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- Convenors:
-
Susana Narotzky
(Universitat de Barcelona)
Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (University of Brasilia)
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- Track:
- General
- Location:
- University Place Main Theatre
- Sessions:
- Saturday 10 August, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Ten years after the Symposium "World Anthropologies - disciplinary transformations within systems of power", we want to appraise and discuss its theoretical, practical and political impacts. This session will put together some of the most influential voices of this and other related global debates.
Long Abstract:
In 2003, the Wenner-Gren Foundation International Symposium "World Anthropologies - disciplinary transformations within systems of power" was held in Italy. In 2006, the homonymous book was published. The symposium and book expressed in theoretical and political terms some of the positions of a larger international group called the World Anthropologies Network. Ten years after, we want to appraise and discuss their theoretical, practical and political impacts. Do we now have more horizontal and plural, heteroglossic worldwide relationships among anthropological communities? Is the Anglo-American disciplinary hegemony more open to other influences? Have "South-South" conversations increased? These and other questions will be discussed by some of the most influential voices of the world anthropologies and other related global debates. The participation of the audience will also be highly welcome.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 10 August, 2013, -Paper short abstract:
We present : language concern while writing The Lausanne Manifesto (2011); evolution of the Manifesto to a dictionary (Anthropen); reflections about the contributions of the franco-world anthropology to the world anthropologies.
Paper long abstract:
Within the anthropological and francophone international community, the idea of "world anthropologies" proposed by the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) had not garnered a large audience. This is probably because the French anthropology believed to be the center of knowledge production and as such felt it did not needed to be "included" somewhere else than its own locale, mainly France. Yet, since 2007, a small movement from the francophone world has joined and further developed the concept of "world anthropologies" - first by Quebec intellectuals and then scholars from Switzerland, Belgium, Italia, France, Brazil, and United States - through the publication of The Lausanne Manifesto (2011). This paper will present: 1) the language concern while writing the Manifesto; 2) the evolution of the Manifesto to a new dictionary called Anthropen; and finally, 3) some reflections about the contributions of the franco-world anthropology to the world anthropologies.
Paper short abstract:
Ten years have gone since the founding of the World Anthropologies Network. The project has been institutionalized interaction among anthropological communities has undoubtedly increased; but, beyond connectivity, have the power centers of knowledge production changed?
Paper long abstract:
Ten years have gone since the founding of the World Anthropologies Network by Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, Arturo Escobar and a small group of colleagues. The project has been institutionalized in the World Council for Anthropological Associations and in the re-vitalization of the IUAES, an international forum of anthropological traditions and interests. The interaction among anthropological communities has undoubtedly increased; but has the original power-knowledge problem withered away? It is time to focus on the issue of power beyond connectivity: have the power centers of knowledge production changed? What are the voices that are heard in the anthropological time-space topologies of knowledge? How important is the "language issue" and control of major academic journals? Are creative ontologies of our field a good enough substitute for seeking equal access to knowledge production?
Paper short abstract:
Anthropology has become recognized as not Euro-American but global in recent years. However, the audit culture has increased Anglo-American hegemony in publication. This paper explores how the intellectual and the institutional are profoundly at odds in the shaping of world anthropologies.
Paper long abstract:
As compared to a decade ago, world anthropologies have become globally recognized. There is a greater awareness that anthropology is not only a Euro-American but a truly global endeavor, with a greater understanding of the various kinds of anthropology practiced around the world. One sign of this is that many major Anglo-American anthropological publications have added international anthropologists to their editorial boards. At the same time, however, the global growth of the audit culture and research assessment exercises threatens to further the hegemony of the Euro-American anthropological core. The holy grail sought by those who must be judged in such exercises is publication in highly-cited journals, which are typically those that come from the anthropological core; while many of these journals are indeed internationalizing their editorial boards, those who are chosen to represent world anthropologies are often those most familiar to the core, and thus more likely to share its ideas of what anthropology is. The intellectual and the institutional are thus profoundly at odds in the shaping of world anthropologies. Which will win out—increasing global anthropological awareness, or ever more enveloping audit culture? The anthropological vision of the World Council of Anthropological Associations or that of the Social Science Citation Index? Will Morgan and Tylor's evolutionary schemas finally be transcended or rather institutionally resurrected? In the short term, the audit culture will win, threatening the nascent recognition of global anthropologies. The long term remains to be seen.
Paper short abstract:
Notions such as center and peripherycan be used in description of the inequalities in knowledge production and reproduction of hierarchies of knowledge in anthropology. Can existing disparities be diverted? Can anthropology be transformed from a panoptical structure to a multi-centred discipline?
Paper long abstract:
Creating a decentralised and fair system of locally generated anthropological and ethnological knowledge is a big challenge for anthropology in a globalised world. The disparities in various forms of capital engender ossified hierarchies of nationally and regionally identifiable scholarships. The configurations of influential vs. insignificant, i.e. hegemonic vs. dominated scholarly traditions, which have been entrenched for decades, tend to recreate themselves. Anthropologists are proud of being critical of/about the existing social, economic and cultural inequalities, and of being morally sensitive to any form of discrimination; they perceive themselves as critics of injustice and advocates of solidarity. Simultaneously, they rarely reflect on the established order as well as the economic and societal structures that contribute to the perpetuation of these intra-disciplinary inequities. The latter hinder or even stop the desired flow of anthropological experiences and insights that could lead to the emergence of a truly cosmopolitan and, at the same time, locally informed knowledge. These phenomena need to be mapped, diagnosed and critically analysed. By using specific examples of intricate relations between regional and national anthropological scholarships, the paper traces? some developments, such as growing hybridity and the rise of contact zones, which can be treated as symptoms of the growing cross-fertilisation of anthropological wisdom.
Paper short abstract:
The world anthropologies’ debate is well known in different anthropological communities, thanks to several initiatives that disseminated the visions of this political and theoretical movement. I will discuss the main accomplishments of the world anthropologies’ project, its limits and obstacles.
Paper long abstract:
The world anthropologies' (WA) debate is well known in different anthropological communities, thanks to the creation of the World Anthropologies Network in the early 2000s; to a symposium that led to an homonymous book; and to other initiatives that disseminated the visions of this political and theoretical movement. The WA project aims at pluralizing the history of anthropology; spreading the awareness that the discipline is made up of different perspectives; and propitiating the emergence of cosmopolitan anthropological practices to create a more heteroglossic practice. Although it considers the role that different subject positions play in the construction of anthropological knowledge, WA tend to emphasize the relationships between hegemonic and non-hegemonic centers of anthropological production located within and without nation-states. It is influenced by the notion that there is a "geopolitics of knowledge" historically related to the unequal power distribution within the "world system of anthropological production." WA assume that anthropologists value diversity as a means of improving creativity; it is possible to enhance cross-fertilization if anthropologists take advantage of the heterodox opportunities opened by globalization processes; there is a need to avoid the "gravitational power of hegemonic internationalization" to go beyond the monotony of an academic universe dominated by Anglo-American perspectives; universality as a notion dominated by an Eurocentric vision of epistemological achievements is to be left behind in favor of "diversality," the new universal. This paper will discuss some of the main accomplishments of the world anthropologies' project, its limits and the obstacles it has faced since its beginning.
Paper short abstract:
This paper asks, how and why is it that we assume that modern knowledge is universal, despite its European genealogy and its historically recent provenance? What warrant do we have for considering this superior to the pre-modern knowledges of the West, and the autochthonous knowledges of the non-West?
Paper long abstract:
This paper asks a series of very direct, if not simple, questions. How and why is it that we assume that modern knowledge is universal, despite its European genealogy and its historically recent provenance? What warrant do we have for considering this superior to the pre-modern knowledges of the West, and the autochthonous knowledges of the non-West? Are we, in short, right to assume that modern Western knowledge transcends the circumstances of its historical and geographical emergence and thus that the social sciences are 'true' for everyone- even though to do so is to privilege the modern and the western, over the pre-modern and the non-Western? In addressing these questions this essay highlights the exclusions- of gods and spirits, and of nature- that have gone into the constitution of the concept of 'the social', a taken-for-granted object which provides the ground and the subject matter for the social sciences.