Classification revisited: On time, methodology and position in decolonizing anthropology

Abstract

Renewed calls for decolonizing anthropology in the 21st century raise the question of what work earlier waves of decolonization since the 1960s have left undone. Some of this work should focus on the classification of human differences, which figured prominently in all phases of the discipline’s history: as a methodology in its racist phases, as an object of study during its late colonial phase of professionalization, as self-critical reflexivity in the 1980s and 1990s, and as a renewed critique in the 21st century. Can a universal methodology of studying classifications of human kinds arise from the discipline’s past of colonial stereotyping? I argue affirmatively, through an approach that recognizes time as the epistemic condition that connects past and present positions to present and future methodologies. Firstly, my analysis distinguishes the parochial embedding in colonial culture of Durkheim and Mauss’ ideas about classification from their more universal intentions. This is then developed into a threefold reflexive and timeful methodology of studying classification’s nominal-descriptive, constructive, and interventionist dimensions—a process of adding temporality to the study of classification. Subsequently, Anténor Firmin’s 19th-century critique of racial classifications, and W. E. B. Du Bois’s theory of double consciousness help to show how this threefold methodology addresses the insufficiently theorized process of being classified and discriminated against through racial categories wielded by the powers that be. These arguments radicalize the essay’s timeful perspective by concluding that we need to avoid modernist uses of time as classification and adopt the aforementioned threefold methodology in order to put time in classifications of human kinds. This reverses modern positivism’s subordination to methodological rules of the epistemic conditions posed by contingent history and shows instead that the universal goals of methodology should be understood as a future ideal.

Introduction ‐ The heritage and decoloniality nexus: Global exchanges and unresolved questions in sedimented landscapes of injustice

“…Through the focus on the heritage and decoloniality nexus, the participants in this forum interrogate different genealogies and persistent expressions of heritage in the naturalization of ethnic and racial hierarchies of knowledge, power, and being. Unraveling the entangled structures of control, resources, and embodied attachments with deep roots in (and sometimes preceding) the foundations of nation‐states is a complex and even doomed task if the structural violence of their modern classifications and temporalities remains unchallenged (Pels, 2022; Trouillot, 2002). To unpack such layers of structural violence, efforts to excavate the similarities, confluences, divergences, and cross‐fertilizations of different postcolonial contexts and scales remain as relevant as ever.…”

Privileged observers and colonial continuities

“…Recent calls from within the discipline to decolonize and transform our practice are beginning to reframe how we conceptualize our research questions and relations with interlocutors. Our prioritization of theory as the outcome of empirical engagement, however, tends toward consideration of epistemological and textual strategies by which inequities can be addressed (e.g., Gupta & Stoolman, 2022; Pels, 2022; see also Moosavi, 2020). Sustained attention is only just beginning to be directed at the wider relations and organizational forms through which anthropological knowledge could potentially be reconfigured (Günel & Watanabe, 2024; Sanchez, 2023; Yates‐Doerr, 2020).…”

“…The same cannot be said of anthropology, notwithstanding ongoing debates about the politics of presenting anthropological knowledge. Recent calls from within the discipline to decolonize epistemologies and practice fail to consider the organizational forms through which they are disseminated and authorized (e.g., Gupta & Stoolman, 2022; Pels, 2022).…”

Community Engagement and Decolonization within Anthropology and Academic Anthropology

“…There have been several movements focused on decolonizing anthropology since the 1960s (Pels 2021). Although the goal of decolonizing anthropology is not new, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to decolonize anthropology as a discipline.…”

“…Anthropology has claimed to be a subject that is inclusive and open to other cultures. However, there remain issues of equal access to research, higher education, and job opportunities for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) individuals, as social sciences remain predominantly white in academia and field research (Pels 2021). The impacts of earlier anthropologists who largely conducted their research under and in service to a framework of colonialism, are still seen today and the movement to decolonize and restructure She/Her/Ella anthropology still has a lot of work to do.…”