Karl Marx: Anthropologist (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Marx was not only a philosopher, but he was very much and anthropologist of his day. Here, the author describes Marx's work in terms of four key concepts, namely, nature, society, history and science, and considers how anthropologists at the time influenced Marx in his thinking.     

The African bill: Chinese struggles with development assistance (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Chinese diplomats and politicians have sought to underline the mutually beneficial and cordial nature of Chinese engagement with Africa through the use of phrases such as ‘win‐win cooperation’ (huying huli hezuo) and ‘friendly collaboration’ (youhao hezuo). Avoiding the use of concepts such as ‘aid’, which suggest a hierarchical relationship between giver and receiver, they have argued that Chinese initiatives on the African continent are fundamentally different from Western development assistance. An anthropological glance at the situation on the ground however, shows that these statements are not only a part of political rhetoric, but that they also mask the similarities between Chinese and Western involvement with development in Africa.     

Property,rights ans community in a South African land‐claim case (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

In the context of South Africa's land reform programme, the concepts of ‘property’ and ‘rights’ carry a heavy ideological baggage. This is evident in the country's land reform policies, which have sought to reach a compromise between differing and often contradictory histories involving both rights and property. A shift in government policy, from treating land reform as a question of rights to a question of the transfer of land, has been accompanied by a reification of the idea of community. The result is a policy that is seriously out of touch with the complex legacy of dispossession that the land reform programme was meant to address. As shown by the case presented in this article, these problems become exacerbated when the land in question is part of a conservation area.     

Like a virgin? Hymen restoration operations in contemporary China (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)

In this article, the authors use the example of hymen repair surgeries to discuss the reconfigurations of patriarchal practices in the People's Republic of China. Following a brief overview of concepts of virginity and the importance of the hymen in China, they describe the spread of hymen restorations in the reform era. These surgeries link up traditionalist and ‘patriarchal’ practices and relationships with particular expressions of sexual liberalism in contemporary China.     

Strange powers: Conservation,science, and transparency in an indigenous political project (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The Cofán people of Amazonian Ecuador are important players within global movements for indigenous rights and biodiversity conservation. Scholars, non‐governmental organizations, and donor agencies laud their efforts to protect more than 430,000 hectares of forestland from an expanding colonization front, the transnational petroleum industry, and the spillover of violence from the Colombian civil war and drug trade. In this article, I examine how a set of discourses surrounding indigenous politics enable and constrain Cofán projects. In the context of an ethnographic account of Cofán political practice, I differentiate between the ‘expressive’, ‘instrumental’, and ‘obstructive’ nature of ‘conservation’, ‘science’, and ‘transparency’, respectively. More specifically, I develop three arguments: first, that the discourse of conservation serves to express deeply held conceptions of the ties between Cofán culture, Cofán territory, and Cofán politics; second, that the discourse of science functions as an instrument that Cofán activists use to ground a political‐economic exchange with outside powers; and third, that the discourse of transparency stymies Cofán collective action and is neither locally meaningful nor politically useful. By analyzing the social life of these terms and concepts in Cofán activism, I argue for a more nuanced understanding of discursive power, which always exists in tension with the cultural sensibilities and political perspectives that it supposedly transforms.     

#spanishrevolution (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The article reports on the street protests that took over Spanish cities earlier in May and June. The protests have been explained as a response on the part of new media democratic networks to the governance of the economic crises by corrupt political and financial classes. We offer here a tentative chronology of the events, and essay instead an argument about a revitalised municipalist tradition, that sees in the plaza the centrepiece of new forms of do‐it‐yourself political action.     

Talking to strangers (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The language used by politicians and its social effects have been of long‐standing interest to social anthropology. Opinion‐formers on both sides of the North Atlantic have recently argued that this language can inflame tensions and reinforce divisions. In the UK, the discussion has centred on relations between a white majority and a Muslim minority, while in the US, in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of a Democratic Congresswoman in Arizona, it has focused on the risk of political language provoking violence. The antidote to inflammatory language is often assumed to be moderation, defined as a (self‐) disciplined engagement with divided publics. Drawing on the insights of Danielle Allen's Talking to strangers, here I suggest that moderation might be re‐imagined, not as a vague commitment to centrism and the ‘middle ground’, but as a powerful resource for citizens and communities to challenge the ideological excesses of politics, religion and the market in the twenty‐first century.     

The Anansi position (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

At least since the left‐wing critique of positivism and the radical student movement some decades ago, it has been a fairly widespread view that anthropology and the other social sciences should be engaged. Habermas even wrote, in 1968, that the social sciences have an intrinsic ‘emancipatory knowledge interest’. This article is sympathetic to this view, but argues that an engaged anthropology is at its most efficacious when it refuses to take part in a polarized discourse with fixed positions. Instead, anthropological interventions in the broader public sphere should take on the role of Anansi, the trickster of West African folklore, whose unpredictable and surprising moves enable him to confound and defeat far more powerful adversaries. Using examples largely from the Norwegian public sphere, where anthropologists are visible and active, it is shown how anthropology can simultaneously be both destabilizing, subversive, critical and liberating, precisely when the anthropologist takes on the liminal trickster role; neither fully inside nor fully outside.     

Teaching geomorphology at university

Abstract

A questionnaire survey on the content and structure of geomorphology courses taught in university geography departments in Britain reveals that current practice is for teaching to be structured around courses and subheadings which reflect the main landform/process systems (e.g. fluvial, glacial) rather than more abstract concepts. This empirically‐based orientation is convenient, but in the long run it could be inefficient and unchallenging. Three alternative ways of structuring teaching on a more theoretical basis would be to focus explicitly on more fundamental geomorphic processes; to structure teaching on the use of a systems approach; or to introduce more specific courses on key methodological problems.     

Lowering British higher education (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Hugh Gusterson argues, based on his experience in the U.S. university system, that the marketization of higher education can be expected to have perverse consequences. Universities will focus on branding and capturing research funding rather than teaching; students will increasingly see a degree as something they buy and will put pressure on faculty to lower grading standards; many students will also be forced by tuition expenses to work while they are in college, and will therefore have less time to study; and some will turn their backs on their true vocations in favor of courses of study that will enable them to repay their tuition debt. As the British university system increasingly resembles its American counterpart in cost and style, British faculty and students will feel increasingly tempted to study or teach in the U.S. system.     

Anthropology in the news? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

It is part of our informal culture of anthropology to complain about the way the media portray us, and yet there has been little systematic analysis of media representations of anthropology. I look at stories about anthropologists, stories that quote anthropologists and opinion pieces by anthropologists over a six‐month period in The New York Times. I conclude that biological anthropology and archaeology are over‐represented in these stories, and that the media portrays anthropologists primarily as authorities on exotic others abroad, or ritual behaviour at home. Anthropologists who write about neoliberalism and militarism have had difficulty getting into the high‐end mainstream media, where it is economists rather than anthropologists who are seen as experts on general human nature.     

Writing development (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Development professionals spend a lot of time writing and the aid industry has a vast production of texts. The author argues here that anthropology of development needs to look anew at how these texts are being produced, circulated and the purposes they serve. I have briefly identified six features of development writing: 1. Institutional ownership, 2. multiple authorship, 3. impersonal style, 4. terminology, 5. Communicable simplifications and 6. temporality. The more general point is to call for a more sophisticated engagement with development texts. There might be more going on in these documents than immediately meets the eye. More than anything else, these texts grant legitimacy and presence to the actors involved in development. Writing development is more about the production process, the language and what it ultimately bring in terms of aid flows, rather than the substance of the text itself.     

Youth and the revolution in Egypt (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

The 2011 popular uprising that led to the overthrow of the Egyptian regime was initiated by groups of engaged ‘internet youth’. In this editorial I offer some personal reflections on the shift in political consciousness among Egypt's urban middle‐class youth, and on the discourse about generations that has unified Egyptians during the momentous events currently sweeping the Arab world. Whereas for members of my generation, the ‘stability’ of the Egyptian regime connoted comforts and opportunities, for today's Egyptian youth, it had come to signify no prospects for the future.     

Deleuze as a Philosopher of Education: Affective Knowledge/Effective Learning

This essay addresses Gilles Deleuze's “pedagogy of the concept” as grounded in the triadic relation between percepts, affects, and concepts. Philosophical thinking based on the “logic of affects” necessarily leads to the creation of novel concepts in/for experience. Still, new concepts are themselves informed by the physicality of affects thus bridging the dualistic gap of the Cartesian subject. Deleuze's neorealist position considers the objects of real experience to be both actual and virtual. Experience exceeds private sense-data; it is a milieu providing an ability to affect and be affected. The essay presents Deleuze's virtual ontology as an unorthodox “foundation” for knowledge under the provision that the affective conditions in real experience for the actualization of the virtual will have been fulfilled. Deleuze's practical philosophy is used here to offer a model for solving the “learning paradox” that has been haunting us since the days of Socrates.     

Charity plus (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

This editorial takes to task a statement on humanitarianism by Valerie Amos, UN Under‐Secretary‐General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, which seems to gloss over issues to do with staff selection and management policies, but especially the work of veteran anthropologists in the field of development and alternative perspectives on humanitarianism.     

Living in the tenth century. Mentalities and social orders

In his series of lectures, Le pouvoir psychiatrique, Michel Foucault employs concepts from the military field of knowledge in order to analyse the founding scenes of psychiatry. I focus on three issues connected to Foucault's use of these military terms. Firstly, I examine why Foucault was reluctant to use concepts from sociology and psychology in Le pouvoir psychiatrique and how this affects the notions that he had formulated in his earlier work, Histoire de la folie. Secondly, I show how he challenges traditional understandings of the founding scenes of psychiatry by using concepts from a different field of knowledge. In doing this, he creates metaphors, and this is something that he himself had previously been critical of doing. Thirdly, I reflect upon the fact that Foucault's creative use of concepts from different disciplines and examples from different historical times can be related to episodes in his own life; I argue why it is important to supplement a structural analysis with linguistic, phenomenological and hermeneutical ones.     

Confucius institutes (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Many hundreds Confucius Institutes have mushroomed in higher education centres all over the world. In this comment, Marshall Sahlins continues his analysis of troublesome aspects of these institutions and considers what anthropologists have come up with in terms of research on these so far. He also touches on the Canadian campaign for university teachers to boycott these. James Turk commends Marshall Sahlins for looking into the issue of academic freedom in relation to Confucius Institutes. This is part of a campaign by the Canadian Association of University Teachers to secure academic freedom where universities enter into collaboration with third parties.     

Quebec and Canada at the Crossroads: A Nation within a Nation

Abstract. I argue first that there are many different concepts of the nation, and advocate a certain conceptual pluralism. I also argue that a population as a whole cannot constitute a nation unless it has a certain national consciousness. I then show that we must adopt a fundamental principle of tolerance. I also try to attend to the complexities of the relations between Quebec and Canada, and argue that different populations represent themselves as nations in different ways and with different concepts. 1 show that Quebec constitutes a nation within a nation. I then wonder what it would mean for Canadians to accept a Quebec nation. Finally, I try to explain why a very large proportion of the population of Quebec has increasingly been favourable to sovereignty, and favourable to making a partnership proposal to Canada.     

R.I.P. Paul the Octopus http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

During the 2010 football World Cup, Paul the Octopus became a global celebrity. From his aquarium tank in Oberhausen, Germany, he predicted with 100% accuracy the outcome of eight World Cup matches in a row. In acknowledgement of his striking achievement, German aquarium authorities built Paul the first‐ever octopus memorial after his death. Curiously, Paul's popularity crossed over into countries that are not known footballing nations. One possible explanation for this is that his uncanny knowledge of the outcome of future events resonated with an audience sensitive to the uncertainties and risks of high modernity. Another explanation draws on Michael Jackson's work among diviners in Sierra Leone. I argue that Paul's prophecies created ‘fields of relationship’ that transcended national as well as ethnic divides, both within Germany and globally.     

On the invisibility of the emasculated (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

Castrating a male by destroying his testicles is a practice that most people assume ended a century or so ago with the collapse of the Chinese and Ottoman Empires and the death of the last castrato in the Vatican choir. However, because advanced prostate cancer is treated by either chemical or surgical castration, there are probably more castrated men alive today than ever before in history. Castration is also used in the western world as either a step in the sexual reassignment of male to female (MtF) transsexuals or rarely to treat recidivist sexual predators. In addition, some men desire emasculation who are neither cancer patients, MtF transsexuals, nor sexual predators. In this essay I argue that the public association of castration with sexual predators and deviant behaviour is so great that men, who require it as a medical treatment for cancer or who seek it for other reasons typically hide from public view. One consequence of the shame associated with castration is that those, who desire emasculation but do not have a diagnosis of cancer, too often subject themselves to risky and illegal amateur surgeries outside the medical system. I argue that for whatever reason a male seeks castration, the overall invisibility of the emasculated in modern society is a disservice. It minimizes the public's understanding of the magnitude of the impact of castration on cancer patients and it inhibits those in need of medical treatment from getting it in an appropriate and timely fashion.