This panel aims to rethink the possibilities for, and the contradictions contained, by the project of a contemporary Global anthropology, considering the global impact of digital technologies, and in the light of calls to decolonize the discipline.
Long Abstract:
Thinking in terms of the global has always been a challenge to anthropology given our primary method of ethnography is resolute in its parochialism. The issue become even clearer and more immediate in a digital age, when new developments become ubiquitous and raise immediate questions as to whether they act to homogenise the world or provide new platforms for heterogeneity. At the same time, calls to decolonize our discipline are sounding louder and louder. Both trends (digitalization of society globally; and critiquing the colonial/colonialist underpinnings of our discipline) invite us to reconsider the whole endeavour of "global anthropology". Yet, instead of discarding the project, we aim to rethink what the possibilities are of a Global anthropology in the contemporary Digital Age. Questions to be addressed are: So how do we create a global digital anthropology that is sensitive to ethnography? Should this be at the level of theory or does that betray specificity? Could it be through allusion to global forces such as political economy or global regulatory authorities. Alternatively, we could argue for a method that reconciles cultural relativism with global local perspectives through comparative anthropology. In this case, the question is how can that be resurrected and foregrounded in contemporary anthropology? We will cite examples from Congo to Ireland, from Japan to Chile and welcome further contributions.
How to resurrect comparative anthropology in a digital age? Drawing from my previous comparative work on 'nerd politics' and digital populism as well as from emerging research on media control in a (seemingly) out-of-control world, I argue for the beauty and utility of simple comparative techniques.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I take up the challenge posed by the panel convenors of how to resurrect comparative anthropology in a digital age. Drawing from my previous comparative work on 'nerd politics' (Postill 2018a) and digital populism (Postill 2018b) as well as from emerging research on media control in a (seemingly) out-of-control world, I argue for the beauty and utility of deceptively simple comparative techniques. To this end I make four interrelated proposals. First, that we adopt a 'flat epistemology' that doesn't privilege primary over secondary research, on-the-ground over remote fieldwork, or digital over non-digital life forms. Second, that we complement, once and for all, multi-sited with multi-timed (diachronic) research, e.g. asking simple 'before-and-after' questions of a transformed social practice or environment. Third, that we compare like with like (e.g. two analogous digital platforms, three populist campaigns) in order to ascertain their similarities and differences. Fourth, that we keep normative biases and ideological agendas (whether rightist or leftist, colonial or decolonial) out of our comparative investigations.
This paper proposes a theory of theory in anthropology, seeking ways to create theory more compatible with principles of decoloniality and that does not betray ethnography. To illustrate this ambition it uses the example of attempts to theorise the global smartphone based on nine ethnographies.
Paper long abstract:
What should theory be in Anthropology? Contemporary theory can easily become a fetish as in - `your paper needs more theory'. We clearly require a better theory of theory. Even good theory is extremely dangerous to the aims of anthropology, especially when considered in the light of de-coloniality, because it can become the instrument by which metropolitan elites exclude and intimidate everyone else. Often the level of generality, de-contextualisation and cold abstraction betrays the nuance, sensitivity, accessibility and humanism of ethnographic reportage.
These issues will be considered with respect to a specific case. How can we write a theory of the smartphone derived from nine ethnographic monographs describing smartphone use by older people across the globe? Theory is essential if we are to transcend multiple ethnographies as simply aggregate parochialism. Creating new theoretical terms and visualisations such as `The Transportal Home' ` Perpetual Opportunism' `The Control Hub' or `Beyond Anthropomorphism' may help to visualise, understand and explain what people do with their smartphones and why. But where this subsumes Kampala and Yaoundé alongside Sao Paulo and Milan there is a danger of creating neo-imperial homogenisations based on citing de-contextualised critiques. The paper describes an alternative path that could allow for theory development, while avoiding these betrayals of wider anthropological values, to create theory that facilitates, rather than supresses, global education and the ideals of decolonisation.
Drawing on online and offline ethnographies, this paper analyses the hashtag 'DalitLivesMatter' - first used on Twitter in 2014 - as the latest chapter in the history of cross-fertilisation between Dalit struggles and African American ones.
Paper long abstract:
First used on Twitter in 2014, #DalitLivesMatter is the latest chapter in the history of cross-fertilisation between Dalit struggles and African American ones. This paper examines the life of this hashtag and the production of a textual and visual narrative bringing together different events and leaders of the Civil Rights and Dalit Movements. Aided by extensive fieldwork on Dalit communities' identity politics in northern India, my research on #DalitLivesMatter reveals a commonality of intents and claims with those actors featuring in the above ethnographies. However, they also differ in significant ways: the hashtag is deployed by a heterogeneous group of users - both Dalit and non-Dalit -, featuring different topic choice, language and social media skills, and a miniscule minority if compared to the large body of Dalit citizens in India. Coleman has argued that 'ethnographic studies of digital media provincialize and thus particularize the role that digital media play in the construction of sociocultural worlds, group identities and representations' and this can be used 'against faulty and narrow presumptions about the universality and uniformity of human experience' (2010: 496-97). Thus, both offline and online ethnographies converge in exalting particularity, difference and context. A decolonised global anthropology in the digital age might well harness the standpoints returned by these ethnographies and place them in conversation through shared categories, ideas and goals - without privileging 'digital voices' and their spectacularism over others and taking into account the very limited social media use and skills in vast regions of the world.
In this presentation, I discuss how Tara's Triple Excellence, an online meditation program created by a Tibetan lama, is a "cybernetic response" to the rapid spread of the contemporary mindfulness movement. I discuss also how this program is changing the way practitioners relate to Tibetan Buddhism.
Paper long abstract:
The encounter between Buddhism and Western systems of thought and practice has a long history that has unfolded in many different directions. Two different movements engendered by this encounter can be detected at the intersection of Buddhism and science and technology. First, there is a movement towards the secularization of certain contemplative practices that were originally Buddhist. A case in point is the recent laboratory research experiments on contemplative practices conducted at major scientific research institutions, which paved the way for their application in different secular contexts. Second, there is a movement towards the global dissemination of Buddhist traditions. The encounter with modern technology has indeed changed the way Buddhism is spreading throughout the world. The most evident example is the role played by the internet in the process of the transnationalization of the activities of certain Buddhist masters. In this presentation, I will explore the case of Tara's Triple Excellence (TTE), a daily guided online meditation program created by the Tibetan lama Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche (b. 1951). This program, which is available through the internet in seven European languages and Chinese, is a clear example of a phenomenon of the second movement. However, in relation to the first movement—the secularization of Buddhist practices—I will argue that TTE can also be seen as a "cybernetic response" to the rapid spread of the contemporary mindfulness movement. This presentation will discuss how TTE is changing the way practitioners relate to Tibetan Buddhism, while also preserving core elements of this tradition.
I propose to reflect on the challenges of a digital anthropology in the Africanist field. What can a de-colonial posture mean for the digital anthropology project?
Paper long abstract:
I propose to reflect on the challenges of a digital anthropology in the Africanist field. What can a decolonial posture mean for the digital anthropology project? How can we go beyond the thematic « grand partage » which overpolitics and accentuates the analysis of crises to the detriment of the ordinary and "fair" trivial reality of African contexts? I lay the groundwork for a decoloniality of digital studies, arguing that we should manage to avoid two pitfalls: on the one hand, an overdetermination of the political and therefore of the "crisis" and deficits; the avoidance of this pitfall then invites us to open up on the other hand to the analysis of the ordinary and to the highlighting of simple facts, love, family, leisure, all things that are not automatically linked in the reflexes of anthropology in Africa.
This paper focuses on the fast-growth of the south to south higher education mobility of African students in China since 1999. We aim to explore the cultural, ethical and continental identity reshaping and maintaining process，especially focus on the function of the digital space on such process.
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on the fast-growth of the south to south higher education mobility of African students in China since 1999. We aim to explore the cultural, ethical and continental identity reshaping and maintaining process，especially focus on the function of the digital space on such process. As the digital space in China is divided from outside by the Great Fire Wall set by the government, African students need to install a VPN on their devices to get access to use digital space which their family and friends used back in their country of origin. This research will investigate within the dynamic interaction between migration networks across the digital space border divided by the Great Fire Wall of China; as well as the dynamic interaction between the online migration social networks and traditional face-to-face migration networks with the African students' perspective from inside of China. The research uses social network analysis based on data from in-depth interviews and digital ethnography. The result shows that based on the evolving online and offline African student migrant community within social network digital space inside and outside the border of the Great Fire Wall of China, the African student reshaping their identity into Pan-African and global student mobility identity, as well as maintaining their culturally, ethically and nationally unique identity overtime under the power distribution from their country and culture of origin as well as facilitating the integration of the African student into the local Chinese community both online and offline.
Ethnographic fieldwork in Zanzibar underlines the relationship between methodology and theory on global anthropology. This paper invites anthropologists to a dialogue on how to perceive and develop our methodology to contribute to global theories.
Paper long abstract:
The methodological value of ethnography can be challenged in a digital age. Based on examples from fieldwork in Zanzibar, this paper explores the theoretical contributions to global perceptions in a digital era, and its relation to ethnography. During extensive ethnographic fieldwork, women in Zanzibar expressed strong opinions on globalization and how moral values within the society are challenged. They stress that the digital exchange of images and ideas does corrupt the moral behavior of their youth. At the same time, these women, their husbands, and their children reach out to digital means to deepen their religious knowledge. This knowledge is strongly related to their moral values. The contradictions in their relationship with digital worlds on an emotional level and in terms of knowledge was specifically a result of ethnography. I argue we should look with a critical lens at the possible colonialist character of our research methods, yet we should understand their added value in creating a theoretical global understanding of the digital age. We should investigate how to extend the participation of research communities within our methodology, and aspire a more inclusive way of creating theories and methodologies.
This presentation attempts to formulate an alternative method to the study of digital lives globally but based on ethnographic insights from Kinshasa (DR Congo). I propose 3 starting points: (a) the experience of disconnection; (b) the culture of indirectness; and (c) multiplex personhood.
Paper long abstract:
This presentation attempts to formulate an alternative method to the study of digital lives based on ethnographic insights from research in Kinshasa. I see three dimensions pronounced in, but not exclusive to Kinshasa's digital cultures. These can provide starting grounds for comparison globally. First, as Kinois constantly need to grapple with unexpected and undesired forms of disconnection (when politicians cut the internet or slow down data traffic; because of lack of funds; because of mobile credit theft), Kinois internauts often feel to live "in the meantime" (also Fischer 2018). This provides opportunities to rethink the dialectics between online and offline; second, in Kinois sociality, much, if not most attention is paid to what is not said, to the ellipses and assumed deliberately withheld. Urban savviness entails knowing how to read the hidden: benda bilili (to pull the images). This culture of indirectness also plays out online. Such a perspective on digital interaction thus goes beyond the more familiar study of digital discourse and aesthetics, and can help us to gain new insights in digital communication elsewhere. And, third, many Kinois who go online take on other identities and play with a wide range of digital alter egos. This should not always be understood as fakery or mere pretense, but rather is related to indigenous perspectives on personhood: people are always becoming and multiple (see Nyamnjoh 2017). I will discuss these three perspectives in order to start formulating a "digital theory from the South", which can contribute to global anthropology.
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