Beyond an evangelising public anthropology: science, theory and commitment

Abstract

If my experience of anthropology in and on Africa is anything to go by, there has been too much of engaged or public anthropology and too little of anthropology as an intellectual pursuit animated by rigorous contemplation and practice on and around a set of shared curiosities. Distinguishing between academic anthropology and engaged or public anthropology requires a priori reflection on the scientific status of anthropology. This paper argues that anthropology's scientific potential has yet to be fully realised. Without a rigorous commitment to science, theory building, and an acknowledgement of associated epistemologies, as well as little patience for knowledge production as a collaborative endeavour, much anthropology today is little different from an evangelical and ideological commitment to saving souls, saving situations, winning converts and 'giving back'. The paper challenges anthropologists to commit to the essential task of producing critical knowledge of critical value, and to re-embrace and fulfil anthropology's core mission and ambition as an evidence-based field science. The need for anthropology as a rigorous and collaborative field science, liberated from 'western' and 'male' dominance, calls for a negotiated, inclusive and accountable ethics, evidence-based thick description, an understanding of interconnections and interdependencies, and critical and comparative theory building as a permanent engagement and as a dynamic and constructive debate. Africa (Nyamnjoh 2012) is anything to go by, there has been too much of engaged or public anthropology and too little of anthropology as an intellectual pursuit animated by rigorous contemplation and practice on and around a set of shared curiosities. Even with cultural relativism in mind, and recognition that habitus and social position matter, conversion seems privileged over conversation, including among anthropologists differently and differentially positioned by factors such as place, class, race, gender and generation. Without a rigorous commitment to science, and with little patience for knowledge production as a collaborative endeavour, anthropology today, it seems to me, is preponderantly evangelical in its approach -'fighting back', saving situations, saving souls, winning converts and 'giving back' to poor villagers and migrant labourers. Soul saving, however desirable, pleasurable and gratifying to anthropologists wedded to redeeming 'powerless people' (Kulick 2006), should be left to religious and political pundits and to NGOs, while * If my experience of anthropology in and on

Falling out of love? A response to Francis Nyamnjoh's ‘Beyond an evangelizing public anthropology: science, theory, and commitment’

“…Indeed, we cannot expect others to accept our subjectivities while denying them theirs, and similarly we cannot use our subjectivities as an excuse for shoddy research. However, an awareness of our subjectivities and 'the various intersections within our identities' (Nyamnjoh 2014) are useful for a deeper engagement with the discipline. It may help us to examine 'the unequal relations of power between ourselves as anthropologists', and to understand how we might break from the legacies of a Western mission civilisatrice.…”

“…He tells us that 'In social research, silly questions beget silly answers. We need theories to sharpen and direct research questions and to facilitate the production of meaning in an ever-changing world of relationships of force and the force of relationships' (Nyamnjoh 2014). Firstly, silly questions can and have produced useful and fascinating answers.…”

The business of anthropology and the European refugee regime

“…The desire to speak against dominant forms of power often lies in resistance to neoliberalization and entails a reflexive acknowledgment of anthropology's own colonial histories (Ortner ). Yet the call to do good may also reassert paternalistic, interventionist tendencies that have long shaped anthropological work (Nyamnjoh ).…”

“…Importantly, anthropology does not necessarily intersect with such business interests in a cold‐eyed, intentional way, but even sometimes in attempts to challenge or overcome them. For instance, as Francis B. Nyamnjoh (, 52) has argued, some anthropologists from the Global North conducting research on the African continent reproduce colonial tendencies particularly through an “evangelizing” moral high ground that claims public relevance.…”

“…Anthropology's entanglement in macro–political‐economic interests may, however, be remedied in part by a commitment to what Nyamnjoh (, 49) defines as “science”: “a methodic process of critical, systematic questioning, meticulous data gathering, analysis and interpretation, and alert receptiveness to the humility of doubt, the force of evidence and the possibility of error.” Indeed, ethnographic methodologies, being empirical and open ended, may also destabilize macro–power structures, enabling anthropology to chronicle the open‐endedness of social lives (Greenhouse , 256–58). Finally, a sustained attention to ways of living and being that are different from those of the anthropologist (Robbins , 456) may unsettle notions of relevance embedded in anthropological business interests.…”