Immutable: Ethnography and Inequality: Reflections on the Decolonization of Anthropology’s Methodological Assemblage. Part 2 Session 8 of the digital lecture series „Decolonizing Anthropology: A Self-Critical Appraisal of the Current State of Research and Teaching”; German speaking departments of social and cultural anthropology.
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Resource ID
30
Access
Open
Title
Ethnography and Inequality: Reflections on the Decolonization of Anthropology’s Methodological Assemblage. Part 2 Session 8 of the digital lecture series „Decolonizing Anthropology: A Self-Critical Appraisal of the Current State of Research and Teaching”; German speaking departments of social and cultural anthropology.
Author
Alvi, Anjum
Baumann, Benjamin
Pinthongvijayakul, Visisya
Zehmisch, Philipp
Editor
boasblogs
Other contributor
Zillinger, Martin
Publishing institution
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Date of publication
13 June 2024
Terms of use
(CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Namensnennung + nicht kommerziell + keine Bearbeitung
Abstract
What does the decolonization turn imply for the discipline of anthropology? In this lecture, we acknowledge that decolonization contains promising potentials to address the inequalities that characterize anthropology as an academic discipline, while we simultaneously emphasize that these approaches ultimately fail to undo the epistemic violence that is implied in any ethnographic endeavor. We argue that ethnography, anthropology’s defining and almost canonic methodological assemblage, builds on a heuristic that presupposes different forms of inequality, which are ultimately rooted in coloniality. Institutionalized science remains quintessentially colonial as it centers on an accumulation of knowledge and hence power.
Can we destabilize the colonial legacies that form our contemporary understandings of science without destabilizing anthropology as an academic discipline and its institutionalization?
Our discussion is going to address this central question in three steps. First, we will outline the epistemic problems encountered in the decolonization turn as they unfold in anthropology. Second, we ask how to decolonize power-knowledge relations within anthropology. Third, we emphasize that a decentering or negation of the Self is not only a prerequisite of doing ethnographic fieldwork, but also essential to decolonize the disciplines. Finally, this encompasses our understanding of what decoloniality actually means.
Our format is intentionally open for discussion, inviting the audience to share their views on our framework, in order to expand our inquiry into one of anthropology’s most pressing contemporary issues.
Keywords
Decolonizing Anthropology
Cultural Anthropology
Social Anthropology
Ethnologie
Decolonization
History of Ideas
Methodology
Epistemology
Ethnography
GND Keywords
Sozialanthropologie 4129436-1
Kulturanthropologie 4133903-4
Ideengeschichte 4138031-9
Wissenschaftstheorie 4117665-0
Methodologie 4139716-2
Entkolonisierung 4070860-3
Feldforschung 4016674-0
Assemblage <Philosophie> 1256786713
Ethnologie 4078931-7
DDC
301 Soziologie und Anthropologie, 306 Kultur und Institutionen, 378 Hochschulbildung (Tertiärbereich)
RVK
LB 53000
LB 39000
Language
eng
Publication type
CourseMaterial
File format
MP4
Publisher DOI
Dauer / Länge
01:04:49