Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenor:
-
Marcin Brocki
(Jagiellonian University)
- Location:
- Room 303
- Start time:
- 15 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Public anthropologists believe anthropology can play an important role in the public debate only while serving the "public interests" as an applied science. Are they right? Should we follow "public interests"? Should we fit into public media formats with our message?
Long Abstract:
Public anthropology has been inseparably connected with applied anthropology by its proponents, because they believed that the question, whether anthropology can play an important role in the public debate, depends on whether or not it can be applied or serve the public interests. But we can ask if it's right identification, and what are the practical and theoretical consequences for anthropology of such a binding. Serving the public interests might mean many things, not necessary very noble, as the definition of those interests is a part of power relations. Thus do we really have to follow the "public interests"? The part of the game is media. What about formatting our message according to public media that mediate anthropological knowledge? Are there any limits in the process: should we be worried by the danger of tabloidization of anthropology? Should we than reconsider what is the public space - what about limiting it to university and lecture halls? Applied sciences are promoted by our institutional surrounding - should we follow their track, should we use practical results as a criterion to judge the quality of work? According to those criteria for the largest part anthropological knowledge is of little value - should we thus rebuild our discipline or rather try to influence institutions? The competition among social sciences in the struggle for being present in public space can't also be overlooked - are we the same effective at translating our problems into the language of the public debate?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The paper will explore whether institutions do "think" more rationally than individuals, as proposed by Mary Douglas. The interaction between individual expectations and institutional constraints will be explored with reference to recent debates about nationalism and ethnicity.
Paper long abstract:
Drawing upon Mary Douglas's ideas of how we mirror our social relations when addressing the wider issues, related to ideology, the paper will explore the possibilities for interpreting recent political developments in Europe in a new key. The resilience of nationalism and ethnicity (along with some other issues related to identity) and some other concepts traditionally studied by anthropologists proved to be much more complicated and more open to debate than assumed by scholars like Gellner and Hobsbawm several decades ago. The role of the anthropologists within the realm of the political (the politics of anthropology) also needs to be re-evaluated. The question of whether institutions or individuals are behaving more rationally when faced with everyday problems is another interesting point of departure for future anthropological research.
Paper short abstract:
Through reinterpreting Xiaotong Fei's functionalist ethnography Peasant Life in China(1939), I will point out holistic characters in the monograph, and advocate a new viewpoint of "plural levels of ethnographical object setting", which was paid scant attention to in previous discussions of holism.
Paper long abstract:
In anthropology today, few discussions about functionalism can be found. However, the problem of holism becomes the spotlight again recently. Rethinking functionalism, as a crucial background for anthropological holism, would offer us an important and a useful vehicle for thinking about the future of anthropology.
Following the attitude of experimental ethnographies pointed out by Marcus and Fischer (1986), I will try to "look backward for inspiration to" Xiaotong Fei's Peasant Life in China (PLC henceforth), "felicitously misread" this monograph, and "draw out" its "underplayed, forgotten, or latent possibilities". PLC and John Embree's Suye mura published in 1939 are considered to be the first functionalist ethnographies of Asian societies. And in PLC, Fei clearly described the articulation between community and world-system and several relationships between one community and other social units, not limited to traditional closed community. Why does PLC have these descriptions even before fifty years of postmodern anthropology?
To further explore this problem, first I will concentrate on Fei's anthropological training and argue for plural background of his functionalism: including theories of Malinowski, Radcliff-Brown, Silocogoloff, and Robert Park. Taking all their views into consideration, Fei used the term community consistently as an analytical concept and operational concept in order to describe one Chinese village. And then I will propose that Fei's method has a "plural levels of ethnographical object setting", as one of the holistic technique of functionalist anthropology, which was not attached a great deal of importance to in previous discussion of holism.
Paper short abstract:
Critical discussion is essential and indispensable to solve endemic social problems not only at the level of a nation, but also at the level of a grass-roots organization such as a self-governing association. Ethnographic writing is expected to contribute to the solution of these problems.
Paper long abstract:
My fieldwork investigation of two self-governing associations in the Kyoto Prefecture has revealed that there are great gaps between the ideals stipulated in the existing laws on the one hand, and the realities evidenced in the field on the other hand. The problems encountered in the field are triple: old-timers hold to their vested interests, newcomers evidence ongoing apathy, and some public servants demonstrate chronic inertia. The fundamental problem between old-timers and newcomers is the fact that the former avoid engaging in critical discussion on the problems with the latter. The reform of public service is a national agenda concern.
My fieldwork evidence leads me to state that we have a long way to go before we can meet the ideals required by the existing laws. What I recommend is that we should stop following other people blindly and have a critical discussion on problems.
My ethnographic writing is to be hoped to throw light on the nature of social problems and to contribute to the solution of the problems.
Paper short abstract:
The problem of the present “public anthropology” is that it is linked with an applied, engaged and activist perspectives, the perspectives that do not generate or multiply anthropological knowledge nor brings any authority to the discipline.
Paper long abstract:
It is usually taken for granted that anthropology should be present in public space. The fact is treated as so natural that the discourse on it takes place almost exclusively within the frameworks of the "how" and "where" to be present, as if the problem was merely "technical". However, bearing in mind that anthropologists have inscribed in their discipline to question the obvious ("natural"), including commonsense truths generated by their professional culture, it's important to answer the question why "public anthropology" should be "natural" component of the discipline. I'll try to show that reflection on the "how", in today's cultural and institutional conditions must be adjourned, mainly because the involvement in public debate was disastrously combined with an engaged, applied and activist anthropologies. Such a view on public anthropology does not generate or multiply anthropological knowledge nor it brings any authority to the discipline. Public anthropology should rather abandon the paradigm of the socially useful knowledge. Anthropologists definitely should not be judged by how they promote social change, they also should not concentrate on influencing the public opinion. They should rather be judged by the effectiveness in stabilizing (by translation) the social and cultural spaces. Anthropologists also should not follow the public debate to influence the public opinion; they should rather do their own thing: create conditions for efficient communication of our knowledge, and point out problems which are important from "anthropological point of view", and try to convince the public that these problems are also important for them.