Introduction Marxian Anthropology Resurgent

THEME SECTION Introduction Marxian anthropology resurgent Patrick Neveling and Luisa Steur Abstract: Th is introduction, coming out during the two hundredth anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth, discusses the distinctiveness of Marxian anthropology and what it has to off er to our eff orts at understanding, and confronting, the complexities of the social contradictions constituted by—and constitutive of—twenty-fi rst cen- tury capitalism. Th e article points out common denominators of Marxian anthropology going back to Marx’s insights, but also off ers a cursory social history of the diverse lineages of enquiry within Marxian anthropology, shaped by the relations and inequalities of the context in which they emerged. Finally, we discuss certain crucial fi elds of engagement in contemporary Marxian anthropology as refl ected in this theme section’s contributions. Keywords: capitalism, Karl Marx, glo bal and relational analysis, Marxian anthropology Something is rotten in the state of the capitalist American “pink tide” response to yet another world-system. As we fi nalize this introduction wave of structural adjustment programs enabled in mid-2018, the world economy is still in the electoral gains for left ist movements (Kalb and grip of a crisis that began around 10 years ago in Mollona 2018; Kasmir and Carbonella 2014; the fi nancial centers of advanced capitalist na- Lem and Barber 2010). tions and spread out from there across the Eu- Yet, successful resistance was oft en short ropean Union and into much of Latin America, lived. Syriza budged in the face of German-led Africa, and Asia (Carrier 2016; Friedman 2015; European Union threats, the pink tide now Kalb 2012; Narotzky and Besnier 2014). Global faces violent backlashes in Brazil and Argentina, uprisings emerged soon aft er the 2008 fi nancial Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement was starved meltdowns. Th e Spanish Indignados and the out by Beijing, and the largest workers’ uprising Greek Syntagma Square movements, for exam- in recent Indonesian history, around the Bekasi ple, led to the rise of new political parties such Special Economic Zone that employs around as Podemos and Syriza, much like the Latin one million workers, was beaten down by riot Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 82 (2018): 1–15 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2018.820101 2 | Patrick Neveling and Luisa Steur police forces (Panimbang and Mufakhir 2018). aware—inquiries into the forces that drive the Beyond this, the so-called Arab Spring upris- current global condition and how they may be ings across North Africa and the Middle East overcome. At the core of this analytical and em- were either quashed in similar ways—in Bah- pirical paradigm is a refusal to romanticize, and rain, for example—or otherwise instrumental- thereby fi ctionalize, political economies at any ized by various “holy” alliances that either used scale. Marxian anthropologists do not conjure armored vehicles and machine guns to spread secure, radically diff erent safe spaces outside of clerical fascist Islam or used aerial bombing capitalism but rather focus on analyzing peo- raids, proxy armies, and mercenaries to spread ple’s various struggles within and against his- Western capitalist democracy. tories dominated by global capitalism—a force Anthropologists have been vigilant partic- that structures not just people’s economic lives ipant observers and oft en activists in many of but also, for instance, their political possibilities these moments of crisis, resistance, and back- and intimate relationships (Sider 2003). Indeed, lash. Yet, their empirical accounts and analyzes one strength of Marxian anthropology is its of what happened, why, and what is to be done analysis of how capitalist logics seep into peo- diff er with regard to their choice of paradigm, ple’s struggles at all scales to the extent that even the way they frame their research, and the the most intimate terrains, which tend to feel themes they emphasize. On the one hand, there the most “authentic,” or “our own,” are already is a strong focus on hope, on care and morality, implicated, usurped, and enclosed by capitalist and on possibilities for a better future—“anthro- logics. pologies of the good,” as Sherry Ortner (2016) One central task for any political movement— calls them. Th ey oft en engage in meta-descrip- and hence for a critical anthropology of the tive ethnographic theories and focus on the sub- unevenness of capitalism’s multifarious agency jective positioning of individuals and sodalities in establishing, consolidating, and refi ning ex- in the present—sometimes with due attention ploitation (Gill and Kasmir 2016)—is thus an to their unwitting complicity with the geon- acute awareness of the successes and pitfalls of topowers that dominate social conceptions of past struggles. In recent years, faced with a world life and nonlife (Povinelli 2016; Robbins 2013; they perceive as one of dismay and decay, aca- Zigon 2018). demics, activists, and, in fact, the global public Th is special issue, on the other hand, con- have devoted signifi cant attention to several tributes to a diff erent trend in anthropology, rounds of anniversaries of historical uprisings. which emerges from ethnographies and the- As we write this, conferences; features in news- ories that are critical of the political economy papers, TV, radio, and blogs; academic special of neoliberal globalization and earlier global issues, edited volumes; and monographs revisit modes of capitalist exploitation and thus mark a and discuss the signifi cance of the works of Karl resurgence and advancement of the discipline’s Marx on his two hundredth birthday as well as long-standing, polyphonic Marxian approaches. the global uprisings of 1968. And whereas many Th eir shared focus is not only to record and an- of the 2008 anniversary refl ections of 1968 saw alyze the vicissitudes of neoliberal capitalism student uprisings and worker protests through but also to build on an active involvement in po- a Western-centric lens, there is an explicit eff ort litical and economic struggles (Lem and Leach in 2018 to understand the global character of 2002). It requires anthropologists to continue to protests across all continents. Anthropologists refl ect critically on their own relevance as intel- are making important contributions here, ad- lectuals embedded in movements for a better vancing an understanding of the sometimes co- future for the majority of humankind (Narotzky ordinated and certainly entangled and mutually 2015; G. Smith 2014). Th is requirement facili- referential anti-colonial, anti-imperial and also tates processual—future-oriented yet historically anti-fascist movements (Becker 2018). Marxian anthropology resurgent | 3 What is more, current anthropology, and es- thought and links these to the present genera- pecially so a Marxian anthropology, in its active tion of Marxian anthropologists, of which we contribution is critical about relegating debates are part. about 1968 to an ill-defi ned nostalgia (Baca Our introduction and the contributions to 2018). Instead, there is a serious engagement this special issue are part of a larger project, car- with the many actors searching for new pathways ried by dozens of scholars who contributed to toward agency and effi ciency in overcoming cap- panels at the American Anthropological Associ- italist exploitation and its various manifestations ation meetings in Montreal (2011) and Chicago in global warring and escalating inequalities (2013) and at the International Union for An- (Carrier and Kalb 2015; Narotzky 2016; Reyna thropological and Ethnological Sciences world 2016). Another anniversary, the 2017 centenary conference in Manchester in 2012. In preparing of the Russian Revolution, has received far too and running these events, we were fortunate to little attention. Yet, an extended review article have the support from leading Marxian anthro- by Don Kalb (forthcoming) establishes the rele- pologists and their networks, such as the An- vance of that revolution and of related uprisings thropology and Political Economy Seminar and for anthropological theory. In a juxtaposition the colleagues involved in the editorial board of the political activities and analytical writings of Focaal, Dialectical Anthropology, Identities, of Leon Trotsky and Marcel Mauss, Kalb con- and Anthropological Th eory. Th e next section trasts Trotsky’s class position and active “being seeks to position these contemporary initiatives there,” which were crucial for his monumental within the long history of Marxian anthropol- critical assessment of the successes and failures ogy and the diversity of lineages of thought of 1917, with Mauss’s privileged upbringing un- and enquiry. Th e second section extends this to der the wings of his anti-revolutionary, republi- the four articles in this special issue and points can uncle Émile Durkheim and his Eurocentric toward further crucial fi elds of engagement in armchair anthropology comparison of Roman contemporary Marxian anthropology. and Sanskrit law with contemporary societies in Melanesia and the Northwestern United States. With this in mind, this special issue seeks Common denominators and to contribute to emerging refl ections on the multifarious lineages in role of Marx’s writings for anthropology on the Marxian anthropology two hundredth anniversary of his birth. In tak- ing some foundational principles of Marxian For obvious reasons, lineages of Marxian an- thought in his writings as

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