discipline – ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY

Encounters and conflicts within and between disciplines: Experimental philosophy and ethnography (1.3)

An interesting discussion has been taking place on Savage Minds titled, “Philosophers discover lost tribe in jungles of free will” by Chris Kelty. The discussion and debate that ensues there centres on the development of what some call “experimental philosophy” (with a digest available here). This movement, shortened to X-Phi, involves using quantitative research, especially […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Structures of Knowledge, the Social Sciences, Decolonization, and the World-System

Richard E. Lee “The Structures of Knowledge and the Future of the Social Sciences: Two Postulates, Two Propositions and a Closing Remark.” Journal of World-Systems Research, vi, 3, fall/winter 2000, 786-796 Special Issue: Festchrift for Immanuel Wallerstein – Part II http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol6/number3/pdf/jwsr-v6n3-rlee.pdf First Postulate: The production and reproduction of the structures of knowledge has been a […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

The Ethnographer’s “Job” Makes a Little Boy Laugh

In 1999, while doing “fieldwork” in Arima, Trinidad. I am taking a smoke break alone, and a four year old child from the Carib Community comes to keep me company. He asks: “What work do you do?” I answer him, kindly: “This is the work that I do.” He asks again, now with a confused […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Yes Master, Ethnography is Truth

But it’s not ethnographic. It’s not a real ethnography. How many times have fellow anthropologists heard such statements? Don’t lie: say “dozens of times.” Some, perhaps most anthropologists have convinced themselves that the path to truth runs through fieldwork. Any other knowledge gaining methodology is suspect, tainted, partial (i.e., surveys, reading newspaper reports, archival research, […]

by Maximilian C. Forte

Diane Lewis: Anthropology and Colonialism

In the opening paragraph to her 1973 article on “Anthropology and Colonialism” (a relatively unique focus for an article, even at that late time), Diane Lewis writes: ANTHROPOLOGY is in a state of crisis. This is demonstrated in the field and in the classroom by the marked estrangement between anthropologists and the nonwhite people they […]