Ethnology in a Revolutionary Setting

Nash, June

doi:10.1515/9783110806458.353

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…4. For a discussion of the problems involved in doing ethnography in a revolutionary setting, see Nash, 1979. 5.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The discipline's collusion with structures of oppression, colonialism, and imperialism came under renewed interest in historical process and the world capitalist system. It raised questions about the role of advocacy and anthropologists' political commitment to the people they studied (see, for example, the work of Nader, 1974;Huizer and Mannheim, 1979;and Nash 1979). The historical, political-economic tradition in anthropology experienced an upsurge of energy as a result of this re-evaluation.…”

Section: Text and A Nti-textmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Text, Anti‐Text, and the Need for a Class‐based Hermeneutics

Casey¹

1991

Anthropology of Work Review

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Framing the QuestionThe tension between symbolic or interpretive anthropology, and a more historical or political-economic approach is often expressed as a debate between Text and anti-Text This issue seems to dominate much contemporary discussion on the status and future direction of the discipline. It is found in questions like: Does one tendency demonstrate greater efficacy or intellectual rigor than the other? Are these approaches diametrically opposed and antagonistic in nature? Or should they be integrated to form a new anthropological synthesis?This paper considers the diagnostic features and history of each approach in anthropology. I posit another alternative, based on the assessment that the text/anti-text debate represents a false dichotomy. It reflects an academic struggle over turf, not an opening or enlarging of the anthropological imagination. Neither approach has an organic claim to the concept of partisan commitment or authentic engagement of the people and communities we study. That is a political choice, a political commitment.In place of the text/anti-text debate, I would like to show how a class-based hermeneutics can facilitate a more complex understanding of social life; especially workingclass life. It is an engaged, partisan approach grounded in historically specific class relations and capitalist social structures. At the same time, it recognizes the layers of meaning embedded in ethnographic discourse. It appreciates the power and force of words (see Raymond Williams' treatment of Keywords, 1976).A class-based hermeneutics draws on the earlier efforts of women, African-Americans, and other nationallyoppressed people in anthropology who called upon historical experience, personal background, and political commitments to inform anthropological theory and practice-in order to construct feminist, anti-racist, and liberatory visions. In like fashion, a working-class hermeneutics proposes that class experience, class anger, and workingclass commitments can be a resource or point of leverage to enlarge and enrich anthropological practice.

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“…4. For a discussion of the problems involved in doing ethnography in a revolutionary setting, see Nash, 1979. 5.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Text and A Nti-textmentioning

confidence: 99%

Text, Anti‐Text, and the Need for a Class‐based Hermeneutics

Casey¹

1991

Anthropology of Work Review

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“…We can become a part of painful worlds in ways that can cloud our observations. As June Nash () has argued of ethnographic work in conflict zones, impartiality is not only inappropriate, but impossible. In disasters, we take sides and we advocate for our friends.…”

Section: Concluding Remarks: Disasters and The Future Of Anthropologimentioning

confidence: 99%

Afterward: Preparing for uncertainties

González

Faas

2016

Annals of Anthropol Pract

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As the frequency and intensity of disasters increase around the world in the context of a changing climate, the likelihood that disasters will impact anthropological field sites increases. Therefore, disasters will increasingly become an expected component of anthropological work. In this article, the authors discuss the ways in which risk, hazards, and disasters will change anthropological research, practices, and methodologies as a whole.

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“…This is well known, and has been a perennial concern in the discipline that goes back at least as far as the Franz Boas “Scientists as Spies” controversy in 1919. In 1976, June Nash was one of the first anthropologists to address the issue of neutrality in fieldwork and described how she was forced to handle local suspicions that she was a CIA agent. In 1990, I published the first article specifically on managing danger in fieldwork and Nancy Howell published the first study of occupational safety and health in anthropology, both of which also highlighted the danger to anthropologists of being suspected of being a spy.…”

Section: Research For and Against Counterinsurgency: My Curious Connementioning

confidence: 99%

Curiouser and Curiouser: Montgomery McFate's Strange Interpretation of the Relationship between Anthropology and Counterinsurgency

Sluka

2010

PoLAR

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In 2005, in an article in Military Review titled “Anthropology and Counterinsurgency: The Strange Story of their Curious Relationship,” Dr. Montgomery McFate launched a serious academic assault on the anthropological tradition of noninvolvement in mission‐related military and counterinsurgency research. Dr. McFate was then instrumental in the establishment of the Human Terrain System in 2006, which has “embedded” social scientists with front‐line army units in Iraq and Afghanistan. This has caused great concern among anthropologists and renewed interest in the professional ethics of the discipline. This article critically reviews McFate's accounting of the relationship between anthropology and counterinsurgency and argues that it is her particular reading of history of that relationship that is curious and strange. Viewed in its proper historical context, and illustrated with the example of the politics and ethics of my research on community support for the Irish Republican Army and Irish National Liberation Army in Northern Ireland, the antipathetic relationship that had evolved was perfectly appropriate, ethical, and in no sense “curious” or “strange.” This article critiques McFate's article as a fundamentally flawed revisionist history intended to legitimate and facilitate the active involvement of anthropologists with the US military in the “war on terrorism” in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond.

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Ethnology in a Revolutionary Setting

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Text, Anti‐Text, and the Need for a Class‐based Hermeneutics

Text, Anti‐Text, and the Need for a Class‐based Hermeneutics

Afterward: Preparing for uncertainties

Curiouser and Curiouser: Montgomery McFate's Strange Interpretation of the Relationship between Anthropology and Counterinsurgency

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