Key concepts introduced this week: Epistemic violence, cultural autonomy and survivance through visual Anthropology.
As a discipline Anthropology has been implicated in the colonial project and has faced growing decolonial critiques. Anthropology is not an unproblematic presence on the stage of socio-political scholarship and there is an increasing awareness of the uneven relations between centres and peripheries. Becoming the subject of intense political praxis, examined for its complicity in projects of power and epistemic dominance, anthropology has however birthed new sub genres through critical theory and decolonality, thus is credited with emerging from the field of social sciences, a discipline that has not stood still in the quest for decolonial practice and relevance. Claims to “let anthropology burn” have been made, proposing to “undo” anthropology as we know it. In these terms, “undoing” anthropology may not mean simply to destroy or abandon the discipline, but to disassemble and reassemble it differently. How can anthropology address its past whilst also being integral to positive futures?
FILM: Damiana Kryygi – Directed by Alejandro Fernández Mouján (2015)
FILM: Yanyuwa Animation Duwara Wujara – the Two Young Men