Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further toward an Anthropology for Liberation

Citation

Harrison, F. V. (Ed.). (1997). Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further toward an Anthropology for Liberation (2nd ed.). Association of Black Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association. (First edition 1991.)

Chapter Summary

Context and Argument

This is an edited collection of about 200 pages, published by the Association of Black Anthropologists with the American Anthropological Association, and the second edition of a volume first issued in 1991. Its contributors argue for the "critical reconstruction" of anthropology as a discipline devoted to understanding humankind in its diversity and commonality, and they ask what anthropological knowledge should be used for. The editor's closing hope, in the publisher's description, is that ethnographic data, social and cultural analysis, theory and strategies for applying knowledge can help scholars work towards intercultural and international solidarity and "world transformation".

The contents are a foreword, a preface, an introduction by the editor, nine essays and an epilogue. The essays combine criticism of the discipline's colonial and racial assumptions with discussions of fieldwork, ethics and method, with case material from places including Nicaragua, Papua New Guinea, Cardiff and Jamaica. The collection engages with postmodern and reflexive turns in anthropology and with political-economy approaches.

Foreword (Yolanda T. Moses) and Preface (Kimberly Eison Simmons)

The foreword and the preface introduce the volume and its purpose before the editor's own introduction.

Anthropology as an Agent of Transformation: Introductory Comments and Queries (Faye V. Harrison)

The editor's introduction frames the collection. It examines the discipline's entanglement in colonial and imperial agendas and argues for an anthropology committed to social justice.

Man and Nature, White and Other (Michael L. Blakey)

Blakey examines how Western ideas of nature and of "man" have underpinned racial hierarchies and been used to justify the subjugation of non-European peoples.

Colonized Anthropology: Cargo-Cult Discourse (Pem Davidson Buck)

Buck considers the anthropological discourse on "cargo cults", showing how it has portrayed colonised people as irrational and calls for an approach that recognises their agency.

On Ethnography in an Intertextual Situation: Reading Narratives or Deconstructing Discourse? (Glenn H. Jordan)

Jordan asks what ethnographers do with the many narratives that surround a place and a community, and argues for a reflexive approach that attends to the power relations in writing.

Undoing Fieldwork: Personal, Political, Theoretical and Methodological Implications (Deborah D’Amico-Samuels)

The chapter reflects on fieldwork as a practice with personal and political dimensions, and argues that method has to be rethought in light of the researcher's position.

Ethnography as Politics (Faye V. Harrison)

Harrison argues that ethnography is a political act and discusses the responsibilities of anthropologists who want their work to engage with struggles for justice.

Confronting the Ethics of Ethnography: Lessons from Fieldwork in Central America (Philippe Bourgois)

Bourgois draws on his fieldwork in Central America to discuss the ethical problems of research in politically tense settings and the relationship between researchers and the people they study.

“They Exploited Us But We Didn’t Feel It”: Hegemony, Ethnic Militancy, and the Miskitu-Sandinista Conflict (Charles R. Hale)

Hale analyses the conflict between the Miskitu people and the Sandinista government in Nicaragua, using the idea of hegemony to explain how ethnic militancy arose.

Anthropology and Liberation (Edmund T. Gordon)

Gordon discusses how anthropology can relate to movements for liberation and argues for a practice aligned with the goals of oppressed communities.

Militarism and Accumulation as Cargo Cult (Angelia Gilliam)

Gilliam turns the "cargo cult" idea back on the societies that use it, treating militarism and accumulation as a cult of its own and linking them to capitalism and ideology.

Epilogue (Delmos J. Jones)

The epilogue closes the volume by drawing together its main themes.

Key Concepts

Foundations of the Critique

• Decolonised anthropology: a discipline that addresses its own colonial history and the racial assumptions in its concepts.
• Anthropology for liberation: research and practice aligned with the struggles of oppressed people.
• Cargo-cult discourse: a way of describing colonised peoples as irrational, which two chapters examine.

Method and Ethics

• Reflexivity and positionality: the researcher's own position as part of what has to be analysed.
• Intertextuality: the field as already full of texts and narratives.
• Ethnography as politics: ethnographic work as a political act with ethical consequences.
• Hegemony: a concept used to explain how domination is sustained and how ethnic militancy responds.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A collection with a shared purpose. The essays are united by the aim of a more critical, socially engaged discipline, so the volume reads as one argument from several angles.
• Method and ethics alongside critique. Chapters on fieldwork, intertextuality, and the ethics of research give practical questions as much space as criticism of the discipline's past.
• Positive scholarly reception. A review in American Ethnologist (A. Lynn Bolles, 1994) is quoted in the publisher's description as calling it a much-needed analysis of the benefits and limitations of the new cultural anthropology.

Limitations

• Dated in some respects. The volume dates from 1991 and 1997 and engages with the debates of that period, such as postmodern and reflexive anthropology, so more recent literature on decolonisation will not be found here.
• Unevenness of an edited volume. The chapters vary in subject, region and method, and a reader needs to supply the connections.
• Specific case studies. Several essays concern particular places and conflicts, and readers unfamiliar with them may need background reading.

Where It Fits in the Course

In this course on postcolonial and decolonial thought, the book is an advanced, discipline-specific collection that predates most of the recent literature. Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and Young's Postcolonialism: A Very Short Introduction supply the wider background, while Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies extends the discussion of research ethics and method to Indigenous peoples. Bhambra and Holmwood's Colonialism and Modern Social Theory and Bhambra's Rethinking Modernity make parallel arguments about sociology, and Adébísí's Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge does so for law. Read together, they show decolonisation efforts across disciplines, with this volume as an earlier anthropological example.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at graduate students and advanced undergraduates in anthropology, sociology and related fields, and some familiarity with the history of anthropology helps. Read the introduction first, then the essays on the discipline's assumptions (Blakey, Buck), followed by the essays on method and ethics (Jordan, D'Amico-Samuels, Harrison, Bourgois) and the case study and applied essays (Hale, Gordon, Gilliam). The epilogue is a short close.

For each essay, note the problem it identifies, the evidence it uses and the change it proposes in anthropological practice. Compare the proposals with those in Smith's Decolonizing Methodologies. When citing, check the edition: the first edition appeared in 1991 and the second in 1997.