Solidarity, Transculturality, Educational Anthropology, and (the Modest Goal of) Transforming the World

Abstract

This essay originated as the Council of Anthropology and Education presidential address, delivered at the CAE Business meeting in the fall of 2015. I found myself completing revisions of it in fall 2016, in the days following the U.S. presidential election. The essay explores two constructs that I have pondered in different ways, both in my current work as an applied educational anthropologist (of sorts), and some thirty years ago, when I identified principally as an activist and a teacher. These twin constructs-transculturality and solidarity-take on new urgency in the current polarized political climate. I am honored to have six esteemed colleagues as respondents who will extend the conversation. Transculturality First, let me unpack the notion of transculturality. As anthropologists who take a processual view of culture (González, 2005), some might wonder at the idea of putting "trans" in front of the word that is at the heart of our field. There are similar debates among sociolinguists about the notion of "translanguaging." (See for example Garcia & Wei, 2013.) Isn't it just the nature of culture, and language, to change over time-to ignore the borders that people construct and defend? Aren't we just talking about culture, and language?

2017 CAE Presidential Address: Intergenerational Disruption or Ideological Incongruency?

“…After Anderson Levitt, our next CAE presidents, Perry Gilmore (), Norma Gonzalez (), Terry McCarty (), Bryan Brayboy (), Katherine Shultz (), Greg Tanaka (), Rosemary Henze (), and Marjorie Faulstich Orellana (), validated and reinforced how our mission statement was part of our identity. Thus, the questioning by Levinson () last year brought back the concerns of those who felt displaced by the mission statement more than ten years ago.…”