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- Convenors:
-
Diego Ballestero
(Universität Bonn)
Erik Petschelies (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
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- Formats:
- Panel
- Mode:
- Online
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Madrid
Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to decenter, decolonize, and de-Westernize decolonial anthropology by fostering collective reflection and understanding, mainly by the experiences and contributions of historically marginalized groups, such as indigenous peoples, women, BIPOC individuals, and LGBTQIA+ communities.
Long Abstract:
In recent years, Western anthropological practices have become increasingly dominated by the decolonial perspective. This transformation has manifested in a substantial body of specialized literature, research endeavors, seminars, conferences and political discourses. This shift has marked a significant theoretical reorientation within Western academic circles, prompting a critical examination of the historical and contemporary landscape of the discipline. Nevertheless, this perspective has often failed to address fundamental questions, particularly from the Global South, concerning the epistemological, ontological, and political underpinnings that legitimize Western anthropological methodologies.
Taking these considerations into account, the contributions of this panel encompass a broad spectrum of inquiries, including, but not limited to: Why does the upsurge of this perspective seem to be the only legitimate positioning to interrogate the history of our discipline, eclipsing knowledge and practical experiences of the Global South? What factors are driving the current surge in interest in the Western decolonial perspective? Who are those who dominate the discourse and who is their public? Which are the contributions of historically marginalized groups, such as indigenous peoples, women, BIPOC individuals, and LGBTQIA+ communities?
Through exploring these and other pertinent questions, we aim to contribute valuable insights for the decentering, decolonization, and de-Westernization of the prevailing epistemological hegemony within American and European academic spheres. Our objective is to generate a space for collective reflection where the knowledge and experiences of historically marginalized groups that maintained a critical vision of the postcolonial/decolonial turn converge, helping to do and undo decolonial anthropology.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2024, -Diego Ballestero (Universität Bonn)
Paper short abstract:
Decolonization has become a diluted metaphor, co-opted by Anglo-Saxon academia. This presentation aims to decentralize and de-Westernize the epistemological monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon academy, fostering inter-epistemic dialogue and multidimensional struggle.
Paper long abstract:
More than a decade ago, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang pointed out that decolonization was becoming a metaphor. In retrospect, this admonition has not only materialized, but reached new dimensions of metaphorical dilution. Decolonial thought has been largely co-opted by Anglo-Saxon academia. Depoliticized and devoid of its condition of transformative practice arising in contexts of struggle, it became a theoretical, standardized and fashionable discourse in Anthropology. Diluted of any radical intention of anti-colonial critique, it has been subsumed into the very structures of power it was meant to deconstruct. In the Western economic politics of knowledge we observe a marked unidirectional gaze from the North to the South, privileging an epistemic monologue that excludes voices and perspectives coming from the Global South.
To counteract this tendency, this presentation discusses from an anti/countercolonial perspective the political and epistemological positionality of the decolonial perspective "popularized" by the Anglo-Saxon academy. From voices of activist intellectuals from Abya Yala, it seeks to contribute with elements for the decentralization and de-Westernization of the epistemological oligopoly of the Anglo-Saxon academy. At the same time, it aims to cooperate with the creation of a multi-collective space for reflection and inter-epistemic dialogue and, at the same time, multidimensional struggle.
Chikara Iijima (Kumamoto University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper attempts to articulate the postmodern anthropology that is undoing the Western-centered discipline in the continuing time of decolonization in looking at the past and present in Minamata, Japan.
Paper long abstract:
Minamata is a fishing town in southern Japan which suffered from widespread mercury poisoning from industrial pollution during the mid-twentieth century. The methylmercury dumped into the bay between 1932 and 1968 caused damage to the nervous systems of people who ate contaminated fish, resulting in severe disabilities and the deaths among the victims, as well as many children born with the condition. It became known as Minamata Disease. Victims of the pollution as well as residents of Minamata have faced discrimination and stigma in Japan, and the community remains deeply divided. The Japanese government, which was complicit in covering up the contamination, has sought to end discussions of Minamata disease with compensation. In this sense, those who suffer from Minamata disease were, and continue to be, victims of Japan’s rapid industrialization and modernization.
Based on the ongoing situation above, this paper first considers how anthropology in Japan have done little research on Minamata, despite calls for anthropological research from Minamata in the 1980s (Ishimure 1983). It then attempts to articulate anthropology to the study of Minamata Disease through a discussion of postmodern anthropology. Postmodern anthropology has taken a critical look at the practices and various concepts of the Western-centered discipline influenced by decolonization. Thinking about a possible articulation postmodern and decolonial perspectives in another time and place, Minamata, it not only encourages us to reconsider other possibilities that might have been in the past, but also would contribute to the practice of undoing Western-centered anthropology.
Samela Cardoso (The University of Manchester)
Paper short abstract:
From a Latin American decolonizing perspective, this abstract underscores a dedicated commitment to particular communities. Grounded in indigenous ontologies and cognizant of the academic epistemicide affecting non-European knowledge, this commitment is both ethical and reflective.
Paper long abstract:
Colonization was a terrible situation in the past and continues to occur in Latin America's everyday life. Our relationship with coloniality naturalized our fragmented identities, given the geocultural distribution of power, which is spatially uneven. Our knowledge is labeled insignificant, and Eurocentric knowledge is imposed as the only valid rationality (Lugones, 2008), creating a specific universe of domination under Eurocentric hegemony (Quijano, 2020). The historical impact of colonialism is far-reaching, permeating societal structures and practices and perpetuating the privileging of certain forms of knowledge over others. A critique of colonial heritage is a joint foundation of decoloniality.
Decolonial research espouses a compelling call for recognizing and validating epistemic diversity, a pivotal endeavor facilitated through the critical rehabilitation and amplification of "subaltern thinkers." It posits these “marginalized voices” as the central and transformative components of the broader global decolonization project (Ambtman-Smith et al., 2022).
When the authors discuss "subaltern thinkers," "other," and "marginalized voices," they assume the privileged position of Europeans in the modernization of Europe. The colonized peoples occupy an unrecognized central position in the very making of modern Europe. Recognizing this central role brings to the forefront the importance of decolonizing prevailing narratives and dismantling the epistemological hierarchies that have perpetuated dominant Eurocentric thought. By embracing the geo and bodily politics of knowledge, we take crucial steps towards dismantling the colonial legacy and forging a more inclusive, just, and equitable intellectual landscape.
Nikolas Kosmatopoulos (American University of Beirut)
Paper short abstract:
Drawing on years of research, fieldwork aboard and active involvement in sea-centered indigenous-led movements, this presentation impresses that these instances relate directly to the politics of radical geopolitical change and a renewed question of anticolonialism today.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing on years of research, fieldwork on board and active involvement in sea-centered movements of solidarity in the Mediterranean, including efforts to challenge the embargo in Gaza and to support border-crossing refugees, this presentation impresses that indigenous-led practices that engage contemporary oceans can be rethought in ways that relate directly to the politics of radical social change and, in particular, the question of anticolonialism today.
In other words, to analyze these practices within conventional liberal-moralist frameworks, such as humanitarianism, piracy, terrorism, is to miss their anticolonial insurgent spirit. Denying indigenous agency and insurgent agendas, liberal presentism restores the West both as global operational center for the control of the oceans and as universal moral horizon. Often, it subsumes insurgent movements under the ephemeral and superficial trope of crisis (“refugee crisis”, “red sea crisis”) which effectively disconnects them from a long history of struggles against Empire and its maritime manifestations (embargoes, borders, interceptions).
The question that emerges is thus: How can we move past the techno-moral geographies of Empire in analyzing sea-centered indigenous praxis? Can we rethink solidarity at sea through an anticolonial lens? And to what effect? Venturing a response, I explore through a unified and comparative perspective four instances of indigenous-led insurgent practice at sea during the last 10-15 years: The Ships to Gaza, the border-crossing refugee boats, contemporary Somali piracy, and the recent Yemeni rebels’ attacks on Israel-bound ships around the Gulf of Aden.
Mary Elaine Hegland (Santa Clara University)
Paper short abstract:
To minimize intellectual colonialism and credit research partners from an Iranian village, I have worked to translate, type, organize, and edit the narrations of friends over 46 years about their lives, in historical, social, cultural, religious, political and economic context, for publication.
Paper long abstract:
Over her forty-six years of field research in an Iranian (former) village, conference papers, and publications, the proposing author has become aware of how research partners have lacked visibility. Only in the last few years have I signed off on papers and articles with joint authorship. I have begun taking down life-histories/memoirs of my long- time friends and collaborators from “Aliabad.” Since May 2018, lacking access to an Iranian visa and stays in Iran, my research has been limited to phone calls, internet communication with whatsapp and meet, and visits with one or a few people from Aliabad who came to Turkey, promoting long interviews/ narrations with individuals instead of community-based participant observation. One friend, a rural, early widow, whose village lacked schools when she was young, spent a month with me in Istanbul during summer 2023, telling me the story of her life in Persian as I typed in English. We have since spoken many times as questions arise. Two other chapter-length manuscripts have resulted from working with other villagers about their lives. A planned book length memoir and two volumes of chapter-length memoirs will have village narrators as first author (using pseudonyms) and myself as second author.
Although authors are stated only in pseudonyms, they know they publish narrations about their lives and times. Acknowledging local people as authors examining their lives within the social history of their environment is a step toward minimizing intellectual colonialism and crediting local people for their indispensable contributions to the anthropological enterprise.
Erik Petschelies (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
Paper short abstract:
This presentation aims to delve into the emergence of indigenous museums and the indigenization of traditional museums in Brazil, highlighting an ontological and epistemic shift that actively challenges colonial power relations in practical terms, as well as questioning decolonial theories.
Paper long abstract:
In his work "The Falling Sky", the Yanomami thinker Davi Kopenawa recounts a visit to a Parisian museum, which the white people term a "large house," where they confine the remnants of ancestors from the forest—long gone, their voices silenced. The aged artifacts, according to Kopenawa, trap the "ghosts" of their original owners, captured and stolen during conflicts with white people. Kopenawa utilizes his physical and ontological encounter with ethnographic collections as a means to critique the patrimonialization of material culture. Inverting the established order, Kopenawa conducts an anthropological analysis of white people through ethnographic collections, associating the confinement of objects in glass cabinets with the material obsession and violent nature of the invading white people.
In recent decades, traditional museums in Brazil have not only engaged in a profound dialogue with indigenous experts but have also witnessed the initiative of indigenous peoples establishing museums that reflect their own culture and perspectives. This dynamic challenges the foundational power structures inherent in museums and provides a platform for new epistemologies. It also encapsulates an indigenous critique of colonial societies—a central theme for decolonial thinkers.
This presentation endeavors to explore the emergence of indigenous museums and the indigenization of traditional museums, actualizing concepts that are often confined to theoretical frameworks in the works of decolonial authors.
By doing so, the presentation aspires to foster intercultural knowledge arising from an ontological, epistemic, and ethical encounter. Ultimately, it seeks to engage in the decolonization of the very framework designed for decolonization.
Camila Ferreira Marinelli (University of St Andrews)
Paper short abstract:
I will focus on indigenous academics’ experiences in universities in Brazil that think, do and live decoloniality. I propose an analytical and emotional exercise of expanding the notion of decoloniality through the lived experiences of indigenous academics beyond a Western-centric concept.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper, I focus on indigenous academics’ experiences in universities in Brazil that think, do and live decoloniality. I propose an analytical and emotional exercise of expanding the notion of decolonial praxis through the lived experiences of indigenous academics, specifically through their ongoing efforts of decolonising academic knowledge. The basis of this exercise is to distance decoloniality from a theoretical concept. Move beyond an idea of just one more concept to be added to the Western academic vocabulary, reinscribing more power to the way Western intellectuals (and those trained in Western-based educational systems) define the world. It is more than an academic effort and detaching from curriculum tethers; it is a way of knowing, doing and living that goes against coloniality. This paper will be centred by the testimonies and reflections of indigenous academics I had contact with during my fieldwork in Brazil between 2020 and 2022 about their perspectives on decoloniality as an ongoing process since European colonisation in Latin America and as a process of ‘healing’. I will analyse how coloniality is still present and felt in the indigenous academic’s experiences as a process of silencing and imposing universal knowledge. Decoloniality is a an ongoing project that depends on the local histories and the context in which decolonial undertakings materialise. It does not fit the Western universal and totality model, but it connects to multiple temporalities, knowledges and praxis of living. This is central to understanding the experience of decoloniality of the indigenous in Brazil.
Alexandra Galindo (UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia))
Paper short abstract:
As part of my personal research in restitutions, I aim to pinpoint what factors are driving the current surge of interest in Western decolonial initiatives within the global museum community.
Paper long abstract:
The international museum scene has experienced significant upheaval in recent years. In response to advocacy from specific communities seeking the restitution of ancestors, objects, and artifacts, museums have reassessed their stance on restitution. This has triggered a proactive race to "decolonize," which not only mirrors shifts in public opinion but also aligns with the prevailing national and international political dynamics of each country. These dynamic adjustments appear to be responsive to the intensity of public outcry, and extend beyond the realm of restitution, decolonization, or museums, encompassing broader international movements such as Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. Despite the perception of a unified stance on restitutions in North America and Europe, regional disparities are evident, with countries like Spain seemingly exhibiting minimal attention to the issue, Germany embracing a more comprehensive approach, and France, often considered the originator of the movement, adopting, suddenly, a more moderate position.
Jia Hui Lee (University of Bayreuth)
Paper short abstract:
This paper tells the story of producing rodent science at a university research center in Tanzania. Using ethnographic and historical methods, this paper examines refusals by Tanzanian scientists to "decolonize science" and to focus instead on producing "global" knowledge.
Paper long abstract:
Recent histories of Africa have focused on the production of scientific knowledge, whether as part of continental-scale colonial schemes for specimen, knowledge, resource, and labor extraction (Tilley 2011; Osseo-Asare 2014). These histories implicitly -- and sometimes explicitly -- raise the question of what meanings terms like “African science” or “decolonizing science” may bear (see edited volume by Mavhunga 2017). This paper tells the story of producing rodent science at the Sokoine University in Morogoro, Tanzania, globally recognized for its contribution to rodent taxonomy, ecology, and zoonotic diseases. Using ethnographic and historical methods, this paper examines refusals by Tanzanian scientists to "decolonize" in terms of generating "African science." Instead, they focus on the material inequalities that condition scientific research. The paper analyzes practices of science making in an African context to consider how global narratives and movements for decolonizing knowledge are "emplaced" within the personal and everyday experiences of Tanzanian scientists. This paper argues that discussions about scientific research in the global South often reproduce claims for universality, even as scientists struggle with material, technological, and financial inequalities produced by the colonial concentration of knowledge in Euro-America. The paper therefore challenges decolonial anthropology by contending with the aspirations for global (and Western) recognition of knowledge produced by a group of scientific professionals, and asks how we (academics from the global South, based in Euro-American institutions) reflect on our own knowledge making practices.
Giulia Macario (Catholic University of the Sacred Heart (Milan) - Italy)
Paper short abstract:
To commit to decolonisation without succumbing to teleological imperial progressivism, it is crucial to recognize that categories of privilege and marginalisation may not neatly align, forcing us to embrace paradoxes. My contribution addresses those in the study of women in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Paper long abstract:
In many ways, women in the Muslim Brotherhood have been studied under the lens of “Islamic” or “Islamist” feminism. While anthropological studies dispel notions that women in Islamic movements are powerless or trivial in their political engagement, Islamist women remain excluded from decolonising practices embedded in secular, progressivist norms.
If intersectional feminism teaches us that marginalisation and privilege are not mutually exclusive but coexist, I ask: can we go beyond binary understandings of womanhood within religion and politics broadly, or the Muslim Brotherhood specifically: as good/bad, liberated/oppressed?
To truly decolonize academia without succumbing to teleological imperial progressivism, it is crucial to recognize that categories like queerness, womanhood, indigeneity, colonized and racialized do not necessarily intersect altogether. Despite studying the history of women in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood since 2018, I have not disclosed my queerness to participants to maintain rapport. Nevertheless, drawing from queer, feminist, and indigenous scholarship is essential to explore a region subjected to imperialism and dehumanization, yet central to postcolonial studies.
In the West Asia and North-African context amid the global war on terror, reevaluating Islamic epistemologies as indigenous to the Islamic world becomes pivotal. Rather than dehumanizing or de-nationalizing them, my approach refrains from romanticizing Islamism while highlighting the dynamism of Islamic movements, with the Muslim Brotherhood serving as a significant case study.
Embracing these paradoxes holds implications for understanding indigenous feminisms, nation-building, and dissent beyond Eurocentric traditions. My contribution contextualizes these dynamics on indigenous terms within their cultural context, challenging prevailing (white) Eurocentric/Anglophone intellectual traditions.