionalism, political symbolism, identity, ethnonationalism, imagined communities, media, "post-socialism, post-colonialism, neoliberalism, and collective violence. Generally, anthropological analysis of organizational and communicational form has taken precedence over the analysis of social process involved in party building, reproduction and exercise of power. In keeping with this panel's mandate to "contemplate the discipline's way of coping with practical political challenges of the world we live in," it is argued that by devolving the site of agency away from political parties, anthropology makes an assertion about the wellsprings of politics and about the value of anthropological knowledge.