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- Convenors:
-
Diego Ballestero
(Universität Bonn)
Erik Petschelies (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
This panel explores the decolonial perspective as a tool for "unwriting" Western hegemony in anthropology. It invites critiques of dominant epistemic structures, innovative approaches to pluriversal anthropology, and reflections on decolonizing practices in both academia and the field.
Long Abstract:
The genealogy of Anthropology, inextricably linked to the modern/colonial project, has been complicit in the perpetuation and naturalisation of global hierarchies of knowledge. This complicity manifests itself not only in the selection of study objects and methodologies, but also in the very conceptual architecture of the discipline. Despite the various critical turns that have shaken its foundations -interpretive, reflective, ontological-, Anthropology continues to operate within epistemological frameworks that privilege Western forms of knowledge production and validation.
This panel explores the transformative potential of the decolonial perspective as a tool for ‘unwriting’ Western hegemony in the production and circulation of anthropological knowledge. This ‘unwriting’ implies, on the one hand, the deconstruction of the narratives that have shaped the anthropological imaginary; on the other hand, the creation of liminal spaces from which border epistemologies and subalternised knowledge emerge.
This panel/workshop invites contributions that articulate an incisive critique of the dominant epistemic structures in anthropology, that propose innovative ways to re-imagine a pluriversal anthropology, that make visible and analyse subalternised histories, subjectivities, agencies and memories in the production of anthropological knowledge, that explore dialogues between intellectual and political projects from different latitudes, that reflect on the historical complicity of anthropology with colonial power structures, and that present concrete experiences for the decolonisation of anthropological practices, both in academia and in the field.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper Short Abstract:
My presentation explores situations arising from the anthropologist’s age, gender, class, ethnicity, and language. I connect these to the dichotomies of insider and outsider, home and field, stability and mobility, and through them I discuss broader hierarchies between East and West in anthropology.
Paper Abstract:
Starting out from three personal memories of situations that took place during fieldwork or in academic institutions in different locations, in Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Norway, my presentation and paper explore some of the difficult and often unspoken/unwritten tenets of anthropology as a discipline: age, gender, class, ethnicity, and language. Through discussing how the researcher’s stance in these respects position them vis-à-vis the choice of the topic, the objects of the research, and the methodologies used to explore it as well as to interpret the data, I aim to unpack the (false) dichotomy of the insider and the outsider position, the distinction between the “home” and the “field”, and the (in)visible opposition of stability and mobility as key aspect of anthropological research and/or neoliberal academia. Through reframing researchers’ individual/private experiences, opportunities, and limitations into narratives of collective and structural positions in academia, the broader object of the presentation and the paper is to (un)write (about) issues of knowledge hierarchies between East and West in anthropology.
Paper Short Abstract:
The proposal aims at unwriting (the notion of) nostalgia: not only that the term nostalgia bears mostly negative set of values and that it is heteroglossic, but it also works in promoting neoliberal goals (worldwide) and (when linked to the notion of post-socialism) in orientalizing the SEE.
Paper Abstract:
“A specter haunts the world of Academia: a study of Post-Communist nostalgia,” wrote Maria Todorova in 2010. This proposal aims to unwrite the notion of nostalgia: not only that it carries a largely negative set of values and is heteroglossic, but it also serves to promote neoliberal goals on a global scale.
When linked to the notion of post-socialism, it acts as a tool for the (self)orientalization of Southeast Europe: as some researchers have shown (Boyer 2010, Lankauskas 2015), the concept of post-socialist nostalgia has become part of a discourse that could/should be recognized as a post-imperialist, practical tool that helps anchor SEE in the pre-neoliberal past. It is intriguing to note that in many other (“Western”) neoliberal societies, nostalgia is perceived as a part of populist political appeals, (or) a longing for times that are forever gone and, fortunately, will never return (industrialization, centralized economic measures, etc.). Using ethnographic material (“Eastern” and “Western”) on the topic of work and employment, we aim to show that a significant part of “nostalgic longings” reflects pure facts (and not /just/ feelings), which is most often neglected due to the perpetuation and naturalization of global hierarchies of knowledge (Triglava 2024). Comparing ethnographic material from the “East” and the “West” reveals the true nature of the mainstream use of the term nostalgia: despite the vast amount of relevant literature (or precisely because of it), this term still wins the battle for an unjust, competitive, socially insensitive, individualistic global society.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper examines shifts in Argentine anthropology through decolonial perspectives. Through a bibliometric analysis of 290 publications and the study of institutional practices in Argentine anthropology departments this paper critically evaluates the real scope and limitations of the processes of “unwriting” of Western hegemony in the production of anthropological knowledge in Argentina.
Paper Abstract:
This paper examines the epistemic and methodological transformations that Argentine anthropology is undergoing with the incorporation of decolonial perspectives. Based on a critical analysis of the discipline's historical complicity with the modern/colonial project, it explores how the liminal spaces generated in contemporary Argentine anthropological practice are allowing the emergence of border epistemologies and subalternized knowledges.
Through a bibliometric analysis of 290 publications and the study of institutional practices in Argentine anthropology departments (2008-2024), this paper critically evaluates the real scope and limitations of the processes of “unwriting” of Western hegemony in the production of anthropological knowledge. Thus, this paper examines whether these decolonial initiatives have effectively succeeded in transforming the dominant epistemic structures or, on the contrary, have remained as superficial attempts of change. The results reveal complex patterns: while some academic spaces show significant transformations in their research and pedagogical practices, others maintain traditional hierarchical structures under a decolonial veneer. In this sense, this paper seeks to contribute to the debates on the decolonization of anthropology by offering an empirical and situated assessment of the actual impact of decolonial perspectives on the transformation of the discipline.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper wishes to start critically examining one of the strongest conceptual hegemonies of social sciences: the Conflict Theories. We will question if they are still sufficient for our current needs, and explore an alternative look into a more nuanced, agency and cooperation focused approaches.
Paper Abstract:
For the past many decades, social sciences have been deeply moulded by the thoughts of scholars such as Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Michel Foucault or the members of Critical Theory, shifting the focus of the field towards relationships of power and conflict, in what is now widely known as the Conflict Theories (CT) paradigm.
While inspiring many important or admirable social changes and academic outlooks, we have now reached a point where Conflict Theories have grown into a powerful hegemony of its own, dominating the majority of the academic discourse and narrowing our perception of social dynamics, at times even stifling criticism and innovative avenues of thought. All the while, CT-generated narratives can carry some hidden aspects of ethnocentric and enlightenment-rooted influences that may be of concern. I aim to explore the hegemonic role CT has gained, demonstrate some of its limitations and wester-centric biases, and show how it may be at odds with the projects of Decolonization and Pluriversal Anthropology itself.
After outlying the possible issues of CT, I will briefly introduce a possible paradigm modification, tentatively called Cooperation-Oriented Approach. Rooted in extensive-multidisciplinary library of studies of cooperation, I wish to expand our methodological and epistemic tools of analysis of human social dynamics, with emphasis on mutualism, co-dependency and individual agency, that could enrich and transcend the limitations of the older, power-and-conflict-focused paradigms. I will argue that the need to cooperate may be underappreciated in our understanding of social dynamics, and propose new ways to study and reflect it.
Paper Short Abstract:
This presentation aims to provide a panoramic view of the artistic and intellectual production of Brazilian Amerindian thinkers and their fundamental contributions to unwriting established and hegemonic narratives, such as anthropology.
Paper Abstract:
In recent decades, Brazil has witnessed a proliferation of Indigenous thinkers, activists, and artists who not only affirm their ethnic origins but also often draw upon them as the driving force behind their work. Moreover, these thinkers contribute decisively to a critique of Brazilian society and modern Western modes of thought, as well as to the specific frameworks that structure these worldviews, such as history, philosophy, and anthropology.
Visual artists like Denilson Baniwa, Jaider Esbell, and Daiara Tukano—who is also a curator—writers like Daniel Munduruku and Eliana Potiguara, and Ailton Krenak, an activist and thinker who is the first Indigenous member of the prestigious Brazilian Academy of Letters, expand upon the fundamental legacy of Yanomami shaman Davi Kopenawa. Kopenawa is one of the world’s leading environmental activists and a fierce critic of capitalist-driven destruction. Together, these Indigenous thinkers not only advocate for their respective ways of life and highlight the disastrous consequences of the Anthropocene but also engage in what could be called a symmetrical anthropology, a counter-anthropology, or, in Krenak's words, an anticolonial critique.
This presentation aims to provide a panoramic view of the artistic and intellectual production of Brazilian Amerindian thinkers and their fundamental contributions to unwriting established and hegemonic narratives, such as anthropology.
Paper Short Abstract:
In Understanding Deaf Culture (2003), Paddy Ladd compares Deaf oppression to colonialism, showing how both involve cultural and linguistic suppression, and instead raises a Deaf cultural view through the culturo-linguistic model. This paper examines how to conduct anthropological research on Deaf experiences while centering Deaf perspectives, challenging traditional hearing hegemony in academic approaches.
Paper Abstract:
In his book Understanding Deaf Culture (2003), key Deaf thinker Paddy Ladd draws an important parallel between colonisation and the past and present oppression of d/Deaf individuals, communities, and cultures. While the claim initially sounds controversial, Ladd lays down the background for the systematic and systemic subjugation of Deaf identities, language and culture in many parts of the world, similar to how colonial powers have suppressed indigenous cultures and languages.
Ladd challenges traditional medical views of deafness, which focuses on hearing loss as a condition to be fixed, and instead establishes the culturo-linguistic model. This model moves away from the audism, oralism, and medicalisation, and towards the idea of being Deaf as a cultural and linguistic experience. This understanding of audism, oralism, and the removal of Deaf cultures and languages worldwide through the lens of colonialism allows us to understand the world through a different, Deaf cultural perspective.
This paper discusses the researcher’s attempts of unwriting the audist hearing hegemony in their anthropological research into d/Deaf experiences with the Australian accessibility system. The centering of Deaf thought and Deaf culture remains at odds with the centrality of the hearing hegemony in academia and the limitations it places on the production of anthropological knowledge. This paper focuses on a reflexive look into methods of study, dissemination of knowledge and the negotiation between perpetuating audism and oralism and creating Deaf-led, Deaf culture centered research.
Paper Short Abstract:
This paper revisits and contests some of the decolonial arguments raised in relation to the standing of East European academics vis-à-vis their Western academic counterparts. It focuses on: (1) the presumed hierarchies of knowledge; (2) the standing of scholars who do not participate on Western "economies of credibility"; (3) the notion of the West; and (4) some of the premises of decolonial critique.
Paper Abstract:
After 1989, Eastern European (EE) academe has been increasingly exposed to international academic flows. Western academe that had been viewed as possessing almost magical qualities during the socialist era began to be approached as the paragon of science with scholars being increasingly required to participate on Western “economies of credibility” (Mills & Robinson 2022). Writing in English, publishing papers and books in established publishing houses and journals, preferably high-ranking ones, employing Western theories, or being quoted by foreign scholars, all of this became an ideal for aspiring scholars in EE. However, this placed these scholars in an uneasy situation. By default, they had an unequal starting position vis-à-vis their Western colleagues. Their writings were scorned upon with a touch of condescension for a variety of reasons including English language competence or deemed theoretical and thematic irrelevance, all of which contributed to a feeling of inferiority. Naturally, facing such a situation, EE scholars found an ally in decolonial perspectives that help to explain the inferior standing of EE scholars and offer adequate remedies (Moore 2001, Buchowski 2004, 2012, Hrešanová 2022). Or so a common decolonial narrative goes. My presentation, based on my research in the history of Czech ethnology, revisits some of the decolonial arguments and offers their mild critique. I would like to focus on: (1) the presumed hierarchies of knowledge, (2) the standing of scholars who do not participate on Western economies of credibility, (3) the notion of the West, and (4) some of the premises of decolonial critique.
Paper Short Abstract:
Building on the relation between the history of anthropological knowledge-production and the historical context of Western imperialism and colonialism, this paper argues for decolonizing ways of knowing in the discipline through the ‘de-worlding’ of epistemic structures of representation by means of recognizing multiple interconnected worlds and countervisualities.
Paper Abstract:
Building on the relation between the history of anthropological knowledge-production and the historical context of Western imperialism and colonialism, this paper argues for decolonizing ways of knowing in the discipline through the ‘de-worlding’ of epistemic structures of representation by means of recognizing multiple interconnected worlds and countervisualities. Underlying epistemic structures that shaped the logic of representation in early anthropological writings indicate how theoretical formations primarily contributed to the ‘worldling’- of lifeworlds, spaces, and knowledge of the people under investigation. Through the narrative reconstruction of distanciated fields and exoticized objects of inquiry, representation engaged in the production of objective and standardized worldviews or dominant visualities, based either on ideas of evolution, or differentiation and Othering. Reading such attempts at worlding or hegemonizing ways of knowing as epistemic injustice, the paper explores the epistemological formations and undercurrents in the discipline that became prominent with the writing culture debate and thereafter, to deliberate on the possibility of decolonization. Projects of decolonization, in the academy, as well as outside, are inherently political. Decolonizing anthropology then remains committed to challenging and transforming the conventional conditions of knowledge production, which, in the name of objectivity, engaged in the development and prominence of generalized, ahistorical perspectives and stereotyped ways of knowing and seeing. Critically reflecting on the politics of knowledge-production in anthropology, I therefore argue for an epistemic decolonization of the discipline through the incorporation of contextualized, ordinary, and peripheralized histories as countervisualities that work towards dismantling colonial worlding(s) and privileged positionalities.