Paper short abstract

By citing concrete cases, the paper emphasises that pursuing a system of ‘world anthropologies’ is a worthwhile goal, despite the unavoidable obstacles that emerge at the intersection of political conflicts in a polarised world and within an anthropological community.

Paper long abstract

Creating a decentralised system in the global field of anthropology remains a challenge today. Disparities in economic and socio-cultural capital contribute to maintaining historically established hierarchies among different scholarship systems, whether continental, regional, or linguistic. The stereotype of academically driven, insightful knowledge produced in ‘centres’ versus empirical knowledge from the ‘peripheries’ persists despite efforts to defy it. The role of English as the lingua franca of science reinforces the dominance of Anglophone perspectives. Although awareness of these hierarchies has increased, progress is slower than advocates of ‘world anthropologies’ would like. There is an ignorance of parallel knowledge systems developed outside national, linguistic, and thematic boundaries. Sherry Ortner, referring to a single anthropological tradition, observed: “The field appears to be a thing of shreds and patches, of individuals and small coteries pursuing disjunctive investigations and talking mainly to themselves” (1984: 126). Recently, local and global conflicts have led to the construction of anthropological isolates surrounded by ideological iron curtains, the politicisation of the discipline, polarisation within the scholarly community, and the exclusion of certain scholars because of their origin or political views. All these hinder the development of a cosmopolitan anthropology resulting from the multidirectional flow of knowledge, informed by various traditions and produced by individuals with different worldviews. Is there a prospect for a non-hierarchical, non-exclusionary anthropology that shares some values or adheres to overarching research paradigms? Some examples from the anthropology of Europe suggest that it is an unreachable goal that, despite all odds, anthropologists should continually pursue.

Paper short abstract

After reviewing earlier debates concerning the anthropological field in (post)socialist Eastern Europe, the paper moves beyond insider/outsider tensions to consider uneven disciplinary landscapes generally. Ethical cosmopolitanism has to be realistically reconciled with cumulative science.

Paper long abstract

The paper addresses the need to overcome hierarchies and create a level playing field for the production and dissemination of anthropological knowledge generally (perhaps even universally). In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), decolonization debates must take account of the complex history of this region as well as evolved differences between comparative social anthropology and the “ethnological” traditions found in most continental European countries. Diagnoses of “hierarchies of knowledge” (Buchowski 2004) followed the end of the Cold War. If not polarization, there was definitely some friction between indigenous scholars and researchers from metropoles such as Cambridge alleged to be “orientalising” CEE and neglecting indigenous voices. Insider/outsider tensions are significant in many parts of the world but, after revisiting this particular discussion concerning CEE, this paper moves beyond the issues surrounding “anthropology at home” to explore enduring structural inequalities in the era of accelerating globalization. It engages pragmatically with the “project of expansion” recommended by Andrew Sanchez (2023). His proposals for equalizing intellectual communities are evaluated with reference to one community of scholars in CEE (in Budapest) and found to be unrealistic, perhaps utopian. The metropoles are not fading away. Is imperative to work out new forms of cooperation on an egalitarian basis. However (bearing in mind the panel’s invitation to consider “moral horizons”), multipolar cosmopolitanism in the anthropological field can be ethically problematic and difficult to reconcile with the criteria for a science that should be academically cumulative as well as politically progressive.

Paper short abstract

This paper explores how the Soviet ethnographic legacy shapes contemporary Georgian academia, marked by polarisation, and argues that ethnography can bridge divides, foster dialogue, and guide forward-looking, inclusive research.

Paper long abstract

In contemporary Georgian academia, the legacies of the Soviet ethnographic school coexist with sharply polarised scholarly and social landscapes. This paper examines how historical ethnographic practices were shaped by institutional, political, and ideological pressures, and how these patterns continue to influence current anthropological knowledge production. Drawing on archival research, fieldwork, and sustained engagement with Georgian ethnology, I approach this legacy with curiosity rather than moral judgment, aiming to unpack the forces, alignments, and tensions that structure academic and social debates. I argue that ethnography, both as a method and as an intellectual framework, offers a unifying approach capable of bridging divisions, fostering dialogue, and generating new insights. By reflecting on past experience and imagining forward-looking practices, this study proposes pathways for collaborative and inclusive research, demonstrating the potential of ethnography to transform polarised spaces and cultivate shared understanding in contemporary Georgian anthropology.

Paper short abstract

The proposal raises a critical reflection on the paradox that anthropology faces today in non-metropolitan contexts. We argue that possibilities for thinking about anthropologies beyond the metropolis do not emerge from the discipline's normalized interior but from its margins.

Paper long abstract

The proposal raises a critical reflection on the paradox that anthropology faces today in non-metropolitan contexts: even in a multi-polarized world, a significant portion of the dominant anthropologies produced in the peripheries continues to conform to the world-system of anthropology, which is hegemonized from the United States.

Rather than opening spaces for theoretical or political experimentation, these dynamics tend to reproduce agendas, languages, and problems defined elsewhere, creating a landscape of standardization in which, in substantive terms, the canon tends to be reproduced.

The symposium also questions the possibility of projecting common values for the discipline into the future. Such a project, tested in global spaces like the World Council of Anthropological Associations, silences and invisibilizes all the conversations that took place from the peripheries, which contextualize a unique international anthropology and propose to inhabit anthropologies in the plural.

Faced with this scenario, the presentation argues that the possibilities for thinking about anthropologies beyond the metropolis do not emerge from the normalized interior of the discipline, but from its margins, its institutional outskirts, and from intellectual practices that do not entirely fit into the hegemonic regimes of validation.

It is about exploring in those displacements the possibilities of imagining articulations without going through the world system of anthropology.

Paper short abstract

How should anthropology be taught in an age of AI and other wicked problems? Drawing on the Antro Radikoj project and an experimental graduate course, I argue for shifting anthropology education from knowledge transmission toward the cultivation of practical wisdom and openness to diverse knowledge

Paper long abstract

How can we meaningfully prepare future generations of anthropologists to engage with the growing number of ‘wicked’ problems facing Planet Earth? Many contemporary challenges are characterized not only by uncertainty in knowledge but also by disagreement about the values at stake. Such conditions raise important questions about what anthropology should teach and how it should be taught.

My involvement in the governance of the discipline at both the European (EASA) and global (IUAES, WAU) levels has led me to reflect critically on anthropology curricula worldwide. Together with a group of international colleagues, I obtained Wenner-Gren Foundation seed funding for the project Antro Radikoj (‘Roots of Anthropology’), which examined the current state of anthropological teaching with particular attention to decanonizing the curriculum and creating openings for alter-native pedagogies.

Underlying this work is the conviction that anthropology has always been about more than the transmission of knowledge. At its best, the discipline has sought to communicate forms of practical wisdom emerging from sustained engagement with diverse ways of being in the world, including Indigenous and other marginalized praxis traditions. Drawing on insights from the Antro Radikoj project, I critically analyze an experimental graduate course designed to foster students’ practical wisdom through collaborative inquiry, reflexive learning, and engagement with non-hegemonic anthropological traditions.

I argue that educational approaches centred on cultivating judgment, openness to different perspectives, and the ability to ask meaningful questions may be better suited to an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence than pedagogies focused primarily on the transfer of knowledge.