Toward a comparative anthropology of activism: activist identity formations in Germany and Uganda

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate in anthropology on the kinds of subject positions activists ascribe to the marginalized actors they encounter and the political consequences this brings about. Drawing from ethnographic research on refugee activism in Germany and transitional justice activism in Uganda, we revisit the respective debates on humanitarian activism, human rights activism, and political activism and argue to reframe the analysis. Instead of looking for the “right” subject position activists should ascribe to the people they engage with, the anthropology of activism should embrace a research approach that looks at the material conditions, in which activists and their subjects find themselves in and the kind of agency they are able to develop within these conditions.

Modes of governance and the ethnography of activism at the Mexico-US border

“…To be more precise, we can begin by identifying, ideal typically, three forms of activism—and the criticisms they have received—according to the “subject position” in which activists imagine themselves and the people they engage with (see Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , pp. 300–301).…”

“…300–301). 3 Devoted to the prevention and alleviation of human suffering, humanitarian activism imagines its subjects as passive victims with no active role beyond showing gratefulness and acceptance of the status quo; this deepens the unequal relationship between donors and receivers, consolidating what Fassin ( 2012 ) calls “humanitarian governance.” Human rights activists are less paternalistic in constructing the people they engage with as individual rights holders, although this conception may be too restrictive and culturally specific for Western legal thought, ignoring other aspects of actors’ social identities (Merry 2006 , p. 185; cited in Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , p. 301) and, ultimately, fitting the moral economy of the global liberal political order (Fassin 2012 ). Finally, the subject position assigned by political activists to the people they work with as autonomous actors and “allies,” who are able to mobilize for a common project, can also create conflict with people’s self-conceptions, especially when they “do not want to become politically active” (Podgornik-Jakil 2020 ; cited in Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , p. 301).…”

“…These collaborate with activists for more immediate reasons than the struggle for human rights or political mobilization, but they also refuse to be reduced to their “bare life” by not showing docility and gratefulness for the aid received. These resistances derive precisely from the experience of the structural inequalities inherent to the encounter between activists and their counterparts: Such inequalities destabilize the discursive frameworks in which the different activists operate—unconditional solidarity, universal human rights, or collective mobilization—aimed at equating them with the people they engage with (Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , p. 309).…”

“…The boundary between activists and researchers is hard to maintain also because we all “mostly ‘participate in the same intellectual world’ (Merry 2005 , p. 240), constantly debating what has to be done to bring about what kind of change” (Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , p. 299). A comparison can be established particularly between activism and anthropology, whose practitioners are confronted with “a similar problem”: a desire to act upon the identification of crisis and suffering (Redfield 2005 , p. 348).…”

“…Thus, even if minimal biopolitics may combine with other forms of power and their corresponding types of legal, social, medical, psychological or spiritual knowledge (Walters 2011 , p. 152), I prefer to begin by asking how humanitarian, legal/human rights, and political forms of activism may overlap when seeking to meet the needs and represent the interests of migrants. Even if they insist that additional tasks are not at the core of their work, “different material conditions often cause, if not force, activists to transgress the boundaries of their type of activism and take a practical approach that is more helpful for their subjects” (Podgornik-Jakil and Bens 2021 , p. 298).…”