ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

ISSN 2562-9948

by Maximilian C. Forte

Anthropology: The Empire on which the Sun Never Sets (Part 3)

Within the question of the professionalisation of the discipline lies a still largely unexplored area of how Anthropology serves as a western, largely white, middle-class mode of ‘consumption’, specifically the consumption of knowledge about the world that has been ‘appropriately’ filtered, organized, and translated. Of course getting a degree in Anthropology is not just like any other form of consumption, just as it is not merely an expression of curiosity: the process results in formal certification.

by Maximilian C. Forte

Decolonize Human Rights

Human Rights and Humanitarian Imperialism in Syria: A View From an African American Defender of Human Rights by Ajamu Baraka First published by Ajamu Baraka on October 1, 2012; reproduced here from Black Agenda Report. As the corporate media beat the drums of war with Syria, led this time by CNN and the New York […]

by John Allison

Amerika, Hu Akbar! A people of Mammon, or Love in a Land of Fear

Provocaine: “Love and Duty and Charity and Patriotism; That’s what makes America Great.” Barack Obama’s speech, second term election victory, 2012 You see! It all seems to need to be merged into One Human Society, with common language and rules of behavior called “law”, an easily managed Human Capital Unit (HUCU) grouping of occupational and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Education as Oppression: One Bedouin’s Perspective on Progress

To say that anthropologists have long been interested in pastoral nomads would be an understatement. As Rada and Neville Dyson-Hudson described the situation in their 1980 article in the Annual Review of Anthropology: “Pastoral nomads have had a persistent fascination for anthropologists,” a fascination that has to do with the “intriguing and difficult to unravel” […]

by John Allison

Great Ceasar, Cease!

Tacitus describes how the Romanised Britons embraced the new urban centres: “They spoke of such novelties as ‘civilisation’, when this was really only a feature of their slavery” (Agricola, 21) The built-in camera of my computer scanning me in its Iris Recognition Software (IRS) winks recognition at me on-screen allowing me to access my computer as […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Speaking for Themselves: Indigenous Resistance, Indigenous Reality, and Free Dub

“The collectives TFTT [The Fire This Time] and IR/IR [Indigenous Resistance, Indigenous Reality] craft a hypnotic, militant dub music intended to transmit a supershock to the forces of global devastation. But most importantly, for TFTT and IRIIR, ‘dub’ is a comprehensive and enlarged term that refers to their aesthetic and musical sensibilities, philosophical orientations and […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Still Standing: Zimbabwe

“Mr. Mugabe, at the age of 88, is rumored to be in poor health. In April, rumors spread in Harare that he was on his deathbed in Singapore, but he appeared at the country’s independence day celebration a few days later, looking fit as he walked around a soccer stadium under a blazing sun for […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Neocolonialism: It’s Post-Independence, Not Post-Colonial

Unintended Open Source Ethnography For as much serendipity as conventional, on the ground, ethnography is known to entail, the “approach” discussed here is barely an approach at all: it was unprovoked, unplanned, without coordination, being neither methodical nor systematic. It became a collaboration, out of mutual interest, from distinct and separate positions, but there was […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Fidel Castro: A Call to the President of the United States

Note: Both Jamil Hanifi and myself agreed that we should reproduce this speech, as published in Cuba’s Granma Internacional, under the heading of “Reflections of Fidel Castro.” It was originally published on 03 August 2010. This is the equivalent of Fidel blogging, and the article ranges back and forth across a wide variety of topics. […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

ACTION ALERT: Sign the Anthropologists’ Statement on the Human Terrain System

From the NETWORK OF CONCERNED ANTHROPOLOGISTS, 27 January 2010: Dear Fellow Anthropologists, The US Congress is currently evaluating and considering the expansion of the Pentagon’s Human Terrain System (HTS) program, in which anthropologists have been recruited to assist with counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq [see here, here and here for more background]. Please join us […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Where are the Pueblo Clowns?

Dedicated to my colleague and comrade, John Stanton, and to myself. “Isn’t it rich? Are we a pair?” This comes from David H. Price, “Anthropologists as Spies,” The Nation, November 2, 2000: Archeologist Joe Watkins, chairman of the ethics committee, believes that if an anthropologist were caught spying today, “the AAA would not do anything […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

0.171: Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: Vassos Argyrou

This interlude in the series is to finally introduce the work of Dr. Vassos Argyrou (Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Hull), specifically his book, Anthropology and the Will to Meaning: A Postcolonial Critique (London: Pluto Press, 2002) which I have referred to in the past on several occasions (a condensed version of […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

0.185: Terms of Incorporation, Concepts of Domination

Phrases such as “decolonizing anthropology”* and “anthropology and the colonial encounter” have become salient in anthropology especially since they are the titles of two of the better known, most widely quoted books on the subject. What subject? That is what is lacking clarity, because presumably the phrases above are meant to mean something, and if […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

0.189: Stanley Diamond & Claude Lévi-Strauss on the Nature and Future of Anthropology

Two relatively short articles from the 1960s that I found useful, especially in connection with the previous post, provide a number of insights that exceeded the scope of that post. I want to share some of my “notes and quotes” from those two articles, with limited commentary aside from my headings — think of it […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

0.19: Questions about Colonialism and Anthropology: Epistemology, Methodology, and Politics

Two Sides of the Same Coin Anthropology might look it came to us with a dual consciousness. On one side, a consciousness influenced by ideals of science and objectivity, driven to developing a commanding knowledge about human others. On the other side, a consciousness of itself as a creature of imperialism, guided by a scientific […]