The 'Primitive,' the 'Real,' and the 'World System': Knowledge Producion in Comtemporary Anthropology

Abstract

That we are living in an age of crisis is taken for granted. Far more difficult to comprehend is how the crisis manifests itself across the disciplines. Anthropology has been particularly hard hit by the epochal and cataclysmic events of the late twentieth century. With the accelerating expansion of the capitalist world system into the remotest corners of the globe, Anthropology has had to witness its traditional objects of study, the so-called primitive peoples, disappearing with the speed of light. One after another, the world's tribal and peasant societies have been 'pacified,' settled, and put to work in the fields and sweatshops of the New World Order. As a result the question of what constitutes knowledge of the 'Other' and how it is produced has become particularly troubling for anthropologlsts.