FROM WORLD ANTHROPOLOGY TO WORLD ANTHROPOLOGIES:The International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES),the World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA),and Future Directions of the Discipline,

Greg Acciaioli

Anthropology & Sociology

The University of Western Australia

<acciaiol@cyllene.uwa.edu.au>

Death of Lévi-Strauss at age 100

An author whose writings were good to think with

The Elementary Structures of KinshipStructural Anthropology (vols 1 & 2)TotemismThe Savage MindMythologiquesEtc.

‘To the layman, much of the debate between structuralists and existentialists, which raged from the 1950s into the 1980s, now seems incomprehensible, if not sterile and outdated. But no matter what one thinks of Mr. Lévi-Strauss and his theories, it is hard today to undertake the serious study of anthropology, ethnology, sociology, philosophy or linguistics without at least acknowledging him or trying to debunk him.’

Larry Rohter, The New York Times, 5 November 2009

Upcoming Symposium:Ancestors and Contemporaries:

Engaging Anthropological Practice

– Follow-up to the 50th Anniversary SymposiumSubjects, Objects and Publics: Histories of the Practice of Anthropology in Western Australia

9 April 2010 (tentatively)In association with Anthropology and Sociology, The University of Western Australia

The Anthropological Societyof Western Australia

Current Context of Internationalisation

 World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA)

Outgrowth of World Anthropologies Network

Platform of World Anthropologies Framework– E.g. ‘Other Anthropologies and Anthropology

Otherwise’» Restrepo & Escobar, etc.

See World Anthropologies Network website www.ram-wan.organd WCAA website www.wcaanet.org

WCAA: Original statement of purpose

The World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) is a network of national and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology. Its primary objectives are: to promote the discipline of anthropology in an international context; to promote cooperation and the sharing of information among world anthropologists; to promote jointly organized events of scientific debate and cooperation in research activities and dissemination of anthropological knowledge.

Platform of WCAARibeiro & Escobar, ‘World Anthropologies: Disciplinary Transformations within Systems of Power’

‘…the present can be another moment of reinvention of anthropology, this time mostly linked to changes in the relationships among anthropologists located in different parts of the world system.’

Junji Koizumi, WCAA President to 2009, now Secretary General of the IUAES

‘Linking anthropologies and beyond” is a project which has just been started but it bears a lot of possibilities.’

Contrast with‘International Anthropology’

‘Traditional’ project of internationalisationUNESCO

Translation series

Etc.

Continued privileging of metropoles of anthropological production in the West

North Atlantic axis as place of ‘unmarked’ (hegemonic) anthropology

USA, United Kingdom, (secondarily) France

Counterassertions‘Metropolitan Provincialism’

‘Provincial Cosmopolitanism’

Acknowledged ancestral moments of ‘World Anthropologies’

‘Critique of Anthropology’ of late 60s and 70sLiterature of Anguish

Hymes (ed.) Reinventing Anthropology (1974)Bob Scholte (‘emancipatory anthropology’)Stanley DiamondTalal Asad

‘Indigenous Anthropology’ Fahim (ed.) Indigenous Anthropology in Non-Western Countries (1982)

Anthropological Praxis sensitive to 3rd World Liberation StrugglesHarrison (ed.) Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further toward an Anthropology of Liberation (1991)

Critique of anthropological representation‘Postmodern moment’: critique of objectivism’

MarcusFischer,CliffordRosaldo

Itself subjected to Marxist and feminist critiquesEmphases upon contribution of nonhegemonic anthropologies

From the periphery of the colonised

Distinctiveness of the ‘World Anthropologies’ project1) Globalization opening up heterodox

opportunities to the academic world

2) Concerted action creating a more heteroglossic, democratic and transitional community of anthropologists

3) Possibility of writing from no particular national viewpoint

4) Understanding the dominance of certain styles of anthropology through relating them to unequal power relations: COLONIALITY

‘COLONIALITY’

Reproduction of World System inequalities in production and distribution of knowledge

Continuing normalisation of metropole-produced perspectives

But is the relation with the previous project of ‘World Anthropology’ that discontinuous?

Re-examining ‘World Anthropology’

Culmination in the series of volumes issuing from the 9th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (ICAES) (Chicago, 1973)

94 volumes (NACSIS list)

Tax [editorial introductions] (90)

Weaver (91)

‘World Anthropology’ publication series as both utopian enterprise & fiasco

International enterprise engineered by anthropological impresario Sol Tax (1907-1995)

Bankrupting of Mouton PublishersMerger with de Gruyter

Inability to cover USD$200,000 advance royalties

Only one volume in series go into 2nd edition

Visual Anthropology (Paul Hockings, ed.)

‘World Anthropology’ range

Augmented 4-field vision of AnthropologyPhysical/Biological ‘Anthropology’

Social/Cultural Anthropology

Linguistics

Archaeology

Folklore

Medical Anthropology

Applied Anthropology

Etc.

Continuing influence of Anthropology Today: An Encyclopaedic Inventory (A.L. Kroeber, ed. 1953)

World Anthropology’ range

Yet also attempts to cover newer perspectives:

e.g.The World as a Company Town: Multinational Corporations and Social Change

Cultures of the FutureInfluence of Japanese-Americdan anthropologist Magoroh Maruyama on Tax– Future abolition of nation-states

– Small independent communities of 100,000 to 500,000 linked electronically

ICAES as an institution of the global North in origin

ICAES as conference series predate IUAES (begin London, 1934)

IUAES founded under auspices of UNESCO in 1948.

Up to that point still held in cities of the Global North

Tax’s attempt to bring anthropologists of Global South

Parallels to earlier Heritage of Conquest conference & publication

International Congresses of Anthropo-logical and Ethnological Sciences (ICAES)

I Congress (1934) - London,

II Congress (1938) - Copenhagen,

III Congress (1948) - Brussels,

IV Congress (1952) - Vienna,

V Congress (1956) - Philadelphia,

VI Congress (1960) - Paris,

VII Congress (1964) - Moscow,

VIII Congress (1968) - Tokyo & Kyoto,

IX Congress (1973) - Chicago

X Congress (1978) - New Delhi,

XI Congress (1983) - Québec City

XII Congress (1988) - Zagreb

XIII Congress (1993) - Mexico City

XIV Congress (1998) - Williamsburg

XV Congress (2003) - Florence

XVI Congress (2009) - Kunming

XVII Congress (2013) – Manchester

My own relation to the IXth ICAES:A remembered ‘event ethnography’?

Congress Service Corp volunteer

Organised by Margaret Mead

DutiesGreeting delegates at the airport

Facilitating the sessions on ethnicity

Responsibility for Soviet delegation

“Ethnos’ as strange

Margaret Mead as the public face of World Anthropology

Ethnicity Publicationsfrom IXth ICAES

IXth ICAES as an attempt to present Anthropology as publicly relevant

Commissioning of opera Tamu, Tamu (Menotti)

Vietnam IDPs displaced onto generic Indonesian context

A critical flopDespite good intentions still a very Western, exoticist take on bare-breasted Others

An icon of the failures of the World Anthropology project of that stage?

World Anthropology as expression of Community

Discussion as the purpose of sessionsPre-circulated papers

Pre-Congress conferences

Simultaneous translation into 5 languages

Projected conference volume summarising discussions to be distributed free to conference delegates

Axed by de Gruyter/Mouton

Tax’s identification of IXth ICAES with project of Current Anthropology as a meeting place of anthropologists

Platform of Current Anthropology'Current anthropology is a co-operating group of scholars who interact and exchange knowledge and ideas by means of this journal. These scholars are called 'Associates in Current Anthropology’ and have the obligation to foster the full and free world-wide interchange of knowledge in the sciences of man centering around physical anthropology, prehistory, archaeology, linguistics, folklore, ethnology, and social anthropology‘

(Inside front cover of Current Anthropology, vol. 1, number 1, January 1960)

Principles of Current Anthropology'1. It should be as broad and open as the problems of the changing sciences of man require, bringing together the widest variety of relevant ideas and data, and extending and facilitating intercommunication among students of man wherever in the world they are working.

2. It should be unitary, a single set of cross-cutting materials available to all. All students of the sciences of man should be speaking to one another on the same pages in the same language. Though no scholar can be equally interested in all things, CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY should not prejudge where the individual's interests will carry him.

3. It should provide communication that is both fast and convenient, a single, common center where scholars can with a minimum of duplication of effort share knowledge of their current activities.'

CA* treatment as the cornerstone of Current Anthropology

Critical discussion by invited associates of featured article

Originally acknowledged comments to be incorporated into paper

Later change to having all comments printed with author’s rejoinder

Critical interchange as expression of anthropological community of conversation

Parallel purpose of discussion format of IXth ICAES sesions

Current Anthropology as Community: Exemplification of ‘Action Anthropology’

Action Anthropology as Tax’s Rejection of pure Theoretical Anthropology

Rejection as well of much Applied Anthropology

Attempt to emphasise the agency of the peoples with whom working

Anthropologist as facilitator

Helping to implement projects requested by peoples themselves

Parallel Tax’s conception of his position as editor of CA

Exemplification in the ‘Fox Project’Mesquaki (Meskwaki) of Iowa

Attempt to overcome structural paralysis of continuing dependency

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: The Term

Term ‘action anthropology’ first used in 1951

The Fox Project

A conscious attempt to decentre anthropological production

First published (1959) in Journal of Social Research (Ranchi, Bihar, India)Subsequently reprinted in Current Anthropology (1975)

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: Foci (my updated terminology)

(1) Recognition of differenceCultural Relativism

(2) InterculturalityAcculturation Situation

No necessaary mnovment of accommodation to a dominant culture

(3) Situation-basedModel of a community study (Redfield)Encompassing research with all peoples involved in a situation

Necessarily multi-sited– Reservation

» Local people(s)» Government officials» Missionaries

– State officials: state capital– National officials: Washington DC

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: Foci (my updated terminology)

(4) Clinical or experimental method of studyRejection of pure observation, even participant observation

Not just observing what happens ‘naturally’Interventionist: Anthropologist as catalyst

Test hypotheses by changing aspect of the situation under study in accord with hypotheses and see results

(5) Rejection of ‘scientism’Action (i.e. interventions) cannot wait upon having calculated statistical probabilities of effects of courses of actionScience cannot justify anything– ‘But of course the action anthropologist eschews “pure science.”

For one thing his work requires that he not use people for an end not related to their own welfare: people are not rats and ought not to be treated like them. Not only should we not hurt people; we should not sue them for our own ends.

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: Foci (my updated terminology)

(6) Welfare of the community as ultimate goal:‘Community research is thus justifiable only to the degree that the results are imminently useful to the community and easily outweigh the disturbance to it…One may characterize action anthropology by saying that the community in which it works is not only its subject of study but also its object.’

(7) Lack of top-down mandateAcademic autonomyNo framing of issues (i.e. terms of reference) accepted from

Non-community organisation managementGovernment officialsAdministrators

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: Guiding Values

(1) TruthAnticipating Scheper-Hughes’s ‘speaking truth to power’

‘…we also fee impelled to trumpet our truth against whatever falsehoods we find, whether they are deliberate or psychological or mythological.’

(2) FreedomOf individuals to choose group with which to identifyOf communities to choose their way of lifeAnthropologist as facilitator

Removing restrictions on alternativesAttempt to remove self from position of power

(3) ParsimonyQuestions of value only to be settled when relevant to problems of actionCriterion of relevance: developing more constructive relations within community and to others

Eschewal of abstract value judgements– Simply not address issue of cannibals having right to self-determination (Redfield’s query)

unless work with community of cannibals

Parallel to operation of US Supreme CourtCase-basedConstitutional issues not decided in abstract

Tax’s Manifesto of Action Anthropology: Guiding Values

Influence of American pragmatism (John Dewey)

Answering questions only sufficiently to settle problems in concrete instancesAction anthropology as a balancing act

Help a group of people to solve a problemLearn something in the process

Failures of realisation of Fox ProjectFoley: Actual projects tend to be planned, initiated, organised by anthropologists themselves

Few survive after departure of anthropologists

Only scholarship project enduring effects

Anthropologists’ power brokering with white contribute to continuing Mesquaki dependency

Tax’s team’s reassessmentAnthropologist’s role as educating people about consequences of choosing various alternatives

Gearing (The Face of the Fox):‘Sadly, the more I came to recognize

the underlying nature of the discomfort

of this small community, the more my

“helping” was reduced to mere talk.’

‘Action Anthropology’ as predecesor of ‘Engaged Anthropology’

2008 American Anthropological Association (San Francisco) meeting: ‘Inclusion, Collaboration, and Engagement’

‘Engaged skepticism’ in evaluation of Minerva project & ‘human terrain system’ by AAA President

2009 Australian Anthropological Society meeting: ‘Engaging with Politics and Ethics’

Course outlinesE.g. ‘The Anthropology of Engagement/Engaged Anthropology’

David Valentine, Sarah Lawrence College

‘Engaged Anthropology’ as key word in publications and websites

Keith Hart (Goldsmith’s College, London): ‘An engaged anthropology for the 21st century’

Savage Minds: ‘Engaged Anthropology and Academic Freedom’ (Kerim)

Engaged Observer: Anthropology, Advocacy and Activism (Sanford, Angel-Ajani)

Engaged Anthropology as Impactful (Pragmatic criterion)

Ric Curtis ‘Adventures in Engaged Anthropology: Why “Getting it Right” is Not Enough?’

Tactical Anthropology: influence on illegal drug policy

‘Active engagement with law enforcement folks’

Syringe Exchange program

Engaged Anthropology as Publicly Relevant

Engaging Anthropology: The Case for a Public Presence (Thomas Hylland Eriksen)

Anthropological writing as focusInfluence of rhetorical critique of anthropological writing by Marcus & associates

Borofsky’s ‘Public Anthropology’: Echoes of Tax’s Action Anthropology

Overcoming contrast of theory and practice

Recovery of holism

Conversations among concerned parties

Recovering sense of status and respect from broader public

Contrast with Applied anthropology (e.g. contract anthropology)

Refusing to accept hegemonic framing of problems

Borofsky’s Acknowledgment of Heritage of Tax’s Action Anthropology

Acknowledging shortcomings of Action Anthropology in realisation

Critical discussion of the project as an exemplification of public anthropology

CA* treatment of Foley’s article

Current Anthropology as a more successful realistion of both public anthropology & action anthro-pology than the Fox project itself!

Discontinuities of Tax’s vision of World Anthropology with World Anthropologies

World Anthropology still a modernist project centred in a Western metropole (Chicago)

Both IXth ICAES and Current Anthropology

Continuing domination by Western scholars in publications of World Anthropology series and in Current Anthropology

Euro-American vision of core of World Anthropology (heir to Anthropology Today)

Faith in unity of Anthropology as a coherent, unified discipline

Tax’s final proposition in his ‘Anthropology for the World of the Future: Thirteen Professions and Three Proposals’

Heir to Kroeber

Continuities of Tax’s vision with World Anthropologies

Inclusionist urge of Tax’s efforts

Internationalisation of anthropology through the CA associates framework

Action anthropology as a vision of anthropology emphasising its practice with people rather than merely theorising about them

Rejection of unilineal models of developmentTax’s revelatory realisation that acculturation not occurring among Native Americans

Rejection of his mentors

Linton & Redfield as co-articulators of acculturation concept

Redfield’s ‘folk-urban’ continuum

Questioning of the nation-state as a givenCosmopolitanism as creed (i.e. Fabian’s ‘transnationalism’)

Tax’s Vision of World AnthropologyAnthropology as a community of conversation

Pluralist inclusion

Engagement with a multitude of perspectives

But still a modernist perspective

Faith in a unified adherence to Western liberal, democratic values

Lessons for World Anthropologies?

Postmodernist/poststructural emphasis upon discontinuities (e.g. Foucault)

World Anthropologies as an epistemic break with previous perspectives

But in many ways a continuing evolution from perspectives earlier articulated by Tax

Continuities of ‘World Anthropologies’ with ‘World Anthropology’

Tax’s marginalisation from mainstream (Western) anthropology in his own time

Perhaps now a more appropriate time for such an inclusionary project

Prospects for ‘World Anthropologies’

Within academic anthropology:‘Culture of Accountability’ as the major obstacle

Fetichisation of rankings– Pressure to publish in journals of the metropoles

Within applied anthropology‘Terms of reference’ dictated by governments and other sponsoring organisations

Restricted parameters of Native Title

Countervailing hope:Engaged alliance with Indigenous organisations and social movementsFulfilment of promise of ‘action anthropology’ through work in civil society organisations

Perhaps even through anthropological associations like ASWA