Contemporary Anthropology Research Articles

Our other Others: on perpetration, morality, and ethnographic unease

AbstractThis article critically assesses the impact of political and moral positions within contemporary anthropology. Re‐examining ideas of advocacy and the ethical within the discipline, it argues for an alternative political anthropology that focuses on perpetration rather than victimhood, offenders rather than the offended. If anthropology wants to be a discipline that works against social wrongs and suffering, then understanding the positions and perspectives of those causing them is, we contend, a necessary point of departure. Yet how can we approach people ethnographically who transgress bodily, legal, and moral boundaries, and why is this not more commonly done? In answering these questions, we analyse mainstream disciplinary ethics, both current and historical, and highlight some of the reactions that the study of perpetrators evoke in anthropologists. This illuminates an inconsistency within political anthropology. While there is ample theoretical and ethnographic nuance within the subdiscipline, this complexity seems to fade when we focus on perpetration. We suggest that anthropology engages more fully in the study of perpetration and approaches the issue by clarifying how (mis)dynamics are anchored within shared social worlds and historical becomings. This article thus calls upon us to expand our anthropological attention and curiosity beyond what might be morally comfortable.

Where Do We Come From? Who Are We? Where Are We Going? Ethnographic Museology at the Crossroads of the 21st Century

The title of this paper, echoing a Gauguinesque sentiment, aims to trace the evolution of ethnographic museology from its 19th-century origins, through the paradigm shifts of the second half of the 20th century, to the present day—a period marked by significant changes in ethnology and anthropology. The central question is whether, and how, ethnographic museums should adapt to the profound transformations currently reshaping the field. Equally important is how to address the legacy of these institutions, particularly in light of the strong decolonising movements that have become dogma in contemporary anthropology. This concern is relevant even to Polish collections, which are largely non-colonial or colonial in a different sense.

From Manichaeism to Politics: an Ideological Instrumentalization of Mykhailo Drahomanov’s Social Anthropology by the Ukrainian Leftists

In the history of Ukrainian sociology, the legacy of Mykhailo Drahomanov (1841-1895) is primarily analyzed in terms of his socio-political writings or early methodological ones. However, when considering Drahomanov's long-term and internationally recognized contribution to social sciences and humanities, it is his works at the intersection of folklore studies and social anthropology that are much less often in the focus of sociologists' attention. An important component of these works was Drahomanov's prolonged interest in dualistic heresies and the views on social reality as divided between truth and falsehood, transmitted by the. This interest, which guided the scholar’s research interests for twenty years, had far-reaching consequences for the politicization of the Ukrainian national movement at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The author argues that Drahomanov's folklore and social-anthropological writings, which attracted the attention of researchers of Gnosticism and dualism like C.-G. Jung, as well as contemporary anthropologists, led him to the conviction that the traditional Ukrainian folk worldview tends towards a dualistic, Bogomil-Manichaean, origin-based perspective on the world. He used this conviction for political purposes, and the younger generation of activists of the Ukrainian national movement, who gave rise to radicals, socialist revolutionaries, and social democrats, widely exploited this socio-anthropological discovery for their own political agitation. The conclusions of the study lay the groundwork for further movement in several possible directions: research of the left-wing press to identify specific strategies for the application of the dualistic myth in propaganda, providing a more general historical-cultural context for contemporary studies of populism in Ukraine, as well as a general revaluation of different components in Drahomanov's legacy in the contemporary history of Ukrainian sociology.

Between “Chaos” and “Order”: The Czech Anthropologist and his Experience in the Changes of Time

The main purpose of this text is to show how complex and long the disciplination or disciplinary practice of an anthropologist conducting his fieldwork in non-European areas can be. In the first part, the text is very much retrospective. I focus on my long formative period, during which my ideas about becoming a full-time ethnologist were born in a kind of unconscious vacuum. I revisit my first field entry among the Tarahumara (Rarámuri) people of northwestern Mexico and attempt to bring the reader up to speed on my determined efforts to reach out to native communities and my chaotic actions during this first field experience in a non-European setting as a then third-year ethnology student. This will be followed by a reflection on my next two field researches among the Tarahumara in 1996 and 2001, the first of which resulted in an M. A. thesis and the second in a dissertation. In this section, I try to show a certain shift in the approach to fieldwork, which was no longer mere chaos, but led to a more systematic organization of fieldwork findings and their elaboration into a more extensive qualifying thesis and several technical studies. While in the first part I go back into the deep past in order to show the complexities that a budding ethnologist can or must deal with if he wants to penetrate a completely different environment from his own, in the second part I discuss some of the methods of field research that I have not been familiar with in the past, or have used unconsciously or without better understanding of them. These I find useful in current and forthcoming return research among the Tarahumara. They resonate strongly in contemporary anthropology, and are constantly being refined. In this section I will also outline, with respect to methodological horizons, my current planned research project focusing on the human relationship to biodiversity in the context of environmental and climate change, which is increasingly impacting (not only) Tarahumara communities.

The Original Technicality of the Human Being

In this article I present the thesis of the original technicality of man proposed by the French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, who passed away in 2020. Stiegler's thought is undergoing continuous re-elaboration due to the singularity of the proposed theses deriving from studies of contemporary anthropology and philosophy. The research method used is subjective-argumentative and interpretive. Reading Stiegler's texts lends itself well to a functional interpretation of the thesis according to which digital technologies are natural prostheses for 21st century students. With the subjective-argumentative methodological approach I can reach a specific goal: demonstrating how the use of digital devices is to be considered an educational asset starting from Stiegler’s philosophy. He makes us understand how the original technicality is decisive for cognitive development. Moreover, the subjective-argumentative approach, as little objective as it may be, offers the flexibility to support a contemporary educational theory such as George Siemens’ Connectivism.

Teaching Museology, Understanding the Museum. On the Increased Need for Dialogue, Listening, and Observation (Voice From Łódź)

The Author of the article assumes that museology, when taught as part of ethnological studies, holds a special and symbolic significance in the context of ethnographic museology – it is important and necessary. However, the text highlights several problems and dilemmas associated with teaching this subject. From the perspective of the selection of personnel for museums, radical changes within the discipline of ethnology itself in the last decades of the twentieth century have arguably been detrimental. The activities of ethnographic museums have faced criticism from anthropologically oriented researchers and theorists. To this day, collection programmes and exhibition narratives often do not correspond to the currents of contemporary anthropology. Another dilemma with staff training lies in the diverse nature of ethnographic museology, and the activities of museum professionals have become increasingly complex. Very broad qualification requirements used to be formulated for the people employed there. In the Author’s opinion, the training of museum staff at the Institute of Ethnology should be approached comprehensively. Competencies and knowledge relevant to museologists should be imparted across various subjects with different themes. It is also important for educators to recognise the potential value of their own classes (those without the museum in their names) for future museologists. It would be a good idea to organise regular meetings between museums and academia. Let us leverage membership in the Polish Ethnological Society, which encompasses various communities and has a museological section.

Survivals and the persistence of the past

AbstractThis article explores the latent potential in the anthropological concept of survival, especially through Tylor's usage of the term. Once a core concept of anthropological theory in the late nineteenth century, the idea was critiqued and abandoned in the wake of the structural and functional anthropology of the early twentieth century. However, the concept implies many different things, and in clearing away some of the more problematic meanings, this article focuses on the core of the idea: namely the persistence of the past in the present. The intention is to examine the concept in terms of what it tells us about the relation between the past and the present and, by implication, the historical process itself. By drawing on the distinctions between survival and related terms of relics, persistent practices, and revivals, this article suggests a reappraisal of the concept and its relevance to contemporary anthropology and archaeology.

Making Waves: The Role of Indigenous Water Beings in Debates about Human and Non‐Human Rights

ABSTRACTRejecting nature‐culture dualism, contemporary anthropology recognises the mutually constitutive processes that create shared human and non‐human lifeworlds. Such recognition owes much to ethnographic engagement with diverse indigenous cosmologies many of which have, for millennia, upheld ideas about indivisible worlds in which all living kinds occupy a shared ontological space and non‐human species and environments are approached respectfully, with expectations of reciprocity and partnership. As many societies confront the global chaos caused by the anthropocentric prioritisation of human interests, anthropologists and indigenous communities are therefore well placed to articulate alternative models in which the non‐human domain is dealt with more equitably and inclusively. This paper is located comparatively in long‐term ethnographic research with indigenous communities in Australia, alongside the Mitchell River in North Queensland and the Brisbane River in South Queensland. It draws more specifically on involvement in legal claims for water rights by Māori iwis in New Zealand; in land claims by the Kunjen language group in Cape York; and in a recent ‘sea country’ case brought against a major multi‐national by the Tiwi Islanders in Australia's Northern Territory. It also makes use of a major comparative study of water beings in diverse cultural and historical contexts, and considers the central importance of water beings such as Māori taniwha and the Australian Rainbow Serpent in such legal conflicts, and in broader debates about human and non‐human rights. Like other water deities around the world, these beings personify the generative (and potentially punitive) powers of water and its co‐creative role in shaping human and non‐human lives. They are resurfacing today with an important representational role in contemporary conflicts over land and water.

Kinship Terminology as a (Still) Significant Anthropological Analytical Category

This paper explains the concept of kinship terminology as an analytical category in anthropology and highlights its importance. Special attention is given to the differences in approach and methodology employed in anthropology compared to comparative philology and historical linguistics when it comes to this type of research. In addition to discussing the typology of kinship terminology systems, the paper addresses current knowledge regarding two longstanding questions: 1. the relationship between kinship terminology and non-linguistic elements (principles of social organisation and kinship behaviour), and 2. historical changes and transformations of kinship terminological systems.
 From the perspective of contemporary anthropology, when interpreting the prevalence of different types of kinship terminology worldwide, it is necessary to consider and distinguish between two principles of grouping: the ‘principle of propinquity’ and the ‘principle of form.’ The principle of propinquity can be applied when dealing with societies that are linguistically, geographically, and historically connected. When terminologies with the same formal characteristics, including identical rules of kinship classification, exist in geographically, linguistically, and historically distinct and distant societies, the principle of form is applied, which focuses more on logical rather than historical connections between systems.
 While earlier studies focused on finding logically powerful and empirically efficient analytical means of classification, in recent decades the emphasis has increasingly shifted towards broader social, historical, and cognitive issues and processes. Contemporary approaches to kinship terminology aim to identify and explain variations rather than categorise such systems into one general category or another. Because what matters is not which category fits better, but rather which features can be combined in different ways to form a concrete system in the real world.

Only Words Apart? Talking About “The World” in Pragmatist Philosophy of Religion

Abstract In his well-known critique of conceptual relativism, Donald Davidson declared that we are not worlds but “only words apart.” His interpretive principle of charity asserts that the transcendental condition of disagreement is agreement. Pragmatist philosophers of religion have relied upon the principle of charity to argue against a framework theory of religion. They use the notion of a scale of observationality to illustrate where broad-scale agreement lies and place disagreement (and specifically convictional difference qualifying as “religious”) at the higher reaches, considering it interpretively parasitic. In this article, I problematize the ontological premises of construing difference in this way (specifically insofar as they betray traces of positivism) and the uses of ethnography to substantiate it. I draw on the work of contemporary anthropologists who identify with the so-called ontological turn in ethnography to help think differently about difference—about what it means to be “only words apart.”

Sources of Ambivalence, Contagion, and Sympathy

The bat is often portrayed as a vampire, a taxonomic monstrosity, and a source of the worst evils. Whenever pandemics occur, such as the one currently spread by SARS-CoV-2, this animal is quickly identified as a “reservoir of emerging pathogens” and is among the first to be blamed. Yet many human groups live in daily contact with multiple bat species and eat their flesh, which they praise for its medicinal benefits. Such groups see the bat as a “companion species” with which they cohabit and establish cooperative relationships. In this paper, we use recently gathered ethnographic data from Southeast Asia to show how humans imagine bats and enter into relationships with them. By blurring the boundaries between nature and society, this animal has made itself an appropriate subject of study for contemporary anthropology.

“It would be a good idea to carry out a research project called ‘Theologians’ ships’…”

A conversation with a historian of Russian theology of the Modern era touches upon the continuity of some key ideas that are characteristic of the Diaspora Theology of the 20th century in relation to the ideas whose origins are found in Russian spiritual and academic theology of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Contrary to the well-established opinion that Russian post-revolutionary emigration theology was a new, breakthrough phase in theological development, the author shows that such concepts as Trinitarian ecclesiology, personalism, theosis, kenotic theology (characteristic of this theology) in fact arise and form among Russian authors from the end of 1880-s until the turning point in 1917. The following specific questions are also raised during the conversation: the emergence of the Russian theological school, contemporary anthropology in its connection with the anthropology of St. Augustine; receptions of the Areopagite Corpus in pre-revolutionary Russia; the influence of Western theology, in particular French mysticism of the 17th century, as well as the influence of the latest philosophy and psychology for that time on representatives of the Russian spiritual and academic tradition. The author connects the peculiarities of Russian pre-revolutionary theology with the fact that among the Orthodox Churches, it is the Russian Church that is the first to find itself in the situation of the new time with its secularization, non-religious humanism and specific philosophical language. The status of Russian lay theologians (first of all, professors of theological schools, who belonged together with the teachers-priests to the same spiritual-academic corporation) is also discussed. The conversation can be considered as a multifaceted look at the history of Russian Orthodox theology in recent centuries, where there are still gaps identified by the author.

Ermenautica: A Way of Life for Another Kind of Republic? Some personal remarks

The article is a meditation on Ermenautica, a collective of anthropologists, navigators, activists, cultural mediators, and marine lovers based alongside the Tyrrhenian Sea in the Mediterranean. A neologism recombining the terms “hermeneutics” and “nautical”, Ermenautica is conceptualized both as a venue and practice of freedom deeply attuned to the 'experimental turn' in contemporary anthropology. The author recounts a recent sailing trip with the collective across the Tuscan archipelago and presents their way of being together, their politics, as a floating republic – The Republic of Ermenautica – peopled by Ermenauts.

Antropolodzy wobec niespokojnych krajobrazów współczesnego świata w kontekście Cool Anthropology

The article is a reflection on the place, tasks and purpose of cultural anthropology in the contemporary world. It was inspired by a discussion that took place during Ethnology Without Borders 2022 Conference. The 21st century shook the foundations of anthropology’s relationship with politics and society: from the devastating pandemic and the increasing effects of climate change, to the outbreak of war in Europe. The author ponders how anthropology should operate in the face of these crises. The presentation of various research concepts aims to bring closer where the problem is while everyone means well. The article presents the achievements of some anthropologists who criticize actions based on good intentions and draws attention to the achievements of Anthropology of Development, which the author illustrates with some examples from her own observations made during field research in Nepal and NATO training. The Cool Anthropology trend is potentially a right direction for development of contemporary anthropology. The questions posed in the article are intended to provoke reflection on the author’s thesis that as anthropologists who are part of a privileged social layer, should ask themselves the question: how to reconceptualize anthropological activities outside the resources of the academic spheres in order to become socially useful.

Persuasive Technology and Personhood on Social Media

Returning to Marcel Mauss’s classic work on the person, this essay explores Mauss’s distinction between personne and personnage and the distinction used in contemporary anthropology between dividual and individual. Using these terms of analysis, I use the insights gained from recent ethnographic research in laboratories of experimental psychology to show how some parts of the practices used in these settings have become the foundation of social media. I consider whether social media has created a world focused almost entirely on the autonomous and socially isolated individual or whether the socially embedded “dividual” can be equally present/recognized in these settings.

Who Gets to Be an Author?

AbstractWho gets to be an author in contemporary anthropology and who does not? How do both questions about authorship expose problems surrounding academic labor and scholarly knowledge production, which have become normative features of the discipline? This essay examines how inherited logics and practices of anthropological authorship allow for the accumulation of intellectual capital for select academic laborers while excluding others, most notably field research assistants and students. Among university faculty, intellectual capital tends to concentrate in the hands of an elite few who are immunized from the demands imposed on most other academics, including unstable employment conditions and heavy course loads. This essay considers how anthropological scholars of labor can challenge the reigning logics of anthropological authorship through the adoption of new methods while also working to confront the neoliberal audit culture in higher education, which has created unsustainable demands for the majority of academic laborers.

Histoires et pratiques dissonantes dans un ghetto en devenir. Anthropologie contemporaine du cas de Venise

Pris dans de récentes transformations sociales et matérielles, le ghetto de Venise et son dense passé historique font l’objet de réappropriations de la part des acteurs impliqués dans son processus de revitalisation. L’espace du ghetto devient un lieu d’enjeux, de pratiques dissonantes où établis ou nouveaux arrivants ayant une trajectoire résidentielle et des appartenances diverses tentent de réinventer le ghetto en devenir alors qu’il a les traits d’un lieu ambivalent. L’histoire et les récits du ghetto s’en trouvent réactivés. Les usages de l’espace réactualisés font émerger des conflits de visibilité et de représentation d’une forme de vie juive en ce lieu emblématique, ce qui contribue à reconsidérer le terme de ghetto. Ghetto, Temporalités, Mode d’appartenance, Histoire locale, Récits d’acteurs

Kognitywne badania nad religią a antropologia kulturowa

Cognitive science of religion (CSR) is an interdisciplinary research project focusing on the cognitive foundations of religion. The aim of this article is to discuss the specificity of CSR and demonstrate that, although it is part of cognitive science, it can also be seen as an anthropological paradigm in its own right. I argue that such a view can be supported by highlighting the importance of cultural anthropology for the SCR genesis (especially the role of anthropological theories and the resulting research methods, the involvement of anthropologists in the emergence of the new paradigm) and stressing the way in which contemporary anthropology benefits from theories formulated within CSR, the debates they generate and inter-institutional collaborations. Thus, I wish to highlight the dual nature of CSR as part and parcel of both cognitive science and contemporary psychological anthropology.

Over the ruins of subjects: A critique of subjectivism in anthropological discourse

The present article develops a theoretical and philosophical critique of the subjectivist paradigm that grounds a good part of present-day anthropological discourse. The main thesis is that by placing the individual and its subjective experiences at the beginning and end of the anthropological discourse, one never thoroughly acknowledges and accepts our non-subjective and finite modes of being, thereby replicating a distorted and shallow picture of what we are as humans. The article explores, first, how that subjectivist paradigm came about, as well as some of its problems; secondly, it considers ethics and morality as the domain where one can better grasp the limits of subjectivist orientations; and concludes by turning to Heidegger's perspective on the ontological finitude of Dasein in order to emphasize the need for contemporary anthropology to build its reflections from within human finitude, that is, the frailties and the practical, analytic and moral limits of human existence.

How we become who we are

Professor Emeritus of the Department of Social Anthropology at University of St. Andrews and founding director of the Center for Pacific Studies, Christina Toren has been instrumental in charting the new directions of contemporary anthropology. Her contributions to the study of Fiji and the Pacific, sociality, kinship and ideas of the person, ontogeny as historical process, and epistemology, are remarkable, and have guided profound theoretical reformulations worldwide. We met for this interview at her home in Dundee, Scotland, during the period she supervised a research study that we developed at the University of St. Andrews.