Short Abstract

This panel examines how the teaching of anthropology is being shaped by political polarisation, institutional change, and current global pressures. We invite theoretically and ethnographically grounded contributions on pedagogical tensions, transformations, and possibilities across diverse settings.

Long Abstract

This panel explores how current forces of political, economic, and cultural polarisation are transforming the teaching and learning of anthropology, both within and beyond the classroom. We approach anthropology as a field of contested knowledge production — often complicit in the structures it claims to critique, yet capable of fostering alternative imaginaries in its pedagogical approaches.

We welcome theoretically and ethnographically grounded papers that examine how polarising dynamics are reshaping the means, content, and contexts in which anthropology is taught, enacted, and contested. Global movements like #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, and decolonisation campaigns call not only for curricular reform but also for a rethinking of the canon, pedagogical authority, and disciplinary values. Technological changes — from COVID-era remote teaching to AI-assisted teaching, learning and assessment — pose further pedagogical challenges to how anthropology is passed on. All these within increasing institutional pressures via reduced budgets, stricter visa policies, escalating tuition costs, and the broader instrumentalization of higher education. We also welcome reflections on multimodal and extra universitary teaching practices — podcasts, social media — and how these engage and challenge polarised publics.

We invite paper proposals that view teaching as a space of negotiation, transformation, and resistance, as well as a context for reimagining anthropology’s futures in an increasingly polarized world as well as contributions that examine:

-How ideological conflict influences what can be taught, who participates, and how classroom dynamics develop

-How efforts to decolonise or diversify the canon are taken up, resisted, or reconfigured across institutions and regions.

-How educators respond to curriculum reform, censorship, surveillance, technological developments, or resource cuts

-How teaching occurs in alternative spaces — online, public, activist — and how these challenge traditional pedagogical roles

-How teachers and learners experience the emotional, ethical, and intellectual strain of teaching in divided settings.

This Panel has 2 pending paper proposals.
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