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Paper short abstract:

This paper delves into what anthropological inquiries into the everyday practice and theory of Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists can tell us about contemporary Leftist understandings of “Islamism” in light of calls to decolonize academia and an age marred by contested politics.

Paper long abstract:

Under the banner of “fighting Islamism” the mainstream Western narrative legitimized both the imperialist wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the surveillance of Muslim communities. Hereby, in a colonial fashion, knowledge production in Western academia, including anthropology, has also played its part.

In academic and activist circles alike the question of the relationship of Leftists to “Islamists”, has been heatedly debated. The organization of Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists (ERS), which grew in popularity during the 2011 Revolution and has been severely hit by state repressions since the 2013 military coup, has taken a unique and not uncontroversial stance. While both the state narrative and many Leftists, often in a “postcolonial framework”, have labeled diverse “Islamist” movements as “fascists”, the ERS have popularized the tactic “with the state never, with the Islamists sometimes”.

In their multifaceted interactions with the Muslim Brotherhood, members of the organization have navigated how to deal with those who they are actually politically opposed to in their daily modes of practice. Based on anthropological research spanning 17 months with members of the ERS in exile in the global north and in the political underground, I delve into what anthropological inquiries into the practice and theory of ERS can say about contemporary Leftist understandings of “Islamism” in light of calls to decolonize academia and an age marred by contested politics. I ask what the interactions by ERS, as social actors from the global south, tell us about activism from below fighting for a more just world.

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Paper short abstract:

This study explores Sevens football culture of the Mappila Muslim community, employing a decolonizing perspective. The “other” anthropologist's distinct viewpoint highlights Mappilas' performative agency, providing a methodological tool to study Global South societies beyond conventional paradigms.

Paper long abstract:

Anthropological examinations of the Mappila Muslims of Malabar, India, have frequently

overlooked the significance of the Sevens football culture, a foundational structuring practice of the

everydayness of the community. This neglect prompts reflection on the dynamics of

knowledge production concerning a community positioned at the margins of a postcolonial

nation. In addressing these concerns, this paper showcases the unique perspective

of an anthropologist from an “other" culture while studying the “anomalous sporting

culture” of Sevens, to which they have an affectionate belonging. This endeavour seeks to

decolonise the prevailing narratives about the lifeworld of a religious community and its

multiple entanglements. By foregrounding Sevens – a local iteration of association football

intricately tied to a joyful commemoration of intense anti-colonial sentiments – the paper

invites attention to the importance of ushering a framework centered on collective pleasure

and celebration in an attempt to radically reshape the decolonisation of existing narratives

and their circulation. Departing from conventional paradigms that overemphasise the resistant

historical aspects of the community, mostly reducing Mappila lives to marginality or diverse

expressions of religious orthodoxy or overt resistance against colonialism, the paper redirects

attention to Sevens, through which the Mappilas have been performatively asserting their

agency as active and articulate subjects since the 1930s. This shift in focus, particularly on

the playing bodies – both jubilant and recalcitrant – offers not only a means to appropriately

decolonise narratives about the community under study but also a coherent methodological

tool for studying various societies in the Global South.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper explores and examines citational practices as a scholar from global south towards production of knowledge in anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

In academia the gaze that sees, understands the world and writes has historically been centred in the institutions of Europe and America, often considered the centres of knowledge production. As a global south academic in an institution in the global north, my gaze is that of a migrant person of colour from a former colony that comes alongside being Upper-caste, and middle-class. Doing academic work entailed navigating these multiple power structures.

My navigation and academic praxis further hinges on the fact that I am an Indian, who was researching counter-narratives to the Indian state located in the lifeworlds of Kashmiris living in Delhi. The writing of the PhD thesis entailed navigating the academic requirement of engaging with an “established canon” without decentering the scholarship coming from critical Kashmir studies. Drawing on my experiences of writing and teaching as a PhD researcher in an institution in the global north, in this paper, I question the practices of citation that impacts knowledge production. The paper seeks to explore the question: whose knowledge is knowledge? By exploring the implication of citations on the researched, the researcher and the body of knowledge

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Paper short abstract:

By focusing on ‘waiting’ as a key aspect of ethnography, this paper calls for reviewing how anthropologists are expected to do fieldwork in Global South. Waiting illuminates the gap between the university’s ethical requirements and the ethics of the cultural setting in which anthropologists work.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I reflect on my ethnographic fieldwork in Northeast India as a PhD student from a university in abroad. I look at these reflections through the concept of ‘waiting’ that emerged during my fieldwork. As anthropologists, waiting in the field is not unfamiliar to us. By looking at waiting as a lens, I not only argue how central it is in doing fieldwork in the Global South but also in regions, such as Northeast India, which has historically been marginalised and ‘othered’ in the academic and political discourses even within the Global South. Using waiting as a lens challenges the neoliberal university’s urge to be productive, impactful and result-oriented. It exposes the indifference of the ethical procedures, particularly in Global North universities to conduct research in Global South. As doctoral students in Euro-American universities, we are required to provide definite timelines, questions, consent forms, number of respondents and assess risks which are usually imbued with biases towards field sites in the Global South. However, what happens when the field encompasses a plural set of ethics and values? How do we elicit responses from participants who do not follow fixed timetables including leisure time? What happens in a cultural setting in which the participants do not communicate through formal emails and are not habituated to setting formal meetings and phone calls? To address such questions, I use the (non) activity of waiting to challenge the way we are expected to do ethnographic fieldwork in the Global South.

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Paper short abstract:

Opportunities for African researchers in the global north to conduct research ‘back home’, embody a shift to decolonial Anthropology. Reflections on complexities of positionality, social responsibility and decolonisation during my fieldwork as a South African affiliated with a Dutch university.

Paper long abstract:

In the pursuit of economic opportunities, early career African researchers often migrate to the global north while conducting research ‘back home’, in their home countries, signaling a shift towards decolonial Anthropology. This migration, however, introduces challenges related to navigating complex dynamics of positionality, decoloniality, and fieldworker responsibility. The researcher’s transnational, racial, ethnic, class and gender identities result in a continual shifting on the insider-outsider spectrum.

In this article I draw reflections on my fieldwork experience in Mankweng, South Africa, as a South African pursuing a Ph.D. at a Dutch university, I grapple with the conspicuous nature of my position upon entering the field. The historical relationship between the Netherlands and my post-colonial home significantly influences gatekeeping and collaboration opportunities, providing a contextual backdrop for my research.

Similar to other African scholars documented by Bourke et al. in 2009, I confront the tension between social responsibility towards my interlocutors and their expectations of mutual benefit. The proximity of the research field to my home offers a chance to reconnect with loved ones, but it also intensifies the pressure to be present for significant life events, adding complexity to my fieldwork journey.

This reflection, from the perspective of a global south early career researcher affiliated with a global north university, contributes a nuanced narrative to the Anthropology of southern Africa. It echoes the voice of scholars who navigate the complexities of conducting fieldwork 'back home,' where personal, social, and decolonial dimensions intersect in a delicate dance.

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Paper short abstract:

As a white European doing research in India, I grapple with legacy of colonialism. I hail from Poland, recently analysed as a country previously colonised. In my paper, using these experiences, I contextualize the global South-North divide and I argue that decolonization requires solidarity.

Paper long abstract:

I conduct my ethnography in India, a cradle of postcolonialism and a grievous history of colonialism. As a white European conducting research in the global South, I might be perceived by both my Indian colleagues and research participants as embedded in the colonial project, to say the least. In other words, I am an anthropologist of the 'Other culture,' one that has too frequently been 'Othered.'

Simultaneously, I come from Poland, where calls for the decolonization of local culture from Western influences are more recent than those in India but nevertheless valid, even if Poland is not commonly associated with the global South. In this sense, I am an anthropologist from 'the Other' culture (Poland) who conducts research on 'the Other' culture (India).

Adding to this conundrum, I must be aware of different power relations that play a role in my fieldwork. For example, there are intersectionalities of gender and race: I am a cisgender woman vis-a-vis my cisgender male participants, a white person in a country where often the brighter your complexion, the more privileges you enjoy, etc.

In my paper, I would like to analyze the myriad ways in which my positionality closes off certain possibilities of decolonized knowledge production while opening up others. I emphasize that the distinction between the global South and North should be contextualized once again to forge new alliances. I conclude that true decolonization and emancipation can only be achieved through solidarities.

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Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I approach methods of auto-ethnography and present some stories between me and four Burundian college students to discuss how dreams, realities, and desiring from the global south are affected by each other through interactions within and after fieldwork.

Paper long abstract:

The connection with informants and persons that anthropologists meet in the field has long been a topic garnering attention in methodology and academic ethics. By approaching auto-ethnography, I want to particularly present some stories between me and four Burundian college students to discuss how we are affected by each other through interactions within and after fieldwork. I trace moves within and after the fieldwork: through college campus and pubs in Burundi and from offices in Europe that hold online meetings and Chinese language tests that determine Burundian students’ opportunity to move abroad. Multi-sites and pathways will reveal how contacts between an early-career researcher and his informants shift dreams, realities, and desiring through contacts in physical and online spaces. I contend that the connections between global south countries and the “outside” world shall be understood in terms of “lines”: patterns of embodied movement that determine imagination and desiring. As a researcher who grew up in East Asia, studied in Europe, and did fieldwork in an African country, I quote my embodied experience to explore a fundamental question: How does connection move us?

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Paper short abstract:

This paper problematizes the notion of ‘epistemic injustice’, challenging ‘the way of knowing’ and ‘the way of doing’ development with the 'severe poor'.

Paper long abstract:

This ongoing research critically scrutinizes the role, status, and methodological practices of researchers and practitioners in dealing with the 'severe poor'. The term 'severe poor' is deliberately employed to differentiate this group from the 'extreme poor' as defined by the World Bank. The 'severe poor' in this case are identified as those who are residing at the lowest rungs of society and often lacking agency, power, and political influence, characteristics that align with Gayatri Spivak's (2003, 2005) concept of the 'subaltern'. The research problematises the notion of ‘epistemic injustice’, challenging ‘the way of knowing’ and ‘the way of doing’ development with the 'severe poor' based on the learning and microethical reflections derived from the experience of a number of empirical fieldworks in Bangladesh. One key argument is that an encounter with the 'severe poor' engages symmetrical gazing both by the researchers (and the practitioners) and the participants as evidenced by certain gestures. This keeps ‘the colonial’ alive with its ‘after-effects’ (Hall, 1996: 248) along with the appropriation of class hierarchies that sustain the ‘divide and rule’ system. The severe poor are thus further disenfranchised even with uttered commitment to inclusionary practices. It is anticipated that this research will contribute to the ongoing discourse on decolonizing knowledge and development, an area of interest that has predominantly been theoretical rather than grounded in research and development practice. This will involve a thorough examination of how the severe poor or marginalized individuals are heard, portrayed, and targeted by both researchers and practitioners.