Transcript Social anthropology of colonial and postcolonial sub

Social anthropology of colonial and
postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa:
Changing perspectives on a
changing scene
Dr. Hana Horáková
[email protected]
DOMINANT TENDENCIES IN
AFRICAN STUDIES
Date
Connection
Ideological-theoretical
conformation
Dominating discipline
To 1860
Exploration of Africa
Exoticism of travel and
adventure; origins of
human society
Literature, philosophy,
travelogues
1860-1920
Colonial conquest
Justified by evolutionist
theory
Ethnography
1920-45
Development
Self-justified.
Funct.anthropology
describes the reality of
development without
questioning its principle
Anthropology, applied
anthropology
1945-60
Decolonization
“Colonial connection”.
Transition of
anthropology to
sociology suppression
Anthropology;
Sociology; sociology of
underdevelopment
Date
Connection
Ideologicaltheoretical
conformation
Dominating
discipline
1960-1989
Neocolonialism
Discovery of
illusions of
independence.
Radical criticism of
the “connection”.
Marxist revival.
Anthropology,
sociology, and
political economy.
Pursuit of their
unification.
Development
studies
1989-
Postcolonialism
Postmodernism.
Discourse on
culture, identity
and politics.
Afropessimisme.
Interdisciplinary.
Postcolonial ,
subaltern, post
development
studies;anthro of
colonialism,
comparative
political science;
literary critique
• traveller→explorer→missionary→soldier
• administrator (representative of political
power)→ethnologist/anthropologist as an
organized professional→another scholar in
social sciences and humanities
Great Britain
• applied anthropology
• functionalism
• acculturation
France
• monograph-catalogue
total social fact
technology
cosmogony
Colonial conquest 1860-1920 and the
early social anthropology
• Social evolutionist theory
• Diffusionist models
• “To the Victorians, anthropology was the
parlance and the practice of a society which
gave itself the alibi, the good conscience and
the luxury of a ´scientificity´ in its colonial
experience.“ (Leclerc 1969)
• Mason: The uncivilized mind in the presence of
higher phases of civilization. American
Association, 1881
• Wilson, G.S., ´How shall the American savage
be civilized?´, Atlantic Monthly, 1881
• Orgeas: La pathologie des races humaines et
le problem de la colonisation, 1889
• Kathleen Gough (1967): “Anthropology is the
child of Imperialism.” Kathleen Gough (1967):
“Anthropology is the child of Imperialism.”
• the connection between anthropology and a
broader European tradition of ´involved
exoticism´ (Davies 2003: 155)
COLONIAL ANTHROPOLOGY: major
changes of theoretical paradigm
• 1920-1960: the classic period of the growth of
social anthropology
• British social anthropology
• 1) long-term fieldwork
• 2) functionalism/structural functionalism
• 3) historical context of the British colonial
situation in Africa
• Applied anthropology
• Radcliffe-Brown
• Fortes: African Political Systems (1940)
• Evans-Pritchard: Witchcraft, Oracles, and
Magic among the Azande (1937)
Postcolonial anthropology
• „The destruction of the colonial order
following World War II left anthropology
particularly applied anthropologists open to
attack. Nationalist leaders who had replaced
colonial administrators identified
anthropologists with the former colonial
regimes, viewing anthropologists as agents of
colonial repression.“ (Howard 1996: 400)
• Social anthropology - a tool of domination
• Rivet: ”There is no good colonization without
well-conducted ethnology” (1937)
• Daryll Forde: “It must be admitted that in
many cases the colonial governments did
much for the Africans (1967)
RADICALISM IN AFRICAN STUDIES OF
THE 1960-1970s
• anti-capitalist anthropology
• „Complicity of anthropology“
• „handmaiden” of colonialism (Asad 1973)
Peter C.W.Gutkind and Peter
Waterman: African Social Studies. A
radical reader (1977)
• Examinations of colonial anthropology by
Onoge:
• “anthropology followed the flag into Africa”
• “the morbid perversion of much of Africanist
anthropology”
Consequences of the crisis:
self-reflective anthropology
• reverse report
• reflexive anthropology
• advocacy anthropology
Contemporary anthropology of Africa five
aspects of critique-Falk Moore (1994)
• 1) issues of neocolonialism
• 2) classic economic teorie, dependency theories,
Marxist theories, world-system teorie
• 3) the need to rewrite the existing
anthropological literature with the aim to redress
the past fallacies
• 4) the need to reevaluate all ethnographies
through the discourse of power
• 5) dilemma of dialogue, translation, and
representation
There is more to it…
• The urge of interdisciplinarity
• The relation between anthropology and
development
• A new dimension between Europe and Africa
(AEGIS)
Interdisciplinarity
• comparative politics (Chabal, Bayart,
Hibou,etc.), international relations, political
theory
• Postmodernist Culture and Politics: moral and
political dimension of culture difference
• Anthropology of colonialism (Pels, Comaroffs)
• Postcolonial studies, Postdevelopmental
studies, Subaltern studies
Anthropology and development
• part of theory and practice of development
agencies, voluntary organizations,
international institutions and governments
• “strategy of governance”
• Anthropologists as culture-brokers
CONCLUSION
• A new anthropology has emerged from the
crisis of the postcolonial era
• Shifts in theoretical and methodological
frameworks
• From “structure” to “process”
• African societies are “historically contingent,
with permeable and changing boundaries”
(Grinker and Steiner 1997: xxv)
CONCLUSION
• Methodologically, anthropology remains in
the forefront of the exploration of new
methods of research in the social sciences.
• Empirically, anthropologists are today, as they
have always been, at the centre of most
contemporary issues of serious human
concern.