The Decolonizing Generation: (Race And) Theory in Anthropology Since the Eighties
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Current Anthropology Volume 57, Number 2, April 2016 129 The Decolonizing Generation: (Race and) Theory in Anthropology since the Eighties by Jafari Sinclaire Allen and Ryan Cecil Jobson In the wake of anthropology’s much storied crisis of representation; attempted corrections following movements of “Third World” peoples, women, and queer folks; the recent disavowal of 1980s and 1990s reflexivity and experi- mentation; and what George Marcus has recently termed a “crisis of reception,” this essay seeks to critically reassess and reanimate the formative interventions of anthropologists of the African diaspora (including Africa itself)— foregrounding work that lends new insights into anthropological theory, method, and pedagogy. The intention here is not to merely redeem the pioneering insights of African diaspora anthropologists as unsung forerunners of con- temporary anthropological theories (though this is a worthwhile endeavor in itself) but rather to illuminate contin- ued and prospective contributions of this mode of knowledge production. In the wake of anthropology’s much storied crisis of repre- methodological, and professional inroads forged by mem- sentation; attempted corrections following movements of bers of what we detail in this essay as the decolonizing gen- “Third World” peoples, women, and queer folks; the recent eration—the cohort of Black, allied antiracist, feminist, and disavowal of 1980s and 1990s reflexivity and experimenta- political economy–oriented scholars that gave rise to the land- tion; and what George Marcus has recently termed a “crisis mark volume Decolonizing Anthropology: Moving Further To- of reception,”1 this essay seeks to critically reanimate the for- ward an Anthropology for Liberation (Harrison 1997c). mative interventions of anthropologists of the African Dias- This article centers on the volume but also engages the in- pora, foregrounding work that lends new insights into an- dividual writings of its participants and other anthropologists, thropological theory, method, and pedagogy. The intention such as the late Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who did not for- here is not to merely redeem the pioneering insights of Afri- mally contribute to the collection but remain theoretically can Diaspora anthropologists as unsung forerunners of con- and politically aligned with this assemblage of intellectuals temporary anthropology theories but to illuminate continued in their critiques of anthropology and its allegiance to ra- and prospective contributions of this mode of knowledge production. 1. To this end, though ethnography has experienced a renaissance of fi The launch of the public initiative “Race: Are We So Differ- sorts as it is increasingly adopted as a method of inquiry by elds outside ent?” by the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in of anthropology (including, but not limited to, American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Communications, and Geography), ethnographic texts tend to be 2007 reinvigorated long-standing critiques of biological racism “ ” fi engaged as mere case studies measured by their ability to speak to the popularized by Franz Boas in the rst decades of the twentieth interests of corporate and government projects and programs (Marcus century (Goodman et al. 2012). But not unlike its predecessors, 2002:198). Accordingly, an undercurrent of this essay holds that the this resurgent anthropological interest in race risks succumb- traditional form of ethnographic research and writing must be revisited, ing to a glib deconstructionism in lieu of an engagement with per Marcus, but the legacy of decolonial anthropologists provides one sustained expressions of racism within the guild and its ana- potential alternative to the dominant Malinowskian paradigm that per- lytical procedures. The renaissance of Boasian antiracism has sists in graduate anthropology training today. been well received, prompting renewed dialogue concerning 2. A cardinal example of such renewed debates in the field of an- the role of anthropology in evolving public debates concern- thropology is AAA President Leith Mullings’s (2013) Anthropology News “ ” ing race and global white supremacy.2 Still, scant published brief, Trayvon Martin, Race, and Anthropology, released on the heels of work has sought to critically assess and distill the theoretical, the not guilty verdict rendered in the trial of George Zimmerman, who was charged with the murder of African American teenager Trayvon Martin. Drawing on sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva’s framework of “colorblind Jafari Sinclaire Allen is Associate Professor in the Departments of racism,” Mullings refers to the murder of Martin as potent reminder that Anthropology and African American Studies and Ryan Cecil Jobson while anthropology has “made a major contribution to addressing the racial is a PhD candidate in Anthropology and African American Studies at ideologies of the world that anthropologists helped to make, what we have Yale University (10 Sachem Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, not always done so well is to demonstrate that though race is socially con- USA [[email protected]]). This paper was submitted 14 IX 14, structed, racism is a lethal social reality, constraining the potential, if not accepted 24 I 15, and electronically published 21 III 16. threatening the lives, of millions of people.” q 2016 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2016/5702-0001$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/685502 This content downloaded from 206.253.207.235 on July 06, 2020 07:56:09 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c). 130 Current Anthropology Volume 57, Number 2, April 2016 cialist discourses of civilization and barbarism. To invoke to an anthropology of the contemporary in which its sig- the language of generations—as opposed to that of schools, nature objects (“culture” and “society”) and methods (“eth- groups, or approaches, for example—is to indulge the “struc- nography” and “fieldwork”)are“not what they used to be,” tures of the conjuncture” that frame knowledge production as James Faubion and George Marcus (2009) suggest? How itself as a temporal experience that reflects the societal exi- can it be mobilized in critical discourse and in practical ap- gencies of a particular moment (Sahlins 1981). As David Scott plication? In what ways does the project of decolonizing an- (2014a) reminds us in his recent appraisal of generational epis- thropology ground and respond to perennial anthropological temologies, “Each succeeding generation constructs anew out questions regarding the proper relationship between the in- of its inheritance and its own experience the relation to the ternal logics and ethics of the discipline, the people who are formative events of the past that have organized the imagina- studied, and those who are studying; the tension between par- tion of the future” (120). By periodizing this generation— ticularity and similarity (or, e.g., nation and diaspora.); and the probing the intellectual and professional dilemmas posed and challenges of representation and textuality? confronted by this group of scholar-activists—we chart an al- Though questions of power, writing, and representation ternative genealogy of anthropological theory that locates its that gained popular currency among anthropologists in the intervention centrally to the development of the discipline over 1980s were anticipated by an earlier generation of Black the past three decades. Understanding decolonization as an scholars reflecting on the nascent interdisciplinary project of ongoing project that seeks to apprehend and, ultimately, dis- Black Studies, anthropology remains largely unremarked on place a “logic of coloniality” that undergirds the experiment of in considerations of a Black-activist-intellectual praxis (see Western modernity (Mignolo 2011; see also Quijano 2000), we Harney and Moten 2013). Anthropologists of race and ra- caution against an approach that circumscribes what a de- cialization are situated within a discipline that still closely colonized anthropology can be.3 Our aim is not to canonize or guards its borders and an interdiscipline of Black Studies ossify a singular genealogy of the anthropology of race and that—as if other disciplines have been any less complicit in post/colonialism but to reflect on the significance of unher- imperial projects—is suspicious of what many of our col- alded contributions. The designation of “the decolonizing gen- leagues understand as anthropology’s colonial past and its eration” is as yet unauthorized by those to whom we assign bias toward work outside of the United States (see Asante membership in this stream of work and is only one of a num- 1990). The decolonizing generation is, therefore, a pivotal ber of ways to organize this diverse group of scholars and one. Its members troubled the conceptual and methodo- scholar-activists. To invoke the idea of generations is to sug- logical precepts of anthropological discourse while adopting gest that Decolonizing Anthropology belongs irreducibly to its the mantle of ethnographic and ethnological inquiry in time as a product of the recently postsocialist milieu of the early service to the imperatives of political and epistemic decolo- 1990s4 but exceeds this temporality by anticipating the dilemma nization. Although the progenitors of African diaspora an- brought on by neoliberal reforms that have dramatically im- thropology rarely had access to elite academe (see Baber