A philosophy for our times
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2509
Contributo al Forum Teaching Anthropology in the Secondary School, Anuac, vol. 5, n° 2.
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2239-625X
2509
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Thomas Hylland Eriksen
Anuac
A philosophy for our times
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac
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Forum: Teaching anthropology in the secondary school
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2017-01-25
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Thomas Hylland Eriksen
2016
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2509
29
University of Oslo, Norway
2239-625X
2
en
33
A philosophy for our times
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                                           2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2016: 29-33




                                                                                   FORUM

A philosophy for our times
Thomas Hylland ERIKSEN
University of Oslo



Contribution to the FORUM: Teaching anthropology in the secondary school, ANUAC, Vol.
5, n° 2, dicembre 2016.



                              In our increasingly diverse societies, it is essential to ensure
                              harmonious interaction among people and groups with
                              plural, varied and dynamic cultural identities as well as
                              their willingness to live together. Policies for the inclusion
                              and participation of all citizens are guarantees of social co-
                              hesion, the vitality of civil society and peace. Thus defined,
                              cultural pluralism gives policy expression to the reality of
                              cultural diversity. Indissociable from a democratic frame-
                              work, cultural pluralism is conducive to cultural exchange
                              and to the flourishing of creative capacities that sustain
                              public life.
                                                                              (UNESCO, 2001)

   This statement from the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity,
signed in 2001, reads like a strong recommendation for anthropological
knowledge and insight in greater society. In this short article, I will confirm
that the UNESCO is right on the mark here. Although their conceptualisation
of culture is somewhat problematic (Eriksen 2001), the emphasis on coexist-
ence, mutual learning and enrichment is important in today’s world, and no
other branch of knowledge is better positioned to describe human diversity,
to provide tools helping us come to terms with it and to identify problem
areas in a globalising world, than anthropology.


This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Thomas Hylland Eriksen
A philosophy for our times
2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2016: 29-33.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-2509
30                                                           THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN


   Yet, as a discipline, we are punching below our weight. It sometimes feels
as if others stole our clothes while we were out swimming. Subject areas
where anthropologists should typically be important voices in the intellectu-
al and political conversation, are dominated by others: sociologists are the
recognised experts on racism and social exclusion, cultural studies scholars
have cornered the market of hybridity and cultural dynamics, and debates
about human nature and world history are dominated by yet others. Al-
though anthropologists contribute to all these areas (and, naturally, many
others), we generally fail to make a major impact outside the seminar room.
Tellingly, the world's most famous “anthropologist” at the moment is a
physiologist and ornithologist, who has never taken a course in anthropo-
logy. I am, of course, thinking of Jared Diamond. The conspicuous absence of
anthropologists and anthropological perspectives from the worlds of public
discourse and policy is partly our own fault, for not being sufficiently skillful
communicators, but there are other forces at play as well. First, in the current
neoliberal climate, research which does not aim to solve practical problems
is generally not prioritised, and with a few exception such as ERC grants, an-
thropological projects are seriously underrepresented in Horizon 2020.
Secondly, the growth, or reinforcement, of divisive identity politics in con-
temporary Europe is antithetical and inimical to the kind of knowledge typ-
ically produced by anthropologists.
   We should not content ourselves merely with blaming the outside world
and its deficiencies. Anthropologists have far too easily withdrawn into
either detailed, knotty and highly localised ethnography, or – the opposite
option – abstract theory, making it difficult to take part in the broader intel-
lectual debates. We have also not promoted our discipline efficiently enough
in relation to policy-makers, governments and funding agencies. This is why
the initiative from the Italian associations of anthropology to focus on the
place of anthropology in schools is an important and promising one, and one
which EASA wholeheartedly supports.
   Yet it must be conceded that the production and dissemination of anthro-
pological knowledge is currently met with strong resistance, indeed hostility,
in many quarters. This was not always the case. In my native Norway, an-
thropology was spectacularly successful in the public sphere in the 1990s.
Whereas, a couple of decades earlier, sociology and criminology had offered
some keys to an improved understanding of the world through their emphas-
is on power, class and gender, the 1990s seemed uniquely suited for the an-
thropological perspective. It was a time of destabilised boundaries, intensi-
fied globalisation and a strong optimism concerning the benefits of a more
open world. We anthropologists believed that we were in a privileged posi-
tion to shed light on the intercultural encounters of globalisation, the dilem-


2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2016: 29-33
A PHILOSOPHY FOR OUR TIMES                                                        31


mas of migration and many other issues, frequently by using surprising com-
parisons, as when we pointed out the parallels between the Balkan wars and
conflicts in stateless African societies.
   By 2016, there is less generosity and a reduced interest in the anthropolo-
gical perspective in Norway, as elsewhere. Today, opinion leaders and politi-
cians rarely defend cultural diversity as an asset and a resource. When they
speak about «integration», they usually refer to assimilation. It was a telling
moment when Merkel, Sarkozy and Cameron almost simultaneously declared
that «multiculturalism had failed» (without, incidentally, specifying what
they meant).
   A more serious, but not unrelated, tendency is the challenges now faced
by anthropology in many countries. As President of EASA, I have, in the last
year, written many letters of support and solidarity to sister organisations,
courts of law and political authorities in different countries to signal concern
over worrying tendencies. In Orban’s Hungary, it was declared that the MA
programme in anthropology was to be closed down – tellingly around the
same time that Hungary built a fence along the Croatian border. In Great Bri-
tain, the board of education decided to close down anthropology as an «A»
Level subject, few years after its introduction. In Japan, anthropology may be
about to disappear from several universities.
   In other countries, the situation is even more serious. Of course, many
academics are affected by the authoritarian turn in Turkey, but anthropolo-
gists – who often do research on Kurds, LGBT groups and other minorities –
are more vulnerable than most. In Brazil, the national association of anthro-
pology (ABA), which has several thousand members, has been subject of har-
assment and threats from the current government, which has attained power
through a low-intensity coup-d'êtat. Many Brazilian anthropologists work
with indigenous peoples and other vulnerable groups, and this makes them
potential critics of current plans to achieve economic development through
mining, ranching and large-scale plantation agriculture. Finally, just before
the summer 2016, news reached EASA that our colleague Homa Hoodfar, who
works in Canada and writes about gender and religion in Iran, had been de-
tained by the authorities while she was visiting family in the country.
   There is an implicit cultural critique in social anthropology (Marcus and
Fischer 1986, Eriksen 2006), and it may easily be perceived as a subversive
discipline critically addressing policies of development or national cohesion.
Anthropologists give voice to people who would otherwise not have been
heard, they question the taken-for-granteds in culture; they simultaneously
study and contribute to the destabilisation of boundaries. Anthropologists
never tire of asking the seductively simple, but incredibly complex question,
«What is the meaning of the word we?».

                                      2016 ⎸ANUAC. VOL. 5, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2016: 29-33
32                                                         THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN


    However, it is important not to forget that the word critique fundamentally
refers to a thorough, non-judgmental and multifaceted investigation, as was
the case in Kants three critiques. Nobody would accuse Kant of being against
pure reason just because he wrote Critique of Pure Reason. The cultural cri-
tique immanent in anthropology should therefore not be understood as a
political positioning, but rather as a weighty contribution to the long conver-
sation about what it means to be a human being.
    Understanding the other, and the self, and the relationship between the
other and the self – and, by implication, questioning the boundary between
self and other – is never wrong. If we want to contribute to positive change in
the world, or in our own community, knowledge and understanding of local
life-worlds, ideas and values is actually necessary. As Marx and Engels put it,
it is necessary to understand the world in order to change it. Understanding
is not synonymous with defending; as Geertz (1983) famously said, you don’t
have to be one to know one.
    As Fredrik Barth (1928–2016) expressed it, every society has to be under-
stood in its own terms (Barth 1972). We humans are simultaneously similar
and different, and in this shrinking world, knowledge about both dimensions
is necessary. Global capitalism makes both resources and patterns of con-
sumption comparable, while communication technology shrinks the world
and creates conditions both for global dialogue and global misunderstand-
ings. At the same time, in recent years we have witnessed an escalating
growth of often aggressive forms of boundary-making and withdrawal. Social
anthropology can function as a vaccine against intolerant fanaticism and ex-
clusionary identity politics, from Islamism to right-wing nationalism.
    If an anthropologist and an economist are asked to give a lecture each at a
conference, the audience might respond by concluding that what the eco-
nomist has to say is really important. The anthropologist, by contrast, is told
that what she says is fascinating. Our task consists in showing that what is
fascinating can also be important. Perhaps even more important than that
which is merely “important” without being fascinating.
    As a fundamental branch of knowledge about humanity and the world, so-
cial anthropology is crucial, especially in our day and age, when we increas-
ingly experience that respect and humility towards that which is different
and “exotic” is increasingly being replaced by hatred, condescension and ar-
rogance. For these reasons, anthropological perspectives should be included
in schools at all levels. Young persons must as early as possible be given the
opportunity to learn about global inequality, historical differences and cul-
tural variations which ought to be a source of enrichment and not a threat to


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A PHILOSOPHY FOR OUR TIMES                                                           33


dreams of purity and boundaries. This kind of insight is just as important in
the 21st century as the rudiments of a philosophical training was in the 20th
century. Anthropology is a practical philosophy for our times, and it deserves
a place in schools.

REFERENCES

Barth, Fredrik, 1972, Et samfunn må forstås ut fra egne forutsetninger: U-landsfor-
      skning i sosialantropologisk perspektiv, Forskningsnytt, 17, 4: 7–11.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, 2001, Between universalism and relativism: A critique of
      the UNESCO concept of culture, in Culture and Rights: Anthropological Per-
      spectives, Jane K. Cowan, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour, Richard A. Wilson, eds,
      Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, 2006, Engaging Anthropology: The Case for a Public Pres-
      ence, Oxford, Berg.
Geertz, Clifford, 1983 [1974], “From the native's point of view”: On the nature of an-
      thropological understanding, in Clifford Geertz, Local knowledge: Further es-
      says in interpretive anthropology, New-York, Basic Books: 55-70.
Marcus, George, Michael Fischer, 1986. Anthropology as a Cultural Critique. An Ex-
      perimental Moment in the Human Sciences, Chicago, University of Chicago
      Press.
UNESCO, 2001, Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, Paris, UNESCO.




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