Paper short abstract:

In his book 'Anthropology and/as Education' Tim Ingold defends anthropology as a particular kind of education aligned with the ideas of John Dewey. Through three examples of ethnographic teaching practices, I will explore the possibilities of realizing Ingold's ambitions in contemporary teaching.

Paper long abstract:

In their inaugural volume of the Teaching Anthropology journal, David Mills and Dimitrina Spencer wrote: 'For teaching to be an act of hope, pedagogy has to be more than one-sided cultural transmission and reproduction' (Mills and Spencer 2011). Six years later, in his recent book 'Anthropology and/as Education',Tim Ingold develops a similar point. Supported by philosopher and pragmatist John Dewey he argues that education in general and anthropology in particular is not to be understood as 'transmission of knowledge' from one generation to the next, but rather should be seen as a process of developing a particular sensibility or 'attention', as he calls it. Ingold's book is inspiring. It is beautifully argued and refreshing in its scope and theoretical ambition. Nevertheless, it contains few examples of particular courses or educational practices to lend support to his aims and claims.

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, I intend to substantiate Ingold's argument by providing three contemporary examples of teaching from Denmark that built on students' fieldwork experiences. Second, and contrary to Ingold, I want to argue that these examples — and Ingold's book— implicitly puts ethnography rather than anthropology at centre stage, even if all examples happen to be developed within the discipline of anthropology.