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28.3.08
The violence of Anthropological epistemology
Argument
The following paper will problematize the production of anthropological knowledge. It will focus on the process of re-contextualization of indigenous knowledge into western discourse. Our argument is that The anthropological construction of alterity depends on the "epistemologization" of others ontologies, refuting the realness of their cultural knowledge while the Western ontology that grounds this process remains unarticulated and unquestioned.
Selfhood vs. Alterity
Anthropologists have been constantly defining and redefining the boundaries between self and others – wherein "the self", the Western persona, is often perceived as encroaching on the premises of "the other", so that it behooves anthropology to tread softly so as not to disrupt the fragile entities of others.
The alteration of the "indigenous mind"
The "others" themselves often joined the discourse by becoming less "alien", especially within the context of world globalization. "The awareness that the search for radical otherness contained a political component," writes Peirano, "allowed 'indigenous' anthropologies to enter the scene during the 1970s." (Pierano 1998:106)
As more and more formerly "indigenous" sites became involved in the general concourse of anthropology as a discipline, it often seemed that the distinction between "object-West" and "subject-native" was being eroded. Peirano writes that, "in places where anthropology was ratified locally via social sciences during the 1940s and 1950s (e.g.
Indeed, once the "alter native" is trained in the theories and practices of anthropology he/she becomes co-opted by the very construction that set up alterity in the first place, and promptly loses his/her alterity. Quoting Diamond[2] Pierano writes: "professional anthropology was an instance of diffusion by domination, meaning that 'an Indian or African anthropologist, trained in this Western technique, does not behave as an Indian or African when he behaves as an anthropologist… he lives and thinks as an academic European" (1980b:11-12)". [3]
Although there are some pretensions to indigenous anthropologies (and Pierano's aforementioned article, which advocates a localized "Brazilian" anthropology is a case in point), both the form and content of discourse seem to indicate that these are merely mirror-sites of the discipline that add geographic variety and local color to the core paradigm of the discipline. Processes of Academic Homogenization are strongly evident, unifing all minds under western thought. Once an Indian is inducted in the practices and perspectives of Western Anthropology he/she is no longer a representative of indigenous culture – but a hopefully colorful outpost of the central perspective.
Anthropology
Obviously, the single most salient feature of anthropology as an academic discipline - what grounds it in the project of modernity and garnishes it with the mantle of non-voyeurism, non-puerility, is Weberian disenchantment.
Weberian disenchantment arising directly from the swift transformations wrought in European epistemologies in the course of the 19th century, is deeply rooted in the Cartesian tradition of radical solipsistic doubt, which leads to the inevitable conclusion: All is epistemology, and the direct consequence is that wonder and magic, which are forever rooted in ontologies, simply fade away.
When Vivieros de Castro interviews the Awarate in order to learn how they establish identity through the alterity of their enemy's eyes, it is Vivieros de Castro himself, capable of constructing Awarate ontology as an epistemology, who becomes the alter. His informants and their enemies, the eternal cycle of devourers and devoured are both well entrenched in an ontology, as Vivieros de Castro testifies (in regard to animism): "Animism is surely an ontology, concerned with being and not with how we come to know it."
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The Problem of the Epistemological project
We would like to question the prevailing perspective of anthropology as a discipline which attempts to deconstruct ontology, i.e., a theory regarding the "Real World" or the "World as It Is", assuming that what 'other' peoples perceive as "the real" is in fact a cultural construct. In other words, once the anthropological perspective is applied the "real" of "others" it radically transforms into a "world view", an "epistemology". It totally refutes the "realness" of different human cultural construction. Although the examined "others" are consider themselves as situated in an ontology, i.e., a description of reality, the anthropologist "knows" that such visions are in fact epistemologies, and these epistemologies become the subject matter of anthropology: The analysis of the epistemologies of others who deem their perceptions to be "real".
What is the real?
Is there an anthropological ontology, or is everything just an endless relativist epistemological reflection of … of what? It is a tautological paradox that has been widely discussed as "the problem" of post-modern theory
It turns the truth into a political thing – Ontology belongs to those who govern. Western discourse governs and as such its thought is the "ontology". What can we say about that?
Along the path of Western thought, one cannot speak of ontologies, for both the subject and his/her questions about the real, belong to the realm of the epistemic, and this becomes the ultimate ontology – a reality that is unreal, an ontology that is epistemological.
The anthropological epistemology is the ontology of the discipline, i.e., the perception of everything as epistemic constructs an ontology, creates a theory of reality. A theory about the world. This then is the 'world' constructed by the anthropological vision: it is epistemic.
And when the "enchanted" parts of the world grow increasingly "disenchanted", their vision gradually assimilates that of the main anthropological paradigm. Just as forests and natural resources are gradually eliminated, so as well post-exotic and decolonizing trends continuesly eradicate all differences and appropriate local cultures of belief, into anthropology's world of epistemologies.
Bibliography
Berger, P.L. (1969). The sacred Canopy - Elements of a sociological theory of religion.
Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91
Dwyer, L.E. (1999). History Meaning and Power in the
Gailbert, C. (2004). Some preliminary notes on actor-observer anthropology. International Social Science Journal (English Edition).
הראי"ה קוק, אורות הקודש, חלק ב', עמ' שסא, חטיבת הדצח"מ.
Lindenbaum, S. (2004). Thinking About Cannibalism. Annual Review of Anthropology.
Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology. BlackWell Publishing, p.19.
Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28.
Viveiros de Castro, E. (1992). From the Enemy's Point of View: Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society. Translated by Catherine V. Howard.
Vivieros de Castro, P. (1999). Comment on Bird-David, N. (1999). "Animism" revisited: Personhood, environment and relational epistemology" in Current Anthropology: Culture – A Second Chance Chicago: Feb. 1999. Vol. 40, p. S67-S91.
Walters, K. (1999). Representing the Empire: Conventions of Representation from Enlightment to Contemporary Composition Studies. M.A. Dissertation.
Suggested further reading
Abu-Lughod, L. (1991). Writing against culture. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Appadurai, A. (2000). Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Becker, E. (1971). The Lost Science of
Bourdieu, P. (1990). Objectification Objectified. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Dhareshwar, V. (1998). Valorizing the Present: Orientalism, Postcoloniality and the Human Sciences. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
Diamond, S. (1980). Anthropological Traditions: The Participants Observed. Pp. 2-16. in Diamond S., ed. (1980). Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs.
Fabian, J. (1983). Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes its Object.
Fahim, H., ed. (1982). Indigenous Anthropology in Non-Western Countries.
Geertz C. (1983). Local Knowledge: Further Essay in Interpretive Anthropology.
Gerholm T. & Hannerz, U. (1982). The shaping of national anthropologies in Ethnos 42 (Special Issue).
Knauft, M. (2002). Critically Modern Alternatives, Alterities, Anthropologies.
Hall, S., ed. (1992). Formations of Modernity.
Hallowell, AI. (1974). The history of anthropology as an anthropological problem. In Darnell, R. (1974),
Latour, B. (1993). Relativism. In Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
McGrane BD. 1976. Beyond
Moore, H.L. & Sanders, T. eds. (2006). Anthropology in Theory: Issues in Epistemology.
[1] Peirano M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.106-107.
[2] Referring to Diamond, S. (1980). Anthropological Traditions: The Participants Observed. Pp. 2-16. in Diamond S., ed. (1980). Anthropology: Ancestors and Heirs.
[3] Peirano, M.G.S. (1998). "When Anthropology is at Home: The Different Contexts of a Single Discipline" Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 1998. 27:105-28, p.108.
18.3.08
The rhetorics of free speech and tenure
Academic Keywords: A Devil's Dictionary for Higher Education Book by Cary Nelson, Stephen Watt; 1999.
"…we believe we can preserve a viable system of education that supports at least the minimum freedom necessary to advance and adapt cultural knowledge to changing conditions. For this project we will need Ph.D.'s who have the time and resources to devote to continuing research. Alternative careers in industry or high school or community college teaching - none of these alternatives let research faculty in the humanities do the critical cultural work for which they have been trained…" (Nelson & Watt, 1999:13).
Untenured!
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