To draw another example, my work does indeed pay attention to the global in a significant way: how Dharavi is situated within the global capitalist market, how globalized ideas of what gender rights are affect and influence how local NGOs behave; the circulation of commodities, images, ideas and so on – they’re all there. I look at works on gender violence from Brazil, Peru, the US, UK, and so on precisely because the work these scholars do resonates with the particular contexts of my own work; because their work generalizes concepts and theories. What we share are common experiences and structural factors, and how the actors in our respective contexts behave – how they diverge and converge. Perhaps, yes, there may be a universal ‘patriarchy’. But what needs to be questioned is how it get the universal tag in the first place? How is it manifest if crucially different ways, as demonstrate by fieldwork? In maintaining a universal theory of patriarchy, what kind of epistemic violence does social sciences commit on experiences that do not conform to general theories – and thus, interventions that operate on these assumptions?

Again, I do not dispute the first half of your comment either. That there is a need for universalizing tendencies in theory is not my objection – in fact, that’s not even the topic of my post (which is about how as ethnographers we are situated in contexts; and by definition, we are also situated in global contexts and flows).

When I write ‘Universal Truth’, it is in relation to pedagogy, which took place in a particular context of a classroom, where as students we are taught that one cannot simply study social phenomena as one would study the physical or natural world. Finally, this involved a critique of grand theories (rest assured, this is not a plea for vulgar post-modernist interpretations either).

Once again, thanks for the comment – and giving me a lot to think about. I do hope we can move past this particular impasse now. Cheers!

That said, I do not think by putting into question (or denying) a ‘Universal Truth’ – note the commas and the capital U and T, which are intentional – one would risk reducing anthropology to a hobby as such. I think universal ideas are particularized (or vernacularized), so the fact that it exists out there somewhere as an a priori is something that I am questioning. I think there is sufficient consensus on this among anthropologists, social scientists and other scholars.

For instance, while I do stress the particularity of Dharavi, there are ways in which certain universal ideas, such as freedom from violence, figures prominently in the work of the front-line workers. At the same time, their experiences and narratives resonate with other researchers who work on gendered violence elsewhere in the world. Precisely because ethnographic and anthropological work is also generalizable; we produce concepts, theories, and so on.

Hence, my emphasis on contexts (and nuances). I think contexts are what are shared – patterns, arrangements, structures, apparatuses – not an idea of the ‘Truth’. I just think assigning any ‘Truth’ to these is what’s over-stretching, and the basis of epistemic and real violence, too (though this doesn’t discount the idea of a shared humanity; it is merely questioning to what extent is it shared, and what are the things being shared).

In retrospection, I do share the idea of a universal that is plural and diverse (or pluriversal, as someone like Walter Mignolo would have it).

I hope my reply addressed your concerns, and thanks again for the comment. Cheers!

We were initiated into the discipline with an emphasis on the fact that our data is ‘co-produced’ with our informants; that there is no such thing as a ‘neutral’ observation, nor are there any ‘Universal Truths’ out there.

That we must always be careful not to impose ideas that we take to be universal truths on situations that have not been carefully investigated and always be prepared to recognize that what we take to be universal truths may not be is fine. To say that there are no universal truths at all is not only an overstretch but one demonstrably dangerous to any hope that anthropology may actually be more than a miscellany of hobbies of limited interest to anyone but enthusiasts. Think about it. I am a U.S. citizen who lives and works in Japan. If everything you discover in Dharavi must be explained in only particularistic terms, why should anyone like myself, who has no connection to the place, have any interest in it at all? When I ask myself why I am interested, it is because I assume, as a universal truth, a shared humanity, which imposes obligations not confined to any particular place or moment. Without that assumption, and the thought that what you write may be relevant to other times and places, why should I care?