Thanks again for the many helpful comments and suggestions shared on this
thread, and the many who wrote to me privately. It was interesting to
follow the different discussions as they developed.
The project I asked for your help with about the migration of social workers
<https://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/Projects/The-Migration-of-Social-Workers-to-and-from-the-UK>
is for me a case in which migrating social workers find themselves in the
position of 'reverse anthropologists'. This ties in with a project that I
kept on hold for a long time, but that following the discussions on this
thread, and the generosity of your responses, I decided to bring it
forward. I didn't have a chance yet to identify a journal for this
potential special issue, so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Happy to receive any comments or thoughts you might have. I think that
following this particular thread has become complicated so I'll also post
this as a new thread.
Thanks again,
Yohai
*Immigrants as Reverse Anthropologists: Exploring the Centre from the
Margins *
Call for papers
Editor: Dr. Yohai Hakak
Brunel University London
The public debate on immigration to Europe and North America is ongoing. At
the current moment, it seems that large parts of the population in these
regions are eager to limit, if not completely stop, the arrival of
immigrants, especially those with low skills from poorer countries. Much of
the academic literature in this area focuses on the characteristics of
different immigrating groups, their trajectories of immigration, their
process of integration as well as the barriers they face. The possible
impact of the culture of the immigrant group on its ability to integrate is
often a source for concern. Immigrants are regularly portrayed in public
and political discussions as a social problem and are linked with poverty
and abuse of the welfare system. Unintentionally, much of the academic
research attempting to explore these issues further enhances the
characterisation of immigrant groups as ‘different’ and ‘other’.
The proposed collection of papers will aim to challenge this division of
power and suggest an alternative methodological tool and perspective for
the study of immigration. It will aim to reverse our attention from the
immigrant to the host society and the way it is seen through the
immigrant’s eyes. It will also aim to reverse or shift the focus, when
possible, from low skills immigrants and those struggling to integrate, to
skilled immigrants, especially those who were able to integrate into the
‘strongholds of power’ (Lavie & Swedenburg, 1990) in the host society. Such
strongholds of power transmit society’s essential, deeply ingrained core
values and cultural assumptions. They include the legal and political
systems, finance, business, industry, higher education, the art world and
more. Often, the host society demands that integration be determined by the
level of internalization and identification with these values, norms and
assumptions.
This is where the perspective of the immigrant could be especially valuable
and enriching. The need to interpret and understand the new context with
its values, assumptions, practices and symbols and adjust to it requires
the immigrant to notice what often goes unnoticed by locals. switching the
focus from the immigrant to the host society as seen through the
immigrants’ perspective confounds traditional hierarchies. In addition to
allowing us to learn about immigrants’ perceptions, interpretations and
worldviews, it also offers the hosts an opportunity to look at themselves
from a fresh perspective, notice the unnoticed and question the unspoken.
For these reasons we will seek to understand how do different groups of
immigrants understand these strongholds of power, their language, practices
and symbols?
For many, the term ‘Reverse Anthropology’ is associated with the French
visual anthropologist, Jean Rouch, who in films such as *Petit a Petit*
(1971) attempted to shift the focus in such a way. Petit a Petit – a
mocumentary – follows a young Senegalese engineer arriving to Paris and
conducting his own ethnographic study of Parisians. The term was also used
by Roy Wagner in his 1981 book, *The Invention of Culture,* to describe how
Melanesians interpreted Western society. Whereas anthropologists understood
material culture as part of a knowledge system, in the ‘cargo cult’ Wagner
writes about, Melanesians interpreted Western material wealth as resulting
from a powerful system of magic or religion. A few other scholars followed
Wagner and used the term; among them is Stuart Kirsch whose book from 2006
is titled *Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and
Environmental Relations in New Guinea*. Kirsch examines how the Yonggom
interpreted the massive material, social and environmental damage caused by
copper and gold mining conducted by international companies. David Guss
(1986) also used the term as part of his exploration of the Yekuana’s
interpretation of Western culture and, as part of that, anthropologists’
attempts to study them and write about their culture, which they resisted.
More recently, Hammons (2015) used the term to explore the way the Sakaliou
clan interprets what attracts Western backpacker tourists to come to their
island, near the West coast of Sumatra. While these attempts to employ the
reverse perspective are fairly recent, anthropology has a longer history of
attempting to incorporate such a perspective. Pierre Deleage (2015)
explores an anthropological tradition starting in the late nineteenth
century and ended near the 1st world war: handing out pen and paper to
indigenous research participants and ask them to draw, in an attempt to
shift the focus from being on them to the focus being on how they see the
world around them, including Western culture.
This collection of papers will seek to adopt this approach of reversing
perspective in order to explore the following questions related to
migration:
- How specific institutions and symbols of power in specific
geographical and historical contexts in Europe or North America are
perceived and interpreted by specific groups of immigrants?
- Are there any tensions between the cultural assumptions, values
and perceptions at the base of these institutions and symbols of power, and
the cultural assumptions and values held by immigrant groups? If indeed
there are such tensions – what are they?
- Are these institutions and symbols met with criticism and if so,
on what grounds?
o Is this criticism based on religious, spiritual, ethical, social or
economic arguments?
o In what wider worldviews is such criticism embedded?
o What alternatives exist within the immigrants’ original culture to the
norms, codes, behaviours or mechanisms they criticise?
We will be looking for papers describing and analysing the perspective of
an immigrant group with relation to their host society and ideally in
relation to one or several of these institutions or symbols of power.
Please send by the 1st of November 2019 an abstract with no more than 500
words to:
[log in to unmask]
*References: *
Deleage, P. (2015) The origin of art according to Karl von den
Steinen, *Journal
of Art Historiography*, 12 (1): 1-33.
Ford, M. F. (1915) *The Good Soldier*, London: John Lane
Guss, D. (1986) keeping it oral: a Yekuana ethnology, *American Ethnologist*,
Vol. 13 (3): 413-429
Kirsch, S. (2006) *Reverse Anthropology: Indigenous Analysis of Social and
Environmental Relations in New Guinea*, Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press
Lyall, A. (1930) *It Isn't Done; or, the Future of Taboo Among the British
Islanders*, London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
Wagner, R. (1981) *The Invention of Culture*, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press
On Thu, Jul 25, 2019 at 7:30 AM Rachael Scicluna <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Cathy, thanks for the below! Your analysis is spot on.
>
> I am currently working with other anthropologists in practice on an edited
> collection with Punctum. Well, I will have a chapter there. But the editors
> both have been doing fantastic work outside of academia (and within).
>
> It will be called Speaking for the Social and brings together all that you
> described below. The idea is to write for practitioners, policymakers, etc.
>
> However, it would be great to bring to light all you mentioned below Cathy,
> maybe in a special issue or a workshop? At the Anthropology in London Day
> there was a workshop which klI participated in (Anthropologists beyond
> anthropology) which was about being an anthropologist in practice and how
> to go about it. The classroom was full of postdocs, PhD and MA students who
> were genuinely interested in knowing how to apply theory and many were
> looking for jobs too. They all said that they'd like to have mentors ... So
> there's a lot that needs to be done.
>
> Rachael.
>
> *************************************************************
> * Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
> * http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
> * A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
> * online discussions, teaching and research resources *
> * and international contacts directory. *
> * To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
> * messages visit: *
> * https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters *
> * If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
> * those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
> * [log in to unmask] *
> * *
> * Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
> * CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
> * an international directory of anthropology researchers *
>
> To unsubscribe please click here:
> https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1
>
> ***************************************************************
>
*************************************************************
* Anthropology-Matters Mailing List
* http://www.anthropologymatters.com *
* A postgraduate project comprising online journal, *
* online discussions, teaching and research resources *
* and international contacts directory. *
* To join this list or to look at the archived previous *
* messages visit: *
* https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/Anthropology-Matters *
* If you have ALREADY subscribed: to send a message to all *
* those currently subscribed to the list,just send mail to: *
* [log in to unmask] *
* *
* Enjoyed the mailing list? Why not join the new *
* CONTACTS SECTION @ www.anthropologymatters.com *
* an international directory of anthropology researchers *
To unsubscribe please click here:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=ANTHROPOLOGY-MATTERS&A=1
***************************************************************
|
