Academic

The doctrine of noninterference

The doctrine of noninterference turned into a charter for all around interference for one reason: the occupying power gave itself the prerogative to define the boundaries of that in which it will not interfere, and then to define the content of the authentic religion with which there was to be no interference, and finally, to acknowledge the authentic authority that would define and safeguard religion in its pure form—without external interference. The prerogative to define the boundary, the substance and the authority of the “customary,” gave vast scope to the powers of the occupying authority. But the exercise of this power, the list of those to be “protected,” was politically determined—and it grew as time passed.

Mamdani, Define and Rule

Gramsci vs. ‘the political’

…the Schmittian concept of the political in reality participates in one of the most venerable illusions of the Western metaphysical tradition: namely, the dogmatic assertion of a moment that provides the essence for the contingent events that are determined by it. Political philosophy, as the specific form of philosophy that thinks the political (and as distinct from modern political science, which can only analyse ‘mere’ politics), claims to have a privileged access to this moment…

…this approach offers a notion of a ‘real political’ or ‘true politics’ as a substitute for the pale imitations of traditional political philosophy and ‘official’ politics. Žižek, for instance… has argued that ‘a leftist position should insist on the unconditional primacy of the inherent antagonism as constitutive of the political’: ‘the internal struggle which traverses the social body’. For Žižek, the political thus ultimately finds its foundation in the social, or rather, it is precisely the suppression of the constitutive internal division of the social that requires the emergence of the political as the terrain of its resolution, in its turn suppressed or deformed by existing politics.

…Gramsci does not provide a theory of ‘the political’ as such, even less than he provides a ‘general theory of politics’. Rather, he attempts to provide an analysis of the ‘production’ or, more exactly, ‘the ‘constitution of the political’ – constitution in both the active and formalized sense – as a distinct social relation… Hegemony’ describes the process of this constitution, or the way in which historically identifiable political practices – the social relations of communication, coordination and organization of the project of a particular class or social group – have come to define the nature of ‘politics’ as such…

— Peter Thomas, Gramsci and the Political

Mathematical Objectivities

The skeptical reader may still be wondering, How exactly does the mathematical discourse relate or apply to the actual, material situations it purports to describe? How precisely do we move from the purely void-based multiples presented in ontology, which are all “qualitatively very indistinct,” to the qualitative variety of historical situations? To be sure, we know that Badiou “in no way declares that being is mathematical, that is, composed of mathematical objectivities.” Nevertheless, his conviction is that the substance of material or historical situations offers no significant resistance to their mathematization, and that insofar as they can be thought, all situations are to be subtracted from the uncertain domains of substance, perception, and the object.

Badiou: A Subject To Truth. p 105

Who is indigenous?

In recent years, however, when being indigenous can qualify you for particular aid or presenting concerns through the language of indigeneity has greater impact, the identification of indigenous people has become problematic and contentious. In lowland areas of Bolivia, for example, in certain cases the number of people identifying as belonging to an indigenous group has more than doubled in two years; in others people continue to be unwilling to identify themselves as such because of the profound racism in those areas. In highland areas the people who are most likely to identify themselves as indigenous are educated urban intellectuals or political activists, not the Aymara-speaking rural peasants who follow “traditional” lifestyles.

Canessa, Andrew (2007) Who is indigenous? Self-identification, Indigeneity, and Claims to Justice in Contemporary Bolivia.

Quoted here less because of the selected text than because it is a nicely written article – good for thinking about indigeneity – and it is available in an Open Access repository.

Latour: Sociology vs. Science

So we can see why this sociology is so feeble when it ap­proaches the exact sciences. It thinks it can explain hard disciplines in social terms, whereas those disciplines are almost always original and more subtle even in their definition of the social body than so­ciology itself…We cannot reduce the action of the microbe to a sociological explanation, since the action of the microbe redefined not only society but also nature and the ‘whole caboodle.’

The Pasturization of France, p. 38

Teaching Anthropology “In The Field”

Re-posted from Savage Minds.

This is a view of the building where I work. The College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University, in Hualien, Taiwan.

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And here is a picture of the view (on a more typically cloudy day) looking back, from the balcony near my office.

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Most of the people who live on the East Coast of Taiwan reside in a narrow valley between the Coastal Mountain Range (top picture) and the larger Central Mountain Range (bottom picture). The valley starts in Hualien city, and continues down about about a hundred miles, to the next coastal city, Taitung. About thirty miles south is the village where I did my fieldwork. Apart from the great scenery and the chance to improve my Chinese, that is one of the main reasons I took this job. But it is now four years since I came here and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve made that thirty mile trip. That’s what I’d like to talk about in this post. I think the reasons give some insight into what life is like as an expat professor in Taiwan, what it means to teach near your field site, as well as some of the unique aspects of my current situation. Read More

Separation of Powers

考試院
Photo by 翔

If you ask most people, democracy is synonymous with elections. But, strangely enough, few people who live in electoral democracies feel that elections result in a government which truly responds to their concerns. At its best, electoral politics seems to solve the problem of succession which plagued previous forms of government. Although it is not unusual for violence to break out during elections in many parts of the world, my sense is that even the most procedurally flawed elections in a one-party state make for more peaceful transitions between rulers. By this standard a bloodless military coup is actually slightly better than a violent election, so we’re placing the bar pretty low.

I find it much more useful to think about democracy in terms of institutions. Separation of powers has been an important part of democracy since the early Greek City-States, and was a central feature of the Roman Republic. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney have been doing their best to undo this founding principle of democracy for some time. They object to any congressional oversight of the executive branch, and have appointed Supreme Court judges who believe in a strong executive. We all know the endless stream of abuses which have taken place under the Bush White House, many of them posing serious threats to civil liberties. And yet, somehow, the basic building blocks of US democracy remain intact – barely. (True, we are setting the bar pretty low here when we point out that there aren’t black-booted brown shirts patrolling our streets, but still…)

These thoughts occur to me as Taiwan slips back towards one-party rule less than a decade after the DPP first gained control of the presidency. During that time numerous reform measures which would have strengthened Taiwanese democracy were repeatedly defeated in the KMT controlled legislature. It is unclear whether any of these will move forward now that the KMT’s position is secure, although the KMT’s anti-corruption rhetoric during the past election will likely result in at least some minimal reforms.
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Ivory Tower vs. Real World

[Cross-posted at Savage Minds]

Flickr Photo Download: CT - New Haven - Yale University: Harkness Tower - Mozilla Firefox

In our discussions about anthropologists in the military the term “ivory tower” has come up again and again, as has its antipode, “the real world.” These terms work rhetorically to oppose academic elitism and detachment against the difficult moral choices one must make in everyday life. A couple of things really bother me about the way these words are used:

First, it seems that “the real world” is always invoked when someone feels the need to justify decisions made which will help the elite. The “real world” requires us to support military dictators, cut jobs, pollute the environment, etc. You almost never hear someone talk about how in the “real world” we must build up the institutions of democracy, support unions, or protect our natural resources. Why are these choices less “real”?

Second, the labeling of anthropologists as ivory tower intellectuals is just odd. Most anthropologists I know are very much engaged in the real-world problems of their informants, love nothing more than to be in the field, and many, many, anthropologists are politically active both at home and abroad. It is true that anthropologists tend to shun the role of “public intellectual” and engagement with mainstream US politics, but they are very active in a large variety of other ways.

Third, it is odd that academics are accused of being “ivory tower intellectuals” precisely at the moment that are engaging politically in the US public sphere. To be passive subjects of military policy would be less “ivory tower” than to speak out against it?

Fourth, I always hated the term “the real world.” Of all the jobs I’ve had in my life – and I’ve done a little of everything, from selling ice cream, to bar-tending, etc. – my experience in corporate america was the least “real” of them all. People in management positions were all white and played solitaire on their computer half the day, when they weren’t gossiping, while minority employees worked their asses off answering phones and sweeping the floor. These privileged yuppies had no idea about the world outside their protected suburban enclaves, and yet they are considered as having jobs in the “real world” because they earn more money?

The fact that the real world involves difficult moral judgments should be a reason for serious academic debate about the basis for those judgments, not a reason for silencing that debate.

(Photo by wallyg)

Job Announcement

Job Announcement

College of Indigenous Studies at National Dong Hwa University [Taiwan]

http://www.ndhu.edu.tw/

POSITION DESCRIPTION AND DUTIES: The Department of Indigenous Cultures and the Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Culture invite applicants for three (3) open-rank faculty positions in the humanities and social sciences, beginning February 1, 2008. We are seeking applicants who do research in indigenous or ethnic cultural studies, with any of the following disciplinary backgrounds: indigenous art, ethnomusicology, psychology, history, religious studies, anthropology, or sociology.

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS: Ph.D. must be in hand at time of appointment. The applicant should be comfortable working and teaching in Mandarin Chinese.

TO APPLY: Please send cover letter, three letters of reference, curriculum vitae, graduate transcript, a copy of dissertation, and sample course syllabi to Ms. Long, Administrator, Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Culture, National Dong Hwa University, Hua-lien, Taiwan 97401.

Formal review of applications will begin by October 15, 2007 and will continue until the positions are filled.

For further information, please contact graduate administrator sylong [at] mail.ndhu.edu.tw.

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