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- Convenors:
-
Mattias Viktorin
(Stockholm University)
Anthony Stavrianakis (Berkeley)
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- Discussant:
-
Frédéric Keck
(Collège de France)
- Formats:
- Workshops
- Location:
- V408
- Sessions:
- Friday 13 July, -
Time zone: Europe/Paris
Short Abstract:
In this session we take disquiet as an orienting affect of knowledge about breakdowns in scientific, political, and ethical practice in contemporary knowledge production. We aim to specify common problems and purposes of the production of anthropological knowledge about such breakdowns.
Long Abstract:
The theme of this workshop is the affect of knowledge. Empirically, we focus on spaces of contemporary knowledge production which are characterized by breakdowns of scientific, political, and ethical practice. Conceptually, we are oriented to situations in which participant-observation and the analysis of these breakdowns generates an affect of disquiet for the observed as well as the observer. Our aim is to specify common problems, blockages, and strategies, and to interrogate the purpose, affects, and limitations of fieldwork in the production of anthropological knowledge of the contemporary.
The capacity to affect and be affected in a certain manner is constituted by a field of relations. We ask through the aggregation of our work: What is the topography of this field of relations in the contemporary? What is the temporality of these relations? To which ends or purposes is fieldwork and anthropological knowledge oriented?
We aim within the workshop to do collaborative work on the anthropological concepts and problems appropriate to this temporality, topography and problem of anthropological knowledge in the contemporary. The orienting concept is disquiet. Disquiet orients us both to breakdowns in the object of research and in the subject of research. Thus, we will be attentive to how anthropologists observe, describe and analyze affective situations that produce disquiet and the effects of such disquiet. In security, economic and scientific domains the parameters of such affect will have different ramifications. We intend to render visible these parameters and ramifications.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 13 July, 2012, -Paper short abstract:
In this talk we discuss the production of anthropological knowledge on environmentalism and security, clustered into nearly opposite claims about the need for more or less regulation. We review the literature and its analytical arguments, as a move away from good-bad, first-order observations.
Paper long abstract:
In this talk we discuss the production of anthropological knowledge on environmentalism and security, both arenas of fieldwork in which we find a narrow range of proffered analyses. The approaches and claims formulated in these two contrast cases are distinct, and indeed, nearly opposite. Studies on environmental projects, especially those involving environmental risks to society, are usually framed within an anthropological discussion that concludes with the need to reveal risks and bad practices, so as to better regulate and control their effects. Current writing on security is almost always presented through the prism of "militarism" and involves an opposite claim, about over-securitization and the need to reduce regulation and security measures in the name of freedom, i.e. civil liberties. The field of affect associated with environmental risks is a combination of concern and indignation, which is paralleled in relation to security efforts, rather than security threats, although these threats maybe taken seriously or viewed as contrived. We discuss this affective field with regard to the range of relationships comprising anthropologists, especially anthropologists and their informants, which includes activists, citizens, professionals, and policymakers in environmentalism and security efforts. This work is based on a review of the anthropological literature and its analytical arguments, as a step toward the goal of moving away from good-bad, first-order observations.
Paper short abstract:
This presentation takes convergences between market research and anthropology as a starting point for exploring problems of anthropological knowledge in the contemporary. I reflect on the limits of fieldwork and discuss analytical possibilities for producing untimely anthropological knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
In 2010 I was engaged in a research project on market research consultancies that produce and sell knowledge of emergent market trends, directions, and tendencies. I was particularly interested in the temporal orientation of their work: how they seek to produce "a future market" as an object about which knowledge is possible. I found that market research consultancies were paying less attention to existing or past markets, while showing more interest in emergent markets or anticipated future markets. One thing that intrigued me about this approach was the extent to which it is reminiscent of contemporary anthropology and its increasing orientation toward the emergent. This presentation takes this convergence between market research and anthropology as a starting point for exploring problems of anthropological knowledge in the contemporary. First, I discuss methodological limits of fieldwork. As spaces of knowledge production have become as critical to business as they are to academia, such companies as market consultancies might increasingly refuse to engage with anthropological interlocutors. For instance, after an initial interview with one company's sales manager, I received an email explaining, very courteously, that because of time restraints no one at the company would be able to speak with me—ever again. Second, I reflect on analytical problems and strategies for contemporary anthropology. Since it was far from obvious how to differentiate the production of contemporary anthropological knowledge from that of market research consultancies, I raise questions about strategies and possibilities for producing "untimely" anthropological knowledge about the contemporary.
Paper short abstract:
Focusing on the emergence and transformation of the ngo ArchiAfrika, I describe how affect and discordancy problematize ethics of legitimacy and responsibility in the making of scientific knowledge and expertise concerning modern architecture in Africa.
Paper long abstract:
In 2001 a group of five Dutch architects founded the non-governmental-organization ArchiAfrika in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Their initial aim was "to put (modern) African architectural culture on the world map" and to maintain an "international exchange of expertise and knowledge within the African continent" because "the important voice of Africa" is "lacking" or at least "often not enough heard." I have accompanied ArchiAfrika's emergence and transformation in the course of multi-sited fieldwork for my larger PhD research project "Rescuing Modernity: Global Heritage Assemblages and Modern Architecture in Africa." Here, I analyze how ArchiAfrika organizes a workshop and conference in Dar es Salaam with the title "Modern Architecture in East Africa Around Independence." At the event, a certain preoccupation with the notion of an "African" modern architectural heritage causes discordancy and affect among local participants. As a result, ArchiAfrika experiences fundamental normative uncertainty, as well as a crisis of legitimacy and responsibility. Drawing mainly on Steven Shapin's and Paul Rabinow's recent (concept) work, I argue that attempts to reconcile this crisis are at the core of ArchiAfrika's latest reconfigurations, which are supposed to eventually facilitate the ngo's "transfer to Africa." I contend that ArchiAfrika's projected "Africanization" points towards global realities in the contemporary production of scientific knowledge and expertise, in which Africa is (re-)appropriated as a "living laboratory" from abroad.
Paper short abstract:
From 2006-2011 we participated in a collaborative experiment, with Paul Rabinow, to rethink the role that human sciences play in biological research. Our anthropological experiment, to engage bioscientists on the problem of the ramifications of their work (scientific, political, ethical), was ultimately rejected. The rejection was constituted through a range of affects: hostility, confusion and indifference. In this paper we take up the task of appraising the affective and ethical character of collaborative research in discordant situations.
Paper long abstract:
From 2006-2011 we participated in a collaborative experiment, with Paul Rabinow, to rethink the role that human sciences play in biological research. The Human Practices division of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center—a facility established to create design standards for the engineering of new genetic elements, cellular sub-systems, and genomic platforms—was designed to integrate anthropology and the biosciences in a more fundamentally interdependent and mutually enriching fashion, an endeavor which required a vigilant refusal of the familiar roles of watchdogs, advisors, or aides to communication. Our anthropological experiment to engage bioscientists on the problem of the ramifications of their work (scientific, political, ethical) was ultimately rejected. The rejection was constituted through a range of affects: hostility, confusion and indifference. In this paper we take up the task of appraising the affective and ethical character of collaborative research in discordant situations. Borrowing a repertoire of terms from moral theology, we ask: what is the vocational price to be paid for undertaking collaboration in situations marked by negligence, self-justification, and malice?