In Conversation with Janet Carsten
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In Conversation with Janet Carsten In Conversation with Janet Carsten Interviewed by Indira Arumugam; transcribed by Tan Junbin Janet Carsten has conducted research in Malaysia and a kind of general thing. I wasn’t very interested in the Britain. After completing her PhD at the London administration. Anyway I didn’t like that for various School of Economics, she was a Post-doctoral Re - reasons. Partly it was quite policy-oriented towards… search Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and it was producing social policy experts I guess. And at Lecturer at the University of Manchester. She has the end of the first year, I changed to economics, given guest lectures and keynote addresses at Johns which you could do. So I went into the second year Hopkins University, the National University of Tai - of economics, because I did quite well in the first year wan, UCLA, the University of Copenhagen, the Ecole of economics courses. But when I was doing second des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, University of year economics, things became a bit more serious. I Michigan, University of Toronto, the University of discovered that economics was definitely not my Sao Paulo, and at the Museu Nacional, Federal Uni - thing, as it was a very deadly combination of being versity of Rio de Janeiro. She delivered the Lewis very difficult and [to me] very boring. So I didn’t re - Henry Morgan Lecture in 2012. During a three-year ally like that, but while I was doing that I had… In Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship from Septem - fact I was doing kind of economic planning, which ber 2007-10 she conducted research on articulations included some stuff on Soviet planning, which was between popular and medical ideas about blood in quite interesting, because it was history and I liked Britain and Malaysia. Janet Carsten is a Fellow of the that. And as an outside option in the LSE system, British Academy and of the Royal Society of Edin - which is quite flexible, I took an introduction to an - burgh. thropology course, which had lectures by Ioan Lewis and class teaching by someone called Tom Selwyn, Indira Arumugam (IA): Thank you Janet for being who went on to become an expert in the anthropol - here for today’s interview. So we are just going to find ogy of tourism, who was a really fantastic class teacher. out a little more about the anthropologist behind the It was really those classes that made me realise that I work. So let’s start off with some of your… How did kind of fell in love with anthropology. And so at the you become interested in anthropology? A bit about end of my second year, this would absolutely never be your training. allowed now, in my second year, I decided that I would really like to switch to anthropology, and it was Janet Carsten (JC): Ok. So I was an undergraduate at quite complicated to switch into the third and final the London School of Economics, but a rather con - year. The LSE had two streams - you could do, the fused undergraduate I should say. And I originally B.Sc.Econ in which you could do a major in anthro - came in to the LSE to do a degree in social science pology, or you could do an anthropology degree. So I and administration. The main reason I chose that was was already on the B.Sc.Econ and so the question was it was a very general social science course, so that you whether I could switch to a majorin anthropology. My could do psychology, sociology, social history… it was tutor in economics phoned the anthropology isa.e-Forum © 2015 The Author(s) © 2015 ISA (Editorial Arrangement of isa.e-Forum) 1 Indira Arumugam department and the secretary there said ‘there’s no one stuff in anthropology. That was just getting going, and really here except for Maurice Bloch, and maybe she that was quite important to me. So I really wanted to should come and see Maurice Bloch’. Then I had a work somewhere where women were not thoroughly conversation with Maurice Bloch and I said that I oppressed and miserable. So I wasn’t particularly in - would very much like to do this. And so at the end of terested in going somewhere like China or South Asia. this conversation it seemed that I had transferred… I wanted to go somewhere where women seemed to These were the days when things were more flexible be sort of reasonably autonomous. So that was one of so he just was very… and he said, “I think that will the things about Southeast Asia. And when I started be alright.” Then he gave me a very very long reading reading about Southeast Asia in general, it was just list to do over the summer, which was sort of all the such a rich and complicated and wonderful… I mean classics: Argonauts of the Western Pacific , and then The I read quite a lot of historical stuff, and I thought it Nuer and Elementary Forms of the Religious Life and was extremely fascinating. And I think also in my Malay Fishermen and I don’t know what else. So it was mind was that I had been given this gift of this stu - a huge… I mean you know, if you have gone through dentship, which was quite well funded and there was one over the course of summer you would be doing extra money for language training, and I should go quite well. I can’t remember whether I did all of them. somewhere as far away as possible and do something The result of that was that I did in my third and final that I could never otherwise do. So that was Southeast year, I did a kind of double load of anthropology Asia. The other part of that was that at that time, be - courses and by the skin of my teeth I sort of got cause, as Steven Morris had just recently retired at through that, because it was quite hard - at least just LSE… So Maurice Bloch was supervising basically the the course loads, which were a bit heavy. And then Southeast Asia students because of the Austronesian- you know, I thought, well, if I could have the oppor - Madagascar connection. And he was a fantastic tunity to go on with anthropology, that would be teacher. So that was very, I really wanted to be super - wonderful. So I was very very lucky because I got… vised by him. Originally I had actually thought about In those days the LSE had the ESRC (which was then doing something in the Middle East. But as time went the SSRC in Britain), had a quota system. So they de - on, I took a very long first year, actually working out volved the acceptance of students on to the institu - what I wanted to do, and part of that was reading tion, and the LSE had, I think, four quota places that about Southeast Asia. So I wasn’t particularly fixed on year for students doing PhDs or PhD track as it was Malaysia, and in fact I did… You had to get as a for - before it was confirmed in the first year I think. Any - eign researcher you had to go through this quite com - way, so I got a quota place on that, so I was com - plicated lengthy procedure of getting research pletely delighted But I always felt that I didn’t have a permission. So I did one for Indonesia… And I did a really thorough undergraduate training in anthropol - couple of different applications for Borneo, one in ogy, which was true. Because basically I did one year, Brunei, and one in Sarawak. And then, one for main - so it’s a bit like doing a masters or a conversion course. land Malaysia, thinking about the east coast and Ke - But I didn’t have, I hadn’t had the full three years. lantan, Terengganu, where the Firths had worked. And it was partly a question of which came through IA: And how did you happen to choose Malaysia? first, thinking that I might not get permission. So that Why Malaysia? was one thing. And partly where the LSE had, you know, quite good connections. So Malaysia, what was JC: Why Malaysia? Well, that was a combination of crucial there, was that, was that Wazir Jahan Karim different things actually. And so, there were several had recently completed her PhD at LSE and was back things about… I wanted to work on women particu - in Malaysia teaching at Universiti Sains Malaysia. And larly. This was the beginning, so we are talking, end I had very briefly met her in London, and she very of the 1970s, so it was sort of second wave of feminist kindly agreed - you needed a local academic sponsor, 2 In Conversation with Janet Carsten which is still the case. And she very kindly agreed to cious place, so they were at the wealthier end, but not be that for me. And so it was the chain of connections sort of very wealthy, and they had a nice house. Two through LSE. And in the end, it was Malaysia that room, a normal house, the front half and then the came through first and where we were best connected. main living room. And they had plenty of room in - And that was through her particularly, and I was ex - side the space, but absolutely no privacy whatsoever.