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- Convenor:
-
Gustavo Lins Ribeiro
(University of Brasilia)
- Discussants:
-
Leslie Aiello
(Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research)
Takami Kuwayama (Hokkaido University)
Susana Narotzky (Universitat de Barcelona)
- Location:
- International CR
- Start time:
- 18 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 4
Short Abstract:
What was accomplished by the WCAA in its tens years of existence? In what ways have world anthropologies benefited from the WCAA existence? What is to be done? Which are the critical institutional, political and theoretical issues we still need to deal with to foster the mission of the WCAA?
Long Abstract:
The WCAA was founded in Recife by 14 presidents of anthropological associations during the meeting of the Brazilian Association of Anthropology, in 2004. Ten years after, it is reaching almost 50 members. It is time to assess its role in international scientific politics and to explore the possibilities for the next 10 years. Presenters include the former and current chairs of the World Council, other members of the founding meeting in Brazil, colleagues who have been deeply involved with this project since then as well as colleagues who are independent from the Council's project but aware of the broader issues involved in the world anthropologies debate. What was accomplished in these years? In what ways have world anthropologies benefited from the WCAA existence? What else is to be done? Which are the critical institutional, political and theoretical issues we need to deal with to foster the mission of the WCAA in the future?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The WCAA results from cosmopolitics of the 21st century. It was quickly seen as a tool to enhance the anthropological voice on the global level. Has the WCAA been able to fulfill the hopes it raised? What has it changed? Can anthropologists now enjoy a more equitable international scene?
Paper long abstract:
The 20th century witnessed different kinds of anthropological cosmopolitanisms. The WCAA results from cosmopolitics of the 21st century. It was quickly seen as a tool to enhance the anthropological voice on the global level. However any international organization based on a democratic and transnational perspective has many obstacles to overcome. Nation-states structuring powers and the existing structures of hegemonic internationalism are two of the most immediate ones. Language is another. Has the WCAA been able to fulfill the hopes it raised? What has it changed? Can anthropologists now enjoy a more equitable international scene? Which are the critical institutional, political and theoretical issues we need to deal with to foster the mission of the WCAA in the future? What else is to be done?
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines changes of WCAA during its ten years of development. The paper focuses on the challenges WCAA now faces: activating communication channels among member associations, setting its agenda neither too general nor too specific, and utilizing resources of past International Delegates.
Paper long abstract:
From the beginning in Recife on June 9th in 2004, when a meeting for the foundation of WCAA started, I participated in WCAA first as International Delegate of JASCA, then as Facilitator, then as its Chair and now as Secretary-General of the other international organization, IUAES. The title of Recife conference - "World Anthropologies: Strengthening the International Organization and Effectiveness of the Profession" - epitomizes the spirit and role of WCAA and this has not and will never change. But WCAA in the past decade has naturally been changing to my eyes, not only as my position changes in relation to it but also as WCAA grows in size and develops into organization closer to an institution. I would like to discuss some of the new challenges WCAA now faces due to these changes: (1) finding ways to effectively activate communication channels established by the network of WCAA member associations, (2) finding a solution in setting its agenda between conflicting demands of being meaningfully general enough to encompass the interests of all members and not being too specific as to alienate disinterested members, and (3) utilizing the resources of past International Delegates to the maximum, thus overcoming the problem of too swift rotation of WCAA delegates in face-to-face interaction. Finally, I will argue that WCAA should realize its full potential by being politically powerful in the best sense of the term.
Paper short abstract:
WCAA was created to improve international participation in the production of anthropological knowledge by promoting dialogue and equality. In this paper I discuss efforts by WCAA to address challenges within the discipline, and to provide an alternative model of globalisation for the world at large.
Paper long abstract:
Over the last century anthropological studies have been a testimony to human cultural diversity, as well as highlighting the existential challenges we all share, but the discipline has failed to provide an undistorted mirror of this unity in diversity. Critics from postcolonial studies and within anthropology have argued that anthropological knowledge cannot be universal so long as representatives of only a few privileged nations participate in the process of its construction, and so long as there are significant power differentials among those who do participate. From the perspective of a performance theory of truth, there are two necessary conditions if we wish for anthropology to genuinely reflect the human condition. The first step is to improve global participation in the social production of anthropological knowledge by creating equality within the discipline. The second is to help create a more level playing field in the world at large by challenging the abuses of power in contemporary societies. In this paper I discuss efforts by the WCAA and other international organizations in anthropology to satisfy some of these conditions.
Paper short abstract:
The paper represents the current chair of the WCAA on its current shape and future. The WCAA has grown from a tiny body to a worldwide organization of associations. How does it realise its main objectives? What is the future of the Council, especially in view of the re-emergence of IUAES?
Paper long abstract:
The WCAA emerged as an initiative of a small group of people concerned with the inequalities in anthropological knowledge production and consumption. The issue proved burning and today the association represents an extensive network of international, regional and national associations. In the first part of the paper, testimony to the organization's activities against its constitutional aims is given. These goals are: a) fostering a diversity of knowledge on common anthropological concerns, b) exchange and dissemination of multi-lingual knowledge and information, c) formation of a postgraduate students network, d) endorsement of the disciplines' presence in public debates and in education, as well as its role in political advocacy, e) attending to professional concerns, such as academic freedom and ethical issues. In the second part, the structure of the WCAA is analyzed with respect to its efficiency. Finally, the main tasks for the future are outlined in the context of WCAA's relationship with IUAES.
Paper short abstract:
This paper traces the tensions, uncertainties and potential dangers of the WCAA transformation from a group of national and international anthropological associations to an institutional representation of world anthropologies.
Paper long abstract:
This paper traces the tensions, uncertainties and potential dangers of the WCAA transformation from a group of national and international anthropological associations to an institutional representation of world anthropologies. As WCAA grows larger and inclusive the problems of how to represent this diversity of intellectual thought, systems of knowledge production, and language presentation is becoming more pronounced. How will the WCAA be able to represent multiple voices fairly and yet at the same time provide a focus and place to come together to imagine the global anthropology of the future.
Paper short abstract:
This paper asks what the WCAA pursues--if it is internationalization, multinationalism, transnationalism, polylogy, or even heterology, and what they evoke. Posing hard questions, it asks how much of its goal is (or has been) the pursuit of mutuality and how much of it might be a strategic politics.
Paper long abstract:
This paper considers different ways of conceiving what the WCAA has been pursuing--from internationalization to multinationalism, transnationalism, polylogy, and heterology (to invoke Todorov). It explores what each evokes, among whom, and the hopes accompanying their evocation. Quite willing to see value in the WCAA but also serious challenges, it poses hard questions, including whether the WCAA has been based on mutuality, the pursuit of mutuality or, alternatively, a strategic politics more than an ethics of being.
A particular historical moment led to the creation of the WCAA as a network but, as it looks ahead, issues that pertain more broadly to the world we live in loom large. Among these are (1) the role of nation-ness in our conception of the WCAA's main units, (2) the unequal size of the WCAA member organizations and the impact of size on influence and visibility, (3) hierarchies of power (implicit and explicit) within the world of anthropology, and (4) efforts to flatten those hierarchies, their relative successes, and failures. Despite great growth in the number of organizations joining the WCAA in its first decade, I will ask (1) if there aren't downsides to its reliance on national units; (2) if the WCAA has really succeeded in promoting a more de-centered anthropology than prior to its existence; and (3) if the WCAA is doing enough (despite the 2010 establishment of Task Forces and the 2013 launching of ASF--Antropologos sem fronteiras/Anthropologists without Borders).
Paper short abstract:
Why could the IUAES not deliver what the WCAA’s founders sought and what was the IUAES offering a decade ago? What has been the consequence for the IUAES of the WCAA’s establishment? How might two organisations reinforce the face of anthropology in a 21st century globalising world?
Paper long abstract:
When, a decade ago, the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) was established, the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) had already been in existence for over fifty years. The paper considers some of the reasons for the appearance of what some regarded as a 'new boy on the block' - both contextual, in terms of the specifics then of globalising processes, and specific as regards the then functioning of the IUAES and its public face. It considers some of the concerns that the 'new boy's' appearance created and discusses the processes through which the relationship between the two organisations has slowly been developing. In doing that, it also discusses the value for attempts to strengthen and reinforce the public face of anthropology in the contemporarily globalised world of having two organisations working in parallel, as well as the challenges that that circumstance brings.
Paper short abstract:
The WCAA has much in common with the United Nations, in both its promise and its shortcomings. Can this promise be fulfilled and shortcomings remedied without violating the democratic nature of WCAA? Can the WCAA be both administratively effective and open?
Paper long abstract:
The WCAA, an organization comprised of the presidents or representatives of anthropological associations worldwide, has organizationally much in common with the United Nations, although its stakes are lower. Like the United Nations, the WCAA has high ideals: it seeks to link world anthropology into a common forum. And like the United Nations, it suffers from, on the one hand, an excess of democracy, and on the other, apparently inevitable forms of structural domination.
Because the term of presidents of various anthropological associations is brief, many new presidents come in with every WCAA meeting. The new array of delegates often has little idea what WCAA is, and discussions occur on the same topics over and over. A training session for new representatives will be initiated, but mitigation of this problem seems structurally impossible. Those individuals who come to meetings year after year form the leadership of WCAA. These are people from small associations, where the same people serve year after year, and also, often, from relatively well-off associations: while WCAA offers financial aid for delegates, sustained commitment to WCAA requires ongoing professional stability. Areas of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa, China, and the Middle East are under-represented .
How can WCAA become a WORLD council of anthropological associations, both administratively effective and democratically open? The problems described in this paper will need to be solved as it evolves.
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects critically on how well the WCAA has been able to 'represent' various anthropologies (and anthropologists) and what is needed for future improvements.
Paper long abstract:
Most anthropologists are familiar with the 'crisis of representation' that (part of) the discipline faced in the 1980s. This referred to the realization that the representational conventions of the discipline (in its hegemonic centres), and the complacent epistemological stances they supported, were no longer credible. Anthropology has moved on since, in many directions (both geographically and conceptually). Alongside the recently reinvigorated International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) is a relatively young global anthropological body that 'aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology'. This task can only be executed successfully when the people who are active in the WCAA 'know' how anthropology across the globe is understood and practiced and when they 'represent' these various anthropologies (and anthropologists) properly. In this context, representation not only refers to the portrayal of someone or something in a particular way but also to the action of speaking or acting on behalf of a certain constituency. This paper reflects critically on how well the WCAA has been able to do this and what is needed for future improvements. Such a reflection is particularly relevant at a time when anthropology in various corners of the world is facing serious challenges.
Paper short abstract:
Three challenges for the future of the WCAA are discussed. 1-Transformation of the linguistinc structure, from a monolingual to plurilingual ; 2-The representation of minorities within the national organization who jointed the WCAA. 3-The epistemological locus of our polytheoretical organization.
Paper long abstract:
After ten years of an incredible work done by the members of WCAA, we have seen a series of phenomenon and developments, thought impossible before the foundation of this challenging organization.
For the first time, the foundation of an organization located in different places of production of anthropological knowledge was positively received by different partners of the world, mainly by the national association of anthropologists and by the large and powerfull AAA. The progress is obvious and many national associations decided to join the WCAA, especially for the visibility of their members and their intellectual traditions, for the non hegemonic approach, and for debates on anthropological matters. Nonetheless, challenges are numerous. I would like to discuss three of them: 1- Should WCAA transform its linguistic structure from an English dominant one toward a multilingual one? 2- How the plural structure of societies represented by the national associations can be reflected in the WCAA ? 3 - What should be done concerning the epistemological locus of our polytheoretical organization?
Paper short abstract:
The AAA is becoming increasingly international just as supranational frameworks help recalibrate relations of power and facilitate global circulations of knowledge from multiple sources. But most institutions remain within the nation-state model. How to chart our future in this context?
Paper long abstract:
I speak on this panel as current president of the American Anthropological Association -- and the second to be neither a US citizen nor based in the US. The world's largest such group, the AAA risks intellectual hegemony even as it globalizes from within and without. As is the case with all WCAA member associations, it also operates within a nation-state framework. Given the complexity of these conditions, how might the WCAA chart a future which enables recalibration of relations of power and global circulations of knowledge from multiple sources, while maintaining attention to local and regional conditions and realities of nation-states with differing positions with respect to global circulations of capital?
Paper short abstract:
Portugal’s place at a crossroads of the Euro-American and the south Atlantic routes of intellectual exchange has recently reaffirmed itself. In this paper I show how such reaffirmation has been largely possible through an immersion in a global anthropological network such as the one WCAA promoted.
Paper long abstract:
Portugal's place at a crossroads of the Euro-American routes of intellectual exchange and the south Atlantic routes has recently reaffirmed itself as an important mark in the way Portuguese social sciences intervene in the global scientific debate. In this presentation I will argue that in the case of anthropology, such reaffirmation has been made possible not only by bilateral relationships (for instance between Portuguese and Brazilian anthropology), but mostly by the immersion in a global anthropological network. Having as a formal objective to promote a better understanding among anthropologists working in different languages and national and regional traditions, WCAA acted in the last decade as a key platform in the promotion of such global anthropological network. Taking as a case in point journal indexations in Portuguese universities in the last decade, as well as the routes of national conferences, I will argue in favor of the role of WCAA not only in promoting anthropology globally but, more specifically, in crossing anthropologies in smaller scales of connection. The fact that many anthropologists in Portugal meet colleagues of the Portuguese speaking world through their commonality in intellectual traditions will be here addressed, with specific references of cases that occurred in the last decade and our prospective aims for the next decade in the life of WCAA.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, based upon an examination of the main accomplishments played by the WCAA since its formation, I discuss the challenges of consolidating and promoting world anthropologies in the next decade.
Paper long abstract:
Since its foundation, the WCAA has played relevant political and organizational roles for the institutionalization of world anthropologies. Based on these accomplishments, I examine and discuss the challenges facing the WCCA commitments towards fostering greater inclusiveness and equity among different anthropological traditions, including issues related to the possibilities and limits of multilingualism. I further suggest the need of programmatic undertakings and transnational collaborations a to consolidate and promote equitable world anthropologies.
Paper short abstract:
The paper discusses how the many unpublished records stored in the ethnographic archives of the formerly colonizing states can be made accessible to the indigenous peoples to whom they belong as part of their own cultural heritage and which role WCAA could play for achieving this goal.
Paper long abstract:
The older repatriation debate in anthropology focused mainly on human remains and objects of material culture. Yet the UN Declaration of 2007 goes still a step further by also confirming the right of indigenous peoples "to practise and revitalize their culture tradition and customs" by maintaining and protecting the "past manifestations of their culture". To the international community of anthropologists, this represents a serious challenge, since most historical knowledge on traditional non-literate cultures is stored in Western libraries, museums and ethnographic archives. Especially important are the still unedited written and audiovisual records of travelers, missionaries and early anthropologists. They often contain ethnographic information that was dropped out of scientific publications because it did not fit to classical evolutionist, diffusionist or functional theories, but has become very precious for current endeavors to reconstruct indigenous cultures' histories and former ways of life. In my paper, I want to discuss the possibilities to make these documents accessible to the indigenous peoples who actually own them as a part of their own cultural heritage. This seems to be especially important for historical ethnographic records that are not written in contemporary world languages as English, Spanish or French. A worldwide network of anthropological associations as WCAA in which scholars from colonizing and colonized states are working together could be an ideal platform for developing strategies to accomplish this task.
Paper short abstract:
The paper seeks to explore the possibilities WCAA can offer in terms of strengthening regional anthropologies to ensure critical engagement among the community of scholars from different parts of the globe in their march towards world anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
WCAA rests on the principle of coming together of professional associations on the basis of national anthropologies and marching ahead towards a global and cosmopolitan anthropological engagement .This paper critically examines the new articulations these national anthropologies have not only with the emerging world order but also among themselves. Many of the nations do not have adequate presence of the discipline in their territory while others have articulated their national interests beyond the territorial boundaries of the nation state.
It is interesting to see how WCAA is providing enabling spaces for such tendencies which often get crystallized around a region chequered with the principle of ethnicity, language and nationalism. The paper attempts to explore the possibilities WCAA can offer in terms of creating
democratic and emancipatory spaces for national and regional anthropologies with special reference to south Asia.