Anthropological theory and engagement: A zero‐sum game? (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate) |
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| Authors: | Keir Martin Alex Flynn |
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| Institution: | 1. Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo. He conducted fieldwork in East New Britain and Papua New Guinea, where he studied postdisaster reconstruction and emerging forms of social stratification.;2. British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in Social Anthropology at the University of Durham. His current research project focuses on cultural politics and the contemporary art world in Brazil. |
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| Abstract: | Engagement with pressing social and political issues is often presented as a threat to the elaboration of sophisticated anthropological theory that needs to be protected from such concerns in order to flourish. However the history of anthropological theory demonstrates that some of the discipline's most important contributions have tended to arise as a result of its proponents' desire to engage in such debates. Although we cannot reproduce the cultural models of a previous generation of anthropologists, the future elaboration of ground‐breaking anthropological theory depends upon a rediscovery of such engaged work that does not posit engagement versus theoretical development as a zero‐sum game. |
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