Anthropological musings: February 2015

Tuesday, 10 February 2015

Marilyn Strathern

There are some anthropological papers that really encapsulate the essence of the discipline. They have exactly the right combination of theoretical analysis and ethnographic contextualisation. A critical component of good anthropology is that the insight comes, is borne from, the fieldwork and so any good paper needs to bring the reader on that same journey.

All good papers need an 'Ah Ha' moment when the reader 'clicks' and understands the argument or rationale being outlined.

Strathern is particularly gifted at providing a good Ah Ha moment. While her texts can be turgid and highly complex with arguments within arguments, you stay reading to the end to see how she is going to get out of this little conundrum this time. She is also very good at reframing and providing pithy quotes that encapsulate arguments. Here she takes Sahlins' analysis of Cook's death at the hands of the Hawaiians and extends his argument that the Hawaiians acted logically within their own cultural understanding of Cook's return to the island with a broken mast: "A cultural event is thus perpetually created out of a natural happening" (1990:160). Things occur; people make sense of them. Sahlins provided the first Ah Ha and then Strathern extended it. Anthropological fun...

Anthropologists of the moment

New research fields, new themes, interdisciplinary research partners and the digitisation of everything requires a radical rethinking of academic cogitation. Furthermore 20th century theorists writing for pre-digital, pre-feminist, pre-globalised, pre-austerity societies can be cannabilised for insight but they are no longer worth engaging in any kind of extensive way (well maybe a few favourites, but not many).

It is time to update our theoretical frameworks for the contemporary world. With this in mind, let's discover who is alive now and providing conceptual understandings of social dynamics that provide useful framings to think through and with.

So who are the leading contemporary thinkers in social sciences esp anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, human geography and urban studies? Can they be identified by

- number of citations

- number of times paper downloaded from web

- number of publications / in key/ highly rated journals

- Professorships

- ESRC grant awards

Or shall we just name some favourites (in no particular order).

Marilyn Strathern (obviously)

Alberto Corsin Jiminez