Comments on: Activist Anthropology http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/ Beyond bones & stones Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:33:10 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: lexis2praxis http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-18444 Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:35:34 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-18444 Urban – you can absolutely do what’s called “critical ethnography”, in which you’re critical of the cultural claims made by the group you’re working with. See Vincent Crapanzano’s work on religion.

]]> By: Urban http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-18408 Sun, 17 Oct 2010 05:28:44 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-18408 This approach is actually confining, in the sense that it implicitly assumes an anthropology that is in sympathy with the informant group. Can there be an ‘activist anthropology’ that is actively against a particular group, employing research methods to undermine a set of cultural claims? And if such a thing is unthinkable, does this not describe an incredibly limited scope for the anthropological gaze, one which risks anthropologists becoming little more than ‘useful idiots’?

]]> By: Tumtum Belly http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-17120 Fri, 23 Apr 2010 06:22:48 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-17120 Now that you know whom you are, it would depend on where you are studying. If you’re studying in the West, well, give to Caesar what’s Caesar’s due and to God, what belongs to God. Most post-Ph.d students end up with a dissertation that forms the core of their first publication, and then other material which they hold close at heart, but couldn’t use for one reason or the other. This always goes to constitute their second publication. It also seems that most anthropologists only get to be themselves only after obtaining tenure. Until then, you have to play the gallery. This is cynical, but that’s the pragmatic line most have developed. My strategy as a non-Westerner is always to keep two portfolios – one for Caesar, and the other for God. Those interests are diametrically opposed. Which do you think your professors care more about: the institutional interests of the discipline, or those of Oromo people and all that feuding lot?

]]> By: Daniya D Waqo http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-14208 Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:02:03 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-14208 Hi folks.

I am working towards my PhD Proposal on the role of Oral Culture in constituting a non-violent resistance poetics while i belong to the same Oromo society engaged in a Liberation Movement against the Christian Abyssinian domination now for over 40 years.

What is to be done about “Objectivity” to suit to the academic demands of my Professors? Obejecttivity to what? While int the field to non-selectively collect the folklore data, or Observation or Interpretation or Analysis or what? And the Inter-subjectivity between me, the Insider, and the Researched?

Please have a Say!

]]> By: jc2kirby http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-12085 Fri, 15 Aug 2008 03:06:25 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-12085 To understand a situation at you need to have some form of objectivity. I don’t think you can be an anthropologist and and activist at the same time, they both contradict each others in their aims. YOu have to pick one or you’ll be both a bad anthropologist and a laid back activist

]]> By: Anonymous http://anthropology.net/2006/07/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-10405 Wed, 09 Apr 2008 21:03:11 +0000 http://anthropology.net/2006/01/21/activist-anthropology/#comment-10405 Actually, his name is Dr. Charles R. Hale.

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