We got scooped by Peter Suber and Lorenz before we could announce it ourselves, but several members of the Open Access Anthropology group will now be blogging at the newly formed Open Access Anthropology Blog.

There are already three posts up, so go check it out!

Share This

[This is part 2 of a two part review of Partha Chatterjee’s The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on popular politics in most of the world. You can read the first part here.]

Chatterjee’s book is divided into two parts. The first part consists of three lectures delivered at Columbia University in 2001. This is the tightest part of the book, in which he develops the arguments I mentioned in the first part of my review and which I will continue to focus upon below. The second half consists of a series of other lectures on a variety of issues, including globalization, the war on terror, and India’s urban development. Because of the fragmentary nature of this book, we really only get a hint as to the nature of “political society” and its utility as a concept. There is certainly more depth to the discussion that the brief account I’ve laid out so far, but it is frustrating that many of the most difficult questions are avoided. The first, would be the applicability of the concept to the developed world; but the second is even more pressing: Chatterjee shies away from tackling the history of communal violence in India and the alliances which marginalized political societies often make with the most reactionary political groups. I understand why, he does this. He is intent on showing the democratic potential of political society and wishes to challenge India’s left-leaning middle classes to actively work with political societies rather than shunning them. In this sense the history of communal violence forms the context in which such a book is written. Nonetheless, if we we want to really demonstrate the analytical usefulness of the category it can’t just be presented as a progressive phenomena.

Another question I like to ask whenever I see an author introduce a new analytic term is whether or not the concepts can’t already be handled by existing terms, specifically Gramsci’s term “civil society.” Chatterjee’s main criticism is that civil society is elitist: (more…)

Share This

During my recent trip to the AAA meetings in San Jose, I scheduled a viewing of the documentary Daughter from Danang during my usual kinship lecture time. The film tells the story of a young Tennessee woman who travels to Danang, Vietnam, to be reunited with her birth mother. Heidi had been evacuated in the denouement of the Vietnam conflict because, as the daughter of an American GI and a Vietnamese woman, she faced a life of possibly violent discrimination. The film tells the story of ‘Operation Babylift,’ which sought to evacuate nearly 2000 children of American GIs. It is an incredibly vivid and moving portrait of families riven apart by war, of the complex forms of belonging engendered by the enmeshing of personal and national destinies, of the problem of cultural difference within kin relations. The film tacks between attention to the American context and the Vietnamese one, and so offers contrasting perspectives on each. Race, kinship, nationality and other forms of identity appear performative in the context of transnational adoption even as they also run up against the putative importance of natal/natural ties. What makes the film especially effective, and indeed heart-wrenching, is the immediacy with which these concerns are brought to life in the story of this young woman’s sense of longing, loss, and dashed expectations. Although I think it is a text that demands careful handling, I think it is in some respects an ideal documentary for teaching purposes, whether the subject is kinship or simply cultural difference.

Share This

Pace Rex (see below), I liked the venue. While clearly, the central meeting bar was missed, I thought the gigantic nature of the main meeting hall was welcome. I can recall Hiltons and Marriotts past where the multi-level and fragmented layout of the meeting meant that you never could get a sense of the enormity of the thing. (An exception might be the Logan’s Run Hyatt in New Orleans: Who doesn’t love 20-story atriums with glass-walled elevators whirring up and down?) Above all, I soaked up the sunshine. Monday morning waiting for my flight out of SF, I sat outside the ferry building looking at the Bay Bridge, an enormous and beautiful grey steel structure that disappeared into fog. San Francisco is, Mark Twain once said, a ‘good grey city.’ San Jose on the other hand seemed balmy, warm, almost tropical. I saw at least one anthropologist in San Jo visiting from warmer climes who didn’t even need to change out of his sandles (that was you Rex). Against the golden sunshine of Silicon Valley, the rather dour uniform of the visiting scholars seemed somewhat out of place. Can anthropologists wear color? Roy Wagner’s bright orange tie notwithstanding (along with his matching verse-as-discussion), I wondered whether or not the generally dark selection of colors reflected a lack of sunny disposition amongst presenters. (A further exception worth noting: Francoise Dussart’s lovely hibiscus(?)-themed blouse at the Nancy Munn panel.)

A further note: San Jose as a venue seemed at odds with the ‘theme’ of the meeting (Critical Intersections). That theme evoked images of bad street corners, professors caught having turned the wrong direction when leaving the Hilton, and ending up not in Union Square, but on Leavenworth & Geary, accosted or solicited by tranny hookers and other denizens of central San Francisco. San Jose presents rather different dangerous intersections: namely, the hegemony of the left turn lane with dedicated left turn signal. I thought I’d never make it catty-corner across that intersection.

But, what were people talking about?

Share This

Columbia University Press recently approached Savage Minds, asking if we would like to review new books from their catalog. Not ones to turn down free books, we jumped at the opportunity, and you can expect to see several CUP books reviewed here in the near future, as well as those from any other publishers who might wish to do the same (hint, hint). In discussing how to approach these reviews we decided two things: one, we would make it clear when a review has been solicited by the publisher, and two, we would keep the reviews “bloggy” (i.e. informal and focused on whatever interests us about the book rather than doing all those things one is expected to do in a standard book review.)

I chose to review Partha Chatterjee’s The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on popular politics in most of the world. As someone interested in subaltern studies and Gramsci I’ve long been interested in Chatterjee’s work, Chatterjee was a discussant on my first AAA panel in 1996 (Jason Greenberg and myself were co-organizers). At the same time, I’ve always had reservations about Chatterjee’s work. In my thesis I criticized Chatterjee’s book on nationalism for falling into the standard trap of equating hegemony with elite discourse (the main source of data used in the book) and over-generalizing from the Indian case (a fault he himself acknowledges).

The Politics of the Governed still takes India to stand for “most of the world,” but it makes important strides in rectifying the focus on elite discourses. In fact, it does much more than that. It radically challenges our understanding of the term “civil society” by highlighting how the politics of civil society marginalizes the politics of poor people and offers up an alternative term, “political society” as a framework for understanding the popular politics of marginalized groups. In doing so he draws heavily upon the Foucauldian tradition of governmentality studies to argue that there is a gap “between the lofty political imaginary of popular sovereignty and the mundane administrative reality of governmentality” (36). (more…)

Share This

A lot has been said about Michael Richards’ (AKA “Kramer”) meltdown in which he used the “N-word” and suggested that lynching was an appropriate response for hecklers in his audience. (For those who missed out, you can watch the meltdown on Google Video.) The most anthropological response I’ve seen was by Six Apart’s Anil Dash who argues that the incident was partially about the “mismatch between white and black culture in regard to social standards in public settings”:

Put more succinctly, Michael Richards lost his shit for the same reason white people always get mad when black people talk at the movies. It’s about control, and who sets the standards, and clearly Richards is someone who gets filled with rage when he’s not in control.

... there’s a significant tradition in many African American communities to see entertainment venues as a forum for interaction, as a place for dialogue and conversation inspired by, or even directly in response to the performance. Whether it’s call-and-response in church or at a hip hop show, it’s not merely acceptable to be talking or reacing, it’s expected. Would showtime at the Apollo be as fraught without that expectation?

Conversely, a lot of white culture places an expectation on respect for the performance. There’s a standard of reverence for the person on stage, or the film being screened. And there’s an underlying sense of value: Hey, we all paid to be here, so be quiet!

It is an important insight because I think a lot of liberals think that a genuinely inclusive society will be the same as what we have today, just with more colorful faces; but that can’t be the case. As one of my college professors put it: “Some people think that diversity just means inviting more African Americans into their houses. They don’t anticipate that these African Americans might want to rearrange the furniture.” Many Americans seem to feel that while Richards’ outburst was unfortunately worded, he was in his right to defend himself against audience hecklers. This position ignores the way in which those very social norms are themselves racialized.

Share This

Ah, the AAAs: the only event I know of that combines endless reflexivity with overwhelming and alternating senses of total abandomnent and total communion. And yet if there was anything that struck me about the 2006 AAAS it was that we as a collevtivity had some trouble getting our effervescence on.

A lot people that I know blamed the venue. The San Jose convention center is huge. As a result, there was massive amounts of acreage at the front of the space where people could hang out, sit, check their email, and buy and drink coffee. There was even a large patio for the smokers! And there were three or four (or five or six) hotels where people could stay at, rather than one massive hotel and a couple of outliers.

Now, it is true that a lot complain about the terrible aquarium-like sensation of milling around in an over-packed hotel lobby amongst thousands of other anthropologists desperately looking for someone else to go out to lunch with between the morning and afternoon sessions. But was I the only one who missed the opressive, punishing meat-market atmosphere of the lobby? And that wasn’t all that was missing… (more…)

Share This

Inside Higher Ed ran a long piece this morning entitled Torture and Social Science that covers the goings-on at the AAAs general business meeting we recently blogged about. What I find most interesting about the article are the comments that people have made on it, which include lines like:

This condemnation by the American Anthropological Association carries about as much conviction as a condemnation of human rights violations by the United Nations’ General Assembly i.e. none at all.

and

My worry is that anthropology may have become too self-marginalized as a discipline, increasingly irrelevant to the big questions of the day in our world, content to snipe from the sidelines as soon as it seems safe.

I have to admit that my sympathies are more with this line of argument. As many of you can probably imagine, I am anti-torture. But the enormous amount of energy and acrimony that goes into adopting some sort of measure like this is enormous, and I often wonder what sort of practical effect it will have other than salving the conscience whose super egos need some form of topical treatment. I mean: think of the concrete, substantive effect the Yanomami debacle had on Chagnon’s career! Don’t get me wrong—I am sympathetic by those who oppose the weaponizing of anthropology. And I recognize that for some people passing resolutions and measures etc. is an end in itself. But… aren’t we danger of generating rather more heat than light?

Share This

Conference Theme: “Critical Intersections/Dangerous Issues”
Number of paper sessions at San Jose: 762
Number of sessions with the words “critical intersections” or “dangerous issues” issues” in title: 33
Number of sessions with the word “neoliberal” in the title: 9
Number of sessions with the phrase “neoliberal critical intersections”: 0
Punchiest session title: “The Orgasm”
Punchiest paper title at “The Orgasm” session: “EE AI EE AI OHHH: Animal Orgasms”
Second punchiest paper title at “The Orgasm” session: “The evolution of the bonobo clitoris”
Number of sessions on national security and the war on terror: 5
Most egregious use of chiasmus in a session title: “The Enchantment of Infrastructure/ The Infrastructure of Enchanment”

Others?

Share This

I was flying back to Taiwan by Saturday evening, so I missed some exciting activity in the general business meeting. Luckily David Price wrote it up for CounterPunch and Maureen posted it in the comments to an old post (we do have a “contact us” link, although I admit it is a little hard to find). In short, the AAA adopted some measures denouncing the War on Terror and torture; but what I find really interesting about Price’s article is the debate that followed over AAA democracy:

After adopting the anti-Iraq War and anti-torture measures, a spontaneous floor debate arose after Gerald Sider, CUNY Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, eloquently spoke of how the AAA’s bylaws had been changed during the Vietnam War as an anti-democratic measure to empower the association’s administrative structure, while disempowering the rank and file’s ability to enact political measures at these annual meetings. Sider knows of which he speaks. While doing archival research over the years at the Smithsonian’s National Anthropological Archives, I have seen enough of the AAA’s records and the correspondence of key actors from this period to know that such claims are well founded, statements from the floor by Nina Glick Schiller and other veterans from these past struggles helped push Sider’s proposal to a vote that the association consider returning to its old structure.

The debate that transpired was interesting. Some argued that the business meeting’s normally low attendance was sufficient evidence that such poorly-attended meetings should not be allowed to direct Association policy, but the argument that carried the day maintained that it was the structural decision to limit the power of meeting attendees that had destroyed meeting attendance. After some discussion, a resolution was adopted instructing the Association to consider re-empowering the annual meeting as a forum where direct democratic action could occur.

Very interesting developments. Was anyone there who has more to comment on the debates?

Share This

When I came back from my research trip to England this summer I wrote a post complaining about how few of these archives were online. At the time I knew one of the collections was working hard to put things up on the web, but I was waiting for the official announcement – which I finally got today.

Images of Empire today launches its new website at www.imagesofempire.com, providing online access for the first time to the unique archive of historical images held at the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum in Bristol, UK.

Visitors to the website can now explore over 6,000 still images and film clips from the collection, which is currently the UK’s largest dedicated resource of photography and film on the British colonial period. Images from the archive can be navigated and viewed using an advanced search facility and photographs from the collection are available to order online. Registration is free, enabling users to build lightboxes, order high-resolution files and access supplementary information. Further images from the Museum’s collection will be made available online at regular intervals as more of the archive is digitised.

By presenting this collection online, Images of Empire creates a valuable commercial resource for both professional picture buyers and academic researchers, and supports the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum in its mission to provide a national forum for preserving, exploring and studying Britain’s cultural heritage associated with the former Empire and today’s Commonwealth.

From my experience there, I’d say the collection is somewhat idiosyncratic. A lot of film footage of colonial officers and their pets, but lots of wonderful treasures as well. The point being that it is one of those collections that will probably work best for you if you are just curious and browsing around rather than if you are trying to find something specific.

Share This

Marriott room 1507 8:30ish Friday.

Word up.

Share This

Just got my most recent issue of American Ethnologist which contains a great array of papers and commentary (an “AE Forum”) on the problem of IRBs in ethnographic research. From what I can tell, the articles all take a pretty hard line on the intrusion of the “biomedical model” and its inappropriateness for ethnographic research. Articles by Rena Lederman, Daniel Bradburd, Richard Schweder, and a great article by ethnographic sociologist Jack Katz, whose work I often use in my Fieldwork Methods class. I’d love to have a wide-ranging discussion of these issues on Savage Minds, as I also have strong opinions and experience with IRBs... but the issue is available only to AAA members through Anthrosource. Cf. the previous post.

Share This

(here is the official invitation to the OAA event at the AAA. If you agree with this letter, please sign it by clicking “edit” on the link and adding your true name in alphabetical order)

Scholarly societies are in crisis, and the AAA is among them. Dwindling revenues from sales of AAA Journals are among the causes, and if we don’t staunch the bleeding now, we are warned, there will be nothing left to give.

How has the AAA gotten to a point where its solvency seems to be based solely on the sales of our scholarly work? Work that has already been paid for by public and private granting agencies which we pay registration fees to present at conferences organized by the scholarly society we pay memebrship fees to join? Why must we also charge our readers?

Recently, the AAA publicly voiced its opposition to Federal Legislation that would require federally funded research to be freely available to the people who paid for it: citizens. This public opposition is clearly not in the interest of AAA members—and the AnthroSource Steering Committee has publicly said as much, proposing a range of initiatives to make our collective work more accessible. For this criticism, the ASSC was dissolved.

Clearly, something needs to change.

1) we need a solid open access policy to make anthropological research widely available;

2) we need a more transparent financial arrangement between the association and its members;

3) we need a form of financial sustainability that does not compromise our ability to disseminate our research.

We invite the sections and their members to start thinking creatively about the solution to these problems. Digital publishing gives us the technology to make our work widely available, so let’s use it! Our colleagues in the sciences and social sciences have already begun the experiment, and we should critically examine their successes and failures.

We also need to think hard and think together about how to move the AAA away from the current ‘weapons of mass destruction’ business plan, which seeks profits by exploiting copyrighted scholarly work. If the model worked, would the publishing program be losing money?

What is Open Access?

Open Access is online, freely available, peer-reviewed research. It is licensed in such a way that it protects the rights of the author, but allows the work to circulate as freely as possible. It is fully compatible with peer-review and publication in scholarly journals, and there are increasingly a large number of fields whose most prestigious journals have adopted open access policies.

Although OA literature is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature, no one seriously believes that it is costless. The goal of Open Access is not to pursue some utopian vision where the bottom line doen’t matter. Quite the opposite—we believe that there are better ways to pay the bills.

The stakes here are not just financial. Open Access Anthropology speaks to the core ethical concerns of anthropology: a conviction that researchers have a right to know and be known and, above all, that people everywhere have a story that deserves to be told. How can anthropologists work collaboratively with people who are unlikely to have free access to the same body of knowledge that we do? How can scholars in related (and distant) fields discover our work if it is restricted only to a paying membership?

Would you like to learn more?

There will be an informal meeting to discuss Open Access on Saturday the 18th at noon at Gordon Biersch, 33 E. Santa Clara Street (between First and Second).

In the mean time, there are various ways you can be involved. Learn about the issue by visiting

http://openaccessanthropology.org

There is also an Open Access email list that you can join if you want to talk about these issues, or if you simply want to hear what other people are saying. Just go to

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/open-access-anthropology/

And press the “join this group” link on the right hand side of the page.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Share This

There has been some confusion at Zazzle about whether the T-shirts for our Open Access meeting are violating anyone. For now, they are up again... act fast to get yours by the meetings..

Share This