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Paper Short Abstract:

Unwriting has the potential to be a political process that can raise difficult questions about anthropology’s development and its institutional framework, challenging hierarchies of knowledge and power.

Paper Abstract:

The theme of the present conference is challenging and paradoxical. While on the one hand, the process of writing is anthropology’s core business, the challenge posed by the conference is to unwrite this business, where exactly the paradox lies too.

The question that I would like to raise in the present conceptual contribution is whether anthropological writing is capable of unwriting itself. What further complicates the enterprise is that a challenge to any established practice is political for its focus on unseating power of an institution, in this case a University.

The appetite for universities to undertake such an undertaking is suspect. (Mogstad and Tse, 2018) In his book Orientalism, Said used the term ‘Orientalism’ as a critical concept to describe Western conceptual lens through which non-western societies have been understood and their societies and histories constructed. This could have been an apt starting point to address colonial foundations of anthropology.

However, writing about the impact of Said’s work, Thomas (1991) noted “polarisation of views” within anthropology with several critics of Said demonstrating misgivings towards reflective anthropology. The concern with decolonising anthropology has its own history and trajectory. However, any conversation to decolonise anthropology must content with anthropology's history that is entangled with colonisation of a large part of the world and rationalisation of colonisation within the liberal tradition. (Mehta: 1999) The present contribution thus is a reflection on the challenges of unwriting within anthropology and explores options available to those who have come to accept its necessity.