The business of anthropology and the European refugee regime

Abstract

Metaphors of flooding and “flows” are often applied in the public sphere to the phenomena of displacement and migration, but there are also “waves” and “tides” of humanitarian actors, “voluntourists,” and researchers now focused on refugees. Humanitarian, security, and anthropological interventions in the European “refugee crisis” of 2015–16 often operate according to a shared logic of urgency and crisis. Key problems and pitfalls in current anthropological trends in the study of displacement on Europe's doorstep are linked to the business dimensions of anthropological work. The business of anthropology reinforces the European refugee regime, which makes border crossers into targets of policing, intervention, and study. [crisis, refugees, displacement, anthropology, Greece, Europe]

Keywords and key words in AE

“…This gives credence to Cabot's () critique of a “crisis‐chasing” mode in current anthropology, particularly with regard to the “wave” of research on the refugee crisis. She notes how this inclination to jump on the “hot spots” of world events reveals anthropology's institutional embeddedness—the “business of anthropology”—in a field that “rewards crisis chasing” through the imperative of quick output and high impact enforced on academic staff, funding mechanisms that require demonstrable societal relevance of project proposals, and generally ideas of prestige and value that anthropologists also impose on themselves from an urge to “do good” through their research.…”

“…The predominance of words that refer to critical issues appears to support Heath Cabot's () recent contention, in AE ’s August 2019 issue, that (too) much anthropology today is driven by “crisis chasing.” The frequency of these words in itself, however, does not tell us much about how anthropologists engage with these issues, nor does it elucidate how relevance is assigned to areas of research that appear to be more urgent than others. A closer examination of how AE ’s authors use keywords in their research and writing offers a more nuanced picture of current trends.…”

“…But anthropology also recurs in the Brexit and Trump forum (three times in titles and once as keyword, not counting “Anthropology” in the forum title), which indicates that topical forums in AE are considered useful vehicles for broader reflection on the discipline (although this is not apparent from the keywords and titles in the 2016 forum on the “refugee crisis”). Indeed, the editor occasionally deems an article submission of such relevance to the discipline that it is turned into a forum with responses, as was the case with Cabot's () thought‐provoking article.…”

“…This indicates that key words—which gain their “key” significance mainly from aggregated repetition—cannot be taken at face value as signposts of relevance in anthropological scholarship. Yet those isolated words are increasingly influential in an institutional setting in which easily signposted hot topics, such as the “refugee crisis,” are often more likely to become well‐funded research priorities (Cabot ), and in which the algorithmic operations of online databases and search engines produce a logic of recognition based on isolated aggregation rather than idiosyncrasy or multivocality. The consequent imperative for scholars is to choose their keywords and titles strategically, which streamlines the vocabulary for presenting research but also risks impoverishing it.…”

From the editor

“…AE ’s forums all appear in the print edition, but they have not supplanted traditional research articles, which remain the journal's raison d’être. Nor should research on cutting‐edge political events like the refugee crisis, or “crisis chasing,” as Heath Cabot () terms it, become the norm in our discipline.…”