Activist Research v. Cultural Critique: Indigenous Land Rights and the Contradictions of Politically Engaged Anthropology

From ‘Here’ to ‘There’: Social Movements, the Academy and Solidarity Research

“…And others, finally, have recognised that there are more 'traditional' roles that can be performed by movement-sympathetic academics, which don't integrate movement knowledge per se, but do definitely integrate movement interests. These include conducting 'positivistic' research projects for movements, or providing movements with reliable and accurate knowledge of their field(s) of relation (Smeltzer 2012;Hale, 2006).…”

“…Whilst some solidarity researchers have sought to predefine the exact role that ought to be adopted by academics in their work with movements, it is reasonably obvious that, once we invoke the idea of movement interests, such roles should ideally be defined in conversation with the movements themselves. Thus, as I shall capture below, ongoing processes of dialogue between researcher and movement to, in part, identify the role that should be performed by the former in support of the latter, is identified in other parts of this literature as a key methodological and ethical principle (Smeltzer 2012;Hale 2006).…”

“…These insights provide the basis for the inclusion of dialogue as a key methodological and ethical principle for solidarity research. Dialogue is the means through which the researcher brings movement interests into his or her knowledge production process so as to allow them to shape 'each phase of the process, from conception of the research topic to data collection to verification and dissemination of the results' (Hale 2006, 97, quoted by Smeltzer 2012Lewis 2012). And as well as facilitating the inclusion of movement interests, ongoing dialogue between movement and researcher can also facilitate access to movement knowledge.…”

“…One important trait that provides a unifying reference for these scholars is a critique of conventional or dominant attitudes within the academy towards such issues as the appropriate degree of distance between movement and researcher. This critique leads to their affirmation of a number of alternative, participatory approaches, purposively eschewing notions of 'impartiality' or 'objectivity', including: 'movement-relevant theory' (Bevington and Dixon 2005), 'militant ethnography' (Juris 2007), 'queer public sociology' (Santos 2012), 'Participatory Action Research' (Kapoor and Jordan 2009), 'activist research' (Hale 2006), 'politically engaged ethnography' (Juris and Khasnabish et al 2013), and so on.…”

Inflexiones y dilemas ético - políticos del capitalismo en el Centro Sur de Chile: A propósito de la globalización forestal

“…Para ello, proponemos relevar el rol de los discursos y prácticas globales del capitalismo "sustentable" que se ve confrontado con las resistencias y expectativas de comunidades mapuche y movimientos ambientalistas y ciudadanos que buscan reconocimiento y autonomía en la definición propia de sus procesos de desarrollo. En este marco se hace pertinente la discusión abierta por el antropólogo C. Hale (2006) acerca del rol que le cabe a la antropología y a las ciencias sociales como discurso crítico y discurso militante. Esta cuestión se relaciona claramente con nuestro estudio en cuanto implica consideraciones ético-políticas acerca del modo como el conocimiento científico social responde desde su propia lógica a las complejas tramas que atraviesa el mundo sociocultural en el Chile neoliberal.…”