Engaged Anthropology: Views from Scandinavia

195 Pages·2016·2.18 MB·English

by  Tone Bringa

ENGAGED
ANTHROPOLOGY
Views from Scandinavia
Edited by
TONE BRINGA
and
SYNNØVE BENDIXSEN
APPROACHES
TO SOCIAL
INEQUALITY AND
DIFFERENCE
Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference
Series Editors
Edvard   Hviding
University of Bergen
Bergen ,  Norway
Synnøve   Bendixsen
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
Aim of the series
The book series contributes a wealth of new perspectives aiming to
denaturalize ongoing social, economic and cultural trends such as the
processes of ‘crimigration’ and racialization, fast-growing social-economic
inequalities, depoliticization or technologization of policy, and simultane-
ously a politicization of difference. By treating naturalization simul-
taneously as a phenomenon in the world, and as a rudimentary analytical
concept for further development and theoretical diversifi cation, we iden-
tify a shared point of departure for all volumes in this series, in a search
to analyze how difference is produced, governed and reconfi gured in a
rapidly changing world. By theorizing rich, globally comparative ethno-
graphic materials on how racial/cultural/civilization differences are cur-
rently specifi ed and naturalized, the series will throw new light on crucial
links between differences, whether biologized and culturalized, and vari-
ous forms of ‘social inequality’ that are produced in contemporary global
social and political formations.
More information about this series at
http://www.springer.com/series/14775
Tone B ringa • S ynnøve Bendixsen
Editors
Engaged
Anthropology
Views from Scandinavia
Editors
Tone Bringa Synnøve Bendixsen
University of Bergen University of Bergen
Bergen , Norway Bergen , Norway
Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference
ISBN 978-3-319-40483-7 ISBN 978-3-319-40484-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40484-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957519
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016
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C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
Tone Bringa and Synnøve K. N . Bendixsen
2 From the War Zone to the Courtroom:
The Anthropologist as Witness 23
Tone Bringa
3 Engaging Anthropology: An Auto-Ethnographic
Approach 41
Shahram Khosravi
4 Doing Research in a Politicized Field and Surviving It:
Lessons Learned from the Field of Migration 61
Garbi Schmidt
5 Treading on a Minefi eld: Anthropology and the
Debate on Honor Killings in Sweden 79
Mikael Kurkiala
6 Social Anthropology and the Shifting Discourses
about Immigrants in Norway 99
Thomas Hylland Eriksen
v
vi CONTENTS
7 Gender and Universal Rights: Dilemmas
and Anthropological Engagement 1 21
Siri Lange and Inge Tvedten
8 Europe and the Pacifi c: Engaging Anthropology in
EU Policy-Making and Development Cooperation 147
Edvard Hviding
9 Engaging Anthropology in Sudan 1 67
Gunnar M. Sørbø
Notes on Contributors 1 83
Index 185
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Tone   B ringa and  S ynnøve   K . N .   B endixsen
This book presents a collection of essays from social anthropologists in
Norway, Sweden, and Denmark who share their experiences disseminat-
ing, communicating, and applying their anthropological insights outside
an academic context. The essays refl ect on the role and potential force
of anthropological knowledge outside academia. In Scandinavia, anthro-
pologists have enjoyed access to government offi ces and to policymakers,
as well as a broad recognition as relevant knowledge producers among
journalists and the general public. In this volume, the authors share their
perspectives on challenges faced, opportunities taken, and lessons learned
from being publicly engaged anthropologists.
Students of social and cultural anthropology, in addition to an inter-
est in other people’s cultures, often show a passion for anthropological
perspectives on social inequality and marginalizing power structures.
Concern with social justice, prejudices, inequality, human rights, or cul-
tural diversity often brings students to social and cultural anthropology.
But many core anthropology courses have become so theoretically and
philosophically top heavy (see also Pelkmans 2 013 ) that it is often dif-
fi cult for students to detect the content’s relevance and applicability to
T. B ringa () • S . K. N . Bendixsen
Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, B ergen , N orway

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1
T. Bringa, S. Bendixsen (eds.), Engaged Anthropology,
Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-40484-4_1
2 T. BRINGA AND S.K.N. BENDIXSEN
the critical issues of our time. Our wish for this book is to share some
experiences with engaged anthropology from Scandinavia with a non-
Scandinavian audience and to show students and prospective anthro-
pologists, in particular, how anthropological insights may be relevant
and applied outside of academia.
We do not wish to make a programmatic statement of what a publicly
engaged anthropology is or should be. Instead, we see this volume as a
contribution to an ongoing conversation about experiences and refl ec-
tions related to a publicly engaged anthropology and its future prospects.
The contributors to this volume exemplify the role anthropologists play
in public debates where public interest issues are discussed, but also the
many different ways in which anthropologists work to weigh in with their
expertise. Indeed, exposure in the media is but one among several venues.
Anthropologists may also be effectively communicating and disseminating
anthropological insights elsewhere, out of sight.
In this introduction, we will fi rst give an overview of various forms
of engagement discussed in the anthropological literature and point to
recent developments within the fi eld of engaged anthropology. We will
then discuss the position of engaged anthropology in the Scandinavian
countries, its visibility, potential for outreach, and structural positions, but
also its current challenges. Finally, we provide a summary of the chapter
contributions.
ENGAGED OR PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY?
The activities described in this book could have been labeled in many
different ways. We have chosen to subsume them under the heading
of “Engaged anthropology”. Engaged anthropology is a term that has
become established during the last decade or so, as discussions about
various forms of sharing anthropological knowledge outside academia
are moving to the center of anthropological academic discourse. It is
a somewhat peculiar term as it leaves the acting subject out and leaves
unsaid what kind of engagement it refers to. In combining “engaged”
with “anthropology” rather than with “anthropologists”, the term signals
that the specifi ed activities are part of the body of anthropological scholar-
ship and are not attached to individual anthropologists themselves. Some
authors prefer to add an explanatory adverb, such as politically engaged
or publicly engaged. In this volume, we see engaged anthropology as
shorthand for a publicly engaged anthropology, which leaves the type and
INTRODUCTION 3
sites of engagement unspecifi ed. It means simply that the anthropologist
engages his or her anthropological knowledge in debates and activities
in the public sphere, away from lecture halls and the pages of academic
publications.
“Public anthropology”, fi rst coined by Robert Borofsky and Renato
Rosaldo, is a term closely related to “engaged anthropology” (Borofsky
2000 ). While “public anthropology” can sometimes be used interchange-
ably with “engaged anthropology”, there are some differences in what
type of activities are foregrounded in each case. Borofsky considers the
aim of a public anthropology to “address broad critical concerns in ways
that others beyond the discipline are able to understand what anthropolo-
gists can offer to re-framing and easing-if not necessarily always resolving-
of present-d ay dilemmas” (2 011 ). Public anthropology often keeps with
Borofsky’s stress on anthropologists as public intellectuals, and is used to
refer to anthropologists’ engagement in public debates on current issues,
particularly in the media, that is, of the anthropologist as a visible social
critic. In his book E ngaging Anthropology : t he Case for a Public Presence
( 2006 ), Thomas Hylland Eriksen, one of the contributors to this volume,
has in mind this form of public engagement and media visibility and of the
anthropologist as a public intellectual.
Aimee Cox ( 2009 , 53) has a more radical position than Borofsky and
sees public anthropology as “an anthropology of the public that disrupts
the traditional academy-community dichotomy”. She seeks to create dia-
logues centered on particular social concerns and their solutions. Sam
Beck (2 009 ), however, expands his understanding of public anthropol-
ogy to not only include public conversations, dialogues, or discussions on
issues of public concern, but collaborative research with members of the
communities where anthropologists conduct their research. He stresses
that public anthropology in this wider sense should be recognized as a
central component of the discipline’s professional practice and argues that
a public anthropology has “implications for theory, method and meth-
odologies” (Beck 2 009 , 3). Indeed, to Beck and Carla A. Maida, public
anthropology is the anthropologist’s “co-construction” of knowledge with
a public to address “public concerns” and redress questions of inequality
and injustice through research, education, and political action based on
dialogue ( 2015 , 3). This kind of public anthropology is anchored in a con-
viction that a nthropologists can and should critique the social inequalities
of marginalized populations. They see anthropology as a force for change,
and anthropologists as advocates for social justice. Their understanding of