10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3626
application/pdf
2239-625X
3626
2
en
Francisco Martínez
Anuac
An expert in peripheries: Working at, with and through the margins of European anthropology
Text.Serial.Journal
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac
8
Thematic section: Changing margins and relations within European anthropology
2019-12-29
2019-03-15
2019-12-29
2019-12-29
167-188
1
Francisco Martínez
2019/12/29
10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3626
167
University of Leicester, United Kingdom
2239-625X
2
en
188
An expert in peripheries: Working at, with and through the margins of European anthropology
https://ojs.unica.it/index.php/anuac/article/download/3626/3558
8
                                           2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2019: 167-188




An expert in peripheries
Working at, with and through the margins of European anthropology

Francisco MARTÍNEZ
University of Leicester


ABSTRACT: This research explores the relationship between knowledge production and
place by studying different notions of disciplinary and personal peripherality. In an
auto-ethnographic manner, the author discusses some of the power relations at work
and the politics of representation of an anthropology being done at the margins of
European scholarship. By analysing his own professional trajectory, the author surmises
that the question of centre or periphery highly depends on the perspective applied (i.e.,
methods, labour conditions, institutional support, funding, the scale, access to jobs…)
Also, he argues that there is a distinct form of reflexivity at the margins, as well as a
distinct temporal regime – characterised by discontinuity. To contrast and complement
his personal insights, the author invited fifteen scholars working in Estonia to share
their experience of researching “at the margins”. Based on their responses, the author
concludes by admitting that being at the periphery is relevant, yet circumstantial –
something to be aware of, yet not definitive or a determinant. The article contributes to
the discussion on the need to differentiate, contextualise and problematise the question
of the academic marginality, making this issue more nuanced by putting the
ethnographic focus on the conditions of possibility among practitioners and the state of
being peripheral.

KEYWORDS: EUROPEAN ANTHROPOLOGY, MARGINS         OF ACADEMIA,   POWER   RELATIONS,   HIERARCHIES   OF
KNOWLEDGE, EX-CENTRIC STUDIES.




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Francisco Martínez
An expert in peripheries: Working at, with and through the margins of European anthropology
2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2019: 167-188.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3626
168                                                                       FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ



The periphery as a problem-space
   This article shifts the argument from geography and hierarchies of
knowledge, to the question about the conjuncture of the objective conditions
of knowledge production and the subjective perception of working in the
country located on the margins of Europe 1. By considering a particular
periphery in its ordinary specificity, the article sets up a reckoning of what it
means to be “peripheral” within European anthropology – do we talk about
relevance, training, kind of collaborations, freedom from disciplinary
constrictions, relation of dependence, mechanisms of in/visibility, scientific
reputation or funding? To a great extent, it all depends on the question
asked and the individual profile of the person; indeed, my informants,
having different career trajectories, see their academic experience in
Estonia, their being and acting on the periphery, as an asset or shortcoming,
chance or obstacle. Likewise, I wish to argue that traditional geographical
and epistemic margins are constituting new centres of inquiry themselves,
which might lead us to reconsider the potential for ex-centric studies to
inform theorising and draw new lines of comparison. In this sense, it is
relevant to wonder if the concept of centre itself might have become
anachronic and we should rather talk of clusters of knowledge production
(overcoming the centre-periphery relation of dependence), or if rather, it is
the very anti-structural character of the periphery that participates in the
creation of a sense of canon and centre (Turner 1969).
   To understand this, we might start by considering places such as Estonia
as global peripheries of knowledge production, instead of simply Eastern
European ones. Global peripheries are coming into contact with each other
through novel forms of connection. These places can be simultaneously
central because they can function as regional hubs, once the practitioners
gain capacity to make “theory from the South” (Comaroff, Comaroff 2011;
Simone 2010; Roy 2011); or, in turn, if they manage to re-invent their role in
the production of knowledge, realising that many exciting works in
contemporary anthropology are not coming from any disciplinary core, but
from its borders (Marcus 2008). We might also want to think in terms of
semiperiphery, which – as described by Marina Blagojević (2009) in her
analysis of gender issues in the former Yugoslavia – is a space positioned
between the centre and the periphery, functioning as a social hybrid that
contains characteristics of both.
1. The title is inspired by Franz Krause’s statement. I want to express my gratitude to all the
participants in the enquiry and the reviewers; Also, to Patrick Laviolette, Siobhan Kattago,
Alessandro Testa, Tomás Sánchez Criado and Damián Omar Martínez for their feedback on
earlier versions of this paper. Also, to the Anuac anonymous reviewers.


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                         169


   For five years, I was affiliated to Tallinn University and practicing an
anthropology at, with and through the disciplinary borderlands. This
experience allows me to reconsider the ways in which my professional
trajectory has been conditioned by: 1. Researching a field of study that is
seen as “marginal” in Estonia; 2. A country which is also considered as
peripheral within the European geopolitical, economic and academic system;
3. And establishing relations in the field across disciplinary borders, as for
instance finding collaborative alliances with people who have no background
in anthropology. The periphery is thus transformed into a site of
engagement and a problem-space itself, here taken as “fertile staging
grounds” –experimenting, intervening and doing things that are not
possible elsewhere (Comaroff, Comaroff 2012).
   A look from peripheries might produce different lines of vision and
understanding, allowing us to see what is not readily apparent when viewed
from the centre – for instance, how globalisation is inter-twined with
regional, national and local clusters (Nash 2001; Shore, Trnka 2015).
Peripheries are often linked with distance, remoteness, and some kind of
alterity as well as exploitation. It explicitly evokes asymmetrical relations
and a sense of unequal location, as well as a misinterpretation by or
invisibility from the centre (Green 2005). The paradox of peripheries is that
they are unable to completely evade the centre’s influence, and
simultaneously the centre itself needs the periphery to solidify and
supplement its always incomplete project of centrality. This has been
traditionally done, for instance, by constantly encoding and indexing the
periphery and its way of being modern (Pratt 2012). Imbued with this sense
of ambiguity, peripheries, on the one hand, refer to a centre and attempt to
build an attachment to it; on the other, they show proudness of their diverse
ways of doing, presenting themselves as subversive and challenging
established hierarchies. Hence, centre and periphery are not just categorical
or geographical distinctions, but also refer to a diversity of ways of seeing
and knowing, according to which the former might be understood as more
regimented and normative, and the later as more perspectival,
simultaneously outward and introspective (Cohen 2000; Marcus 2008).
   The periphery constantly refers to but also deviates from the normative
core and straight line. It is in this sense that a periphery can be also a space
of creativity and production, situated at the margins of dominant paradigms,
providing terrain to experiment and for self-initiative, catching
opportunities on the wing. As peripheries are not fully defined and
territorialised, there is enough openness for imagining and practicing
anthropologies in the interstices or gaps, thinking-doing, change-oriented,

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170                                                                     FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


epistemologically eclectic (Brković 2018), yet engaged in a constant struggle
against discontinuity (Pobłocki 2009; Rander 2019). Such quality allows us to
work without a manual or to cooperate with unexpected travelling
companions (as pointed out by Estalella and Sánchez Criado in this issue).
Also, it points out that the periphery might be located elsewhere than on the
borderline, being distinguished by its capacity of doings things that the
centre cannot (Peeren, Hanneke, Van Weyenberg 2016). Accordingly, a
periphery can be thought as an edge and not only as a space of withdrawal,
stagnation or backwardness (Kyriakides 2014).
   However, one should not ignore that power, resources and canonic
knowledge lie at the centre, and that structural inequalities in academia
might still hinder collaboration between European anthropologists
(Gerholm, Hannerz 1982). Also, to forget how difficult is to make projects
endure in the periphery, and the need to justify oneself every time one
intends to reach the core. Even if we can engage in more experimental forms
of doing anthropology that go beyond conventional ideas, at the end
scholars need stability to do their work. “Other anthropologies” means also
“other problems”, surely more basic and precarious (Boškovic 2008). And, in
spite of knowing all the complications and relapses that researching out of
the core entails, I cannot avoid feeling sympathy for Costica Bradatan’s
article “In Defense of Margins” (2015), in which he argues that margins are
more spontaneous, wild and disperse than the centre; and also that margins
understand the centre better than vice-versa.
      Eventually the center structures itself and everything other than itself: it
      establishes dichotomies and hierarchies, classes and “rankings,” according to
      how close or how far away things are in relation to it. As a result, life at the
      center becomes highly regulated: spontaneity is legislated, the primary
      impulses tamed, and the vital instincts channeled. Everything is thought out to
      the last consequences; nothing is left to chance … the margins remain mostly
      incomprehensible to the center. The center is certainly aware of their
      existence, and often makes it its duty to survey and map out the margins, with
      whole knowledge industries dedicated to them. But that’s all the center can
      have: cartographic knowledge. It can never understand the margins (Bradatan
      2015)


“There were two references to US scholars”
   In the nineteenth century, peripherality was mostly equated with cultural
issues; throughout the twentieth century, it was linked primarily with ideas
of geopolitics, and the current set of narratives depict it more in terms of
issues of economy and knowledge (Browning, Lehti 2007). Nowadays,


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                        171


relations of dependence are played out intensively at different scales
through both institutional structures and personal networks. Peripherality is
also being turned into a less geographical and more relative issue (niche-
like) by global processes of communication and commodification. Here, I use
the terms “core”, “periphery” and “margin”, but not necessarily with the
same rigour as world systems theorists would perhaps prefer to. In political
science, a periphery is often presented as a place where nobody is interested,
dependent on the core, precarious and unstable, an area that might have an
important stake in current matters but no real voice (Bechev 2012). For
instance, in Immanuel Wallerstein’s understanding (1974), peripheries
suffer from geographical isolation, with poor access, distant from core
spheres of activity, and dependent within the system of relationships.
Nonetheless, Wallerstein claims for not reifying peripheries by attributing
essential meanings to them. Further, a periphery can also be “a centre out
there”, which requires a dislocation and distancing that may be physical or
mental (Turner 1973).
    Peripheries have been also associated to a fantasy realm and zones of
marginalia, authenticity, ex-centricity, and redemption (Stewart 1996; Scott
2000). However, these mythical projections towards peripheries are often
dependent on their continued marginalisation (Selwyn 1996) and denial of
coevalness (Fabian 1983). An example of this was an event organised in
Tallinn (May 2015) by the research group Stop-and-Go (established in Vienna
to discuss mobility within Central and Eastern Europe). The Austrian
coordinators were enthusiastic and supportive to local researchers, yet as
they acknowledged during the workshop: “we chose Bulgaria and Estonia
because of geographical reasons and because they are at the margin of
Europeanisation”. Also, I was surprised when I read Theodoros Kyriakides
blog entry “Anthropology at the Margins” (2014) commenting on the EASA
conference of Tallinn; not only because he positioned the academic work
done in Estonia as marginal, but especially because of his belief that after
the visit of core anthropologists our university would be “put on the map”:
“Tallinn finds itself in a marginal position, not only in terms of European
history and identity, but also in terms of anthropological relevance …
Estonian anthropology was affirmed. This is important: whether it is Estonia
or other anthropologically “marginal” parts of Europe, resources, labour and
attention need to be supplied to turn them into centres”. On the contrary,
what happened is that the department was directly affected by a structural
reform of Tallinn University and in the years following the EASA conference
it lost three of the four full positions in anthropology, one of whom was later
replaced with a lower ranking role.


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172                                                                       FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


  In short, asymmetries in knowledge production exist still, within Europe
and globally, as testified by the answer I received when submitting my
manuscript Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia (2018) to an American
university press:
      The series is primarily oriented to American English readers with secondary
      readers in the UK. Most of our readers will know little or nothing of Estonia, or
      even where Estonia is without checking a map. (I googled Wikipedia, for
      example, to get a quick orientation to Estonia and its history). Your prospectus
      and the book manuscript emphasize the analysis of many abstract, and
      admittedly valid and important, concepts as primary to your presentation of
      materials on Estonia. And I find that the reader can follow your penetrating
      work only by holding drawing on prior knowledge of Estonia itself, its history
      and changing structural relationships through time. You indicate a very
      sophisticated readership, mostly in Europe (I think there were two references to
      US scholars). And by the information provided it is clear that they would bring
      with them the kind of sophistication on Estonia and the former Soviet Union
      that a careful reading and thorough understanding of your manuscript requires.
      But to repeat, the vast majority of our readers will not have such sophistication.


Locating the periphery
   So, how could we represent and understand our own peripherality? We
could start by acknowledging that the link between our fieldwork sites as
well as between the locations of our academic affiliations is often
autobiographical. As Michał Buchowski remarks (2005), ethnographers
observe different realities because they happen to live in different societies,
being all individuals with their own life trajectories. This reflection brings to
the fore how the relationship between places and times affects knowledge, in
the sense of affecting what can be known. Madrid, Lisbon, Moscow, St.
Petersburg, Helsinki, Berlin, Tallinn, Tartu, Tbilisi, Leicester – significant
stations in my academic career where I have been for at least half a year.
   Travelling means losing countries, wrote Fernando Pessoa2. Looking back,
I feel as if I have transitioned a series of different lives, reinventing myself in
each of them, and not always leaping forward. These lives are shaped by
emigration, by discontinuity, by multiple imaginaries; I ask myself what
happened to the other lives? The old lived on, the pre-emigrations, which
linger inaccessible to me, the émigré. I have a trans-career, working at the
intersection of different scales, agendas and locations, going across, trans-
mutating and transporting, being part of a global transmission of people,

2. “Viajar! Perder países!”, 20-9-1933, http://arquivopessoa.net/textos/2195, accessed on
10/12/2019.


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                        173


ideas, standards, and money. I was lucky enough to study and work in varied
universities, yet in my case, I have taken an opposite trajectory to many
“Eastern European” researchers, who preferred to move to the West to
acquire a high education and later applied this theoretical tool-kit back into
the societies where they come from.
   And yet, despite accomplishing my doctorate in Estonia, could I say that I
became myself an East European scholar? Am I doing Estonian or Spanish
anthropology? Actually, what is “Estonian anthropology”? Is it due to
language, research topics, traditions, methods, networks or economy of
favours? Consequently, how can we define the work of local scholars
researching Burma, the Urals or Rio de Janeiro? Still it strikes me when a
local colleague told me “you can say this because you are not Estonian, so
you are not afraid of making enemies here”. However, I lived in Estonia for
over eight years, being physically present within this community, socialising
in different moments and circumstances, from discussing about the so-
called “Russian minority” in Narva to talking about flags and parades while
having breakfast with my mother-in-law, for whom I am the Spanish partner
of her daughter and not an anthropologist. For me, these kind of relations,
negotiations and micro-ethnographies are also part of my political location,
referring to epistemological questions and situated knowledge (Gupta and
Ferguson 1997). But could I say that I was doing fieldwork “at home”?
   Recently, I had a curious episode in which I said that I felt that Tallinn
was my home, and a close person to me replied that such a feeling was not
appropriate, as I was not born in Tallinn and I do not speak Estonian. Yet
how does one know when one is at home? By engaging with the question of
the anthropologist’s relation to his/her culture, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro
(2003) argues that the native does not have to be natural to the place where
we find them, neither does the anthropologist need be a stranger to the
people about whom they discuss. The essential factor, in his view, is the kind
of relationship established between the observer and the observed, and how
it is translated into discourse or relation of knowledge. Also, Marilyn
Strathern (1987) has tried to answer this question by discussing the different
kinds of knowledge that people can be assumed to have and the impossibility
of measuring degrees of familiarity. As she puts it, fieldwork at home
involves processes of both familiarisation and defamiliarisation, and one has
to be prepared to cast the findings in terms of ethnographic objectives and
professional discourses. In a nutshell, to do anthropology at home refers to a
process that concerns informants and local anthropological discourses too,
producing knowledge that is directed to both the global anthropologist’s
audience and the studied people. Interestingly, I experienced that I was
reaching them both while receiving the Early Career Award of the European

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174                                                          FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


Association of Social Anthropologists (August 2018, Stockholm). Eeva
Kesküla, an anthropologist currently based at Tallinn University, posted on
the Estonian anthropology network a photograph of me receiving the prize
and the caption: “Congratulations to the Estonian anthropologist Francisco
Martínez…” So, the award finally gave me an anthropological nationality.
   Being born in Spain, yet having studied and worked in different cities, has
allowed me to experience how the reactions of my interlocutors in
conferences has been different when stating my affiliation to Tallinn
University than when presenting myself as a researcher at Humboldt or
Helsinki, perceiving different expressions of interest or arrogance, often
leading to the sense of not being invited to the party (DiGiacomo 1997). But
what kind of party is that? Reflecting on the contradictions of my own
liminal position –in terms of geographical location and the kind of
anthropology that I practice, I feel myself as a kind of non-belonging doppel
marginal, somehow accumulating different peripheries. Symptomatically, a
local colleague observed once, “you cannot say you come from a periphery
because you are from Spain, a big country”. Yet, I am not just a tourist or
visitor “from Spain”, whose affiliation and obligation lies elsewhere, but a
researcher working locally and for a long time affiliated to an Eastern
European university. Also, Spain is a big country, and hundreds of millions
of people speak Spanish, but the configuration of centre and periphery are
based on factors such as the ability to write and speak academic English as
well as to publish in “high impact” journals, rather than on geopolitics or
imperial history (see, for instance, the case of Russian academia too).
   Indeed, I presented an early version of this article at the first AIBR
(Network of Iberoamerican Anthropologists) conference of Madrid (July
2015). During the discussion of my paper, and following a question about the
supposedly shared mission of publishing in Spanish, I explained that my aim
is to reach as many people as possible, gain access to funding, and
participate in international debates, and nowadays that means writing in
English. I added that I try to publish in the language of the country where I
live, since for me it is important to make accessible research materials into
the languages of the place where I have worked; but as a plus, since at the
end of the day I am assessed mostly by my publications in English. Aware of
possible hostile reactions, I left for the end of my reply the provocative
observation that not everything published in English is good, but all that is
good will soon or later be published in English; and that the claim for
publishing in Spanish sadly disguises the lack of working knowledge of
English within Spanish academia. Four hands were automatically up to
passionately contradict my statement.


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                              175



Tracing the ethnographer
   In a slim book published in 1986, Mary Douglas tried to seek meaning
from institutions, asserting that institutions think, stabilise relations, and
sustain what is social. She explained, in the preface, that this should have
been the first book to write in her career. However, I engage with this topic
in my early career. Currently, I work in the School of Museum Studies of the
University of Leicester, having no dedicated department of anthropology –
which may be perceived as being at the margins of this discipline, despite
being central in the field of museum studies. Before I was a postdoc in
Finland, a place, on the other side of the Baltic, which has been historically
depicted as a borderland (Browning, Lehti 2007), yet where I felt as being
part of a global academy with a wide cohort of inspiring international
scholars and generous funding.
   Whilst doing my Ph.D. fieldwork in Estonia, I was often compelled to
justify why I moved to that country (to both locals and foreign colleagues),
explaining that this dislocation did not involve love or romantic relation-
ships originally; rather I had found in this place the possibility to come back to
academia and recycle myself from journalism. Accessing a doctoral programme
and grant allowed me to develop my research project, in situ (at home),
about the relevance of the Soviet legacy to understand current developments
in the country. The dislocation is, however, not an issue if the direction had
been from the periphery to the core, as it has happened while moving from
Tallinn to Helsinki. Or, as a close local colleague bluntly told me, “why
should anyone care to read about Estonia or what is produced in Estonia?”
   The periphery is always a longer route, which in some cases might be a
faster one, yet in some others one might get lost in side-roads. Indeed, being
in Estonia had advantages and disadvantages. For instance, while a graduate
student I enjoyed inspiring graduate schools and had access to funding for
organising international seminars (e.g. Playgrounds and Battlefields),
summer schools (e.g. Hopeless Youth!), or research visits (e.g. Berlin, Lisbon
and Tbilisi…), mostly relying on European Funds. On the other hand, during
the period of writing up my dissertation I discovered that I did not have the
right to public health insurance, so I had to ask for a loan to pay my medical
bill3. Also, I witnessed a radical downsizing episode in Tallinn University,
presented as unavoidable due to financial reasons. It was especially surprising

3. See also: Mark Carrigan’s Accelerated Academy (http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactof- social-
sciences/2015/04/07/life-in-the-accelerated-academy-carrigan) and Academia is Killing my
Friends (http://academiaiskillingmyfriends.tumblr.com), accessed on 10/12/2019.

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176                                                              FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


to hear the financial rhetoric from the Head of the Institute of Humanities (a
philosopher specialised in phenomenology). Paradoxically, he reproduced
corporate ideas of “international excellence” and “accountability”, while
submitting academic standards to parochial needs, based on “the need to
defend the use of Estonian language in academia”4. Furthermost, this example
shows not only the relevance of language politics in reverse (against English),
but also how the outcomes of neoliberal processes and the introduction of
audit cultures to academia have been rather heterogeneous and contingent,
despite many parallels and convergences across cases (Strathern 2006; Green
2016).
   Not only centre and periphery, but locality itself is perceived as
increasingly ambivalent for contemporary scholars, who experience “two
competing logics – that of mobility and internationalisation on the one
hand, and that of privileging the locality and those who belong to it on the
other” (Simoni 2016: 360). Between the far away and the home, new forms of
“crosslocations” are appearing5, as Sarah Green puts it, in tune with global
processes that intensify dynamics of relative positioning and changes in
relations between places and people, forming hybrid scholarly identities,
since people like me feel themselves as part of different scales of evaluation,
belonging and collaboration. Likewise, polyglotism and the simultaneous
attachment to multiple places is becoming a professional requirement and
not simply an autobiographic accident, producing a multiplicity of
rootedness. More and more people find it necessary to move far away from
friends and family, working in institutions and projects at the peripheries of
the academic world, creating new circuits of exchange yet appearing
personally painful, disorienting and time-consuming (di Puppo 2016). In
short, mobility is not a guarantee for escaping from peripherality (Jansen
2016). Also, the periphery is not a site where to escape the pressures of
globalisation and academic capitalism. You might exist outside the focus,
but not outside the power relations at work. Further on, location still
matters, affecting our temporality, mobilities, networks, conversations,
access to funding and also while applying to jobs. We can even talk of
anthropology being done at different speeds within Europe based on our
actual geographical position as well as on our location within the EU solar
system of research infrastructures.


4. Stated during a meeting with the international staff on the 20th of May 2015.
5. See the Crosslocations project, funded by the European Research Council Advanced
Grant.


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                         177


Peripheralised in the middle
   We can explain many of the actual epistemic asymmetries as a result from
the commodification of academia, thereby relocating these hierarchies
within the global knowledge market (Pobłocki 2009). Postsocialist changes
altered not only the living conditions in the societies under research, but
also the very conditions of possibility for research, producing a constant
underfunding in academia and establishing new trajectories of circulation of
ideas and with them, new modes of action. We can say that, over three
decades, these changes brought a new oscillating geography of centrality
and marginality, embedded in historic and cultural factors, yet also
depending on how new global networks are being locally negotiated. Hence,
neither a “big bang” happened in 1991, starting everything from scratch
(Verdery 1996), nor knights of Western know-how with a centrifugal
civilisational mission conquered the new territories with the “true faith”
(Verdery 2007). In this light, Chris Hann describes the original enthusiasm of
anthropologists after the break-up of the Soviet regime as: “exaggerated
claims that investigations of postsocialism might open up a new phase in the
discipline, analogous to the focus on colonial African societies and on
Melanesia by past generations” (2005: 547).
   On this matter, Katherine Verdery (a scholar working on Romania but
based in the USA) observed that, since there was no equivalent to social
anthropology in Eastern Europe and most of the work of local scholars was
preoccupied with national peasant traditions, various Western scholars
acted to introduce the discipline and displace the older ethnological
practice. For that they hoped to receive “assistance” from local scholars,
presenting the process in terms of upward mobility aspirations and Western
style anthropology as a symbol of “democratisation” (Verdery 2007: 48-50).
However, despite attempts to establish the “proper” version of anthropology
in the region, the described efforts did not succeed due to the realities of the
post-socialist environment that Western scholars often ignored (Červinková
2005). Also, Michael Burawoy wondered about what shape a more
decentralised postsocialist theory would take, and Verdery speculated about
who the Frantz Fanon of Eastern Europe would be. Then, more radically,
Michał Buchowski chose to openly denounce “the subaltern status of
scholars living in post-socialist countries” which eventually “leads to an
intellectual domination of the West, the perpetuation of hierarchies of
knowledge, and creates a one-way street in the flow of ideas” (2004: 12).
   After a decade living in Eastern Europe, I have also met several cases in
which local colleagues understood as “normal” that Western scholars were
in charge of bringing concepts and theories, whilst their role was limited to


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178                                                           FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


providing “material”. Nonetheless, I find Buchowski’s positioning too
agonistic. Hierarchies between Eastern ethnologists and Western
anthropologists might exist still, yet the East-West line of division is just
one amongst the many divisions that crisscross knowledge production in
Europe and its importance seems to be decreasing. Likewise, in my recent
visits to London, I was surprised to learn about the difficult working
conditions of some colleagues there, who feel themselves as peripheralised
in the middle (see Berglund 2008).

Being in the centre is not opposed to being peripheral
   To contrast my views and experience on peripherality, I invited some of
my colleagues to speak about the position of Estonian universities in the
global circulation of ideas and how the marginality of the country in the
academic production of knowledge has influenced their work. These
colleagues research different topics and are affiliated to three different
universities in the country, and are here considered as natives. The criteria
for selection was that they conduct research for a local institution in Estonia
and have international experience. I simply asked them two questions: do
you think research in Estonia is marginal within the global circulation of
ideas and knowledge production? And what are the advantages and
limitations of working at the margin? Answers were gathered by email in the
summer of 2015. Most of the informants seemed to agree that academic
knowledge is shaped by its conditions of production; pointing out,
nonetheless, that considerations of “centres” and “peripheries” are con-
textual, depending on how we frame the discussion. The experience of
“centrality” or “marginality” also appears circumstantial, dependent on the
character and background of the researcher. Hence, we can argue that
peripherality is something out there, as a condition that we are part of, and
in here, in our minds and attitudes, instead of seeing peripherality as only a
bind depriving oneself of power and capacity for manoeuvring.
   In this light, researchers such as Hugo Reinert, Franz Krause, Elena
Pavlova, Andrey Makarychev and Klemen Slabina perceived this question
differently than native-born Estonian scholars. For example, Reinert
associates marginality with autonomy and independence, and takes margins
as “emancipatory”. In his view, an “exotic” affiliation like Tallinn sparks
interest and functions as a social asset. Krause observes that “Estonian
academics make extremely good use of this marginality, for instance, by
receiving sizable funding from the EU”; and presents a margin as a space
“where to try out things and thoughts impossible at the centre”. Pavlova
notices that there is an increase in the number of good universities at the


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                                  179


periphery, while adding that there are different degrees and forms of
peripheriality. On this matter, Liisa Kaljula suggests that things are better
for the margins now, because of the Internet and cheap flights. And Maarja
Kaaristo reckons that the very fact of being in the margins gives us “an
alternative perspective, a different and sometimes wider vista”.
   For Slabina, “marginals always preserve the element of surprise and have
it easier to obtain sympathy”, and Makarychev notes that peripheries are
sources of resistance to big narratives and offer a chance to see what might
not be seen from more central locations. Raili Nugin moves the debate
forward by pointing out that when publishing in international journals, one
has “to relate the topic with wider research done in other countries”.
Likewise, Uku Lember notes how Estonian scholars need to balance between
the topics of local and global academic interest, and also to engage in
various forms of translation. Olga Razuvajeva and Tauri Tuvikene chose to
surmise that marginality exists, but is neither good nor bad per se. Another
important matter, pointed out by Roomet Jakapi, is that peripheries might
have the disadvantage of academic incest and a stuffy atmosphere. Whilst
Kristina Jõekalda and Karin Dean bring into discussion whether being at the
margins is a matter of disadvantage, with regard to the resources available.
Finally, Tarmo Jüristo reminds us that we also have to answer whether
academic research itself might be marginal to the Estonian society in
general, and not simply Estonia being peripheral to a world system.
   To illustrate the discussion, I include some verbatim answers, firstly
because they explain very well the respondents view, and secondly because I
believe it is important that their voices are directly heard.
   Karin Dean (native-born Estonian), senior researcher in Asian Studies at
Tallinn University:
      Why is academic work in Estonia assumed marginal in the production of
      knowledge? I read the question posed as predetermining the “location” of
      researchers in Estonia as “marginal”. How and why would location matter if we
      talk about production of knowledge, particularly in the information age? Is this
      marginality defined by Estonia’s physical location or by its inability to produce
      top-class scientists? ... As far as hierarchies of knowledge are concerned, I am
      more worried with Anglo-American centrism or Eurocentrism… this is topical
      when one works on Asia. In this production of knowledge, I am located at the
      “centre” as Estonia is situated in Europe and in the realm of Anglo-American
      influence … I do not see my academic work as marginal in Estonia, although I
      sometimes feel disadvantaged because the focus of my research is located in
      Southeast Asia and Singapore respectively, and I cannot travel there for
      research seminars or fieldwork as often as I would like to. This said, there are
      several “centres” of knowledge production on Southeast Asia also located
      elsewhere – to me these are places where good research is carried out...



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180                                                                     FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


  Maarja Kaaristo (native-born Estonian), former researcher at the
Department of Ethnology at the University of Tartu; currently a lecturer at
Manchester Metropolitan University:
      While one could say that Estonia is “marginal” by definition – both
      geographically and size-wise, the question of margin always depends on
      where’s the “centre”. For example, regarding ethnology/socio-cultural
      anthropology, historically the centre has never been fixed in one place: we have
      been looking towards Finland, Scandinavia, Russia and Germany. In the past 30
      years or so, the centre has admittedly been the anglo-american (or “Franglus”
      including the French) anthropology. Therefore, when looking at it in the
      historical perspective, the academic “centre out there” has been a rather
      mobile and ephemeral entity, always changing, never fixed. Of course, one can
      say that looking from, say, the UK, the Estonian academy might sometimes
      seem far away and therefore rather marginal to some. But that says more about
      the “centre” than the “margin” and although we, the “marginal”, might be
      somewhat gravitating towards the centres, the very fact of being in the margins
      gives us an alternative perspective, a different and sometimes wider vista… I
      am quite convinced that in inhabiting the borderlands of academia lies
      manifold possibilities: the margins are the places where “other anthropologies
      and anthropology otherwise” as formulated by Restrepo and Escobar can be
      practiced, challenging the perhaps dominating canons and pluralising the
      discipline in new and innovative ways.

   Franz Krause (foreigner), a former postdoctoral researcher in anthropology
at Tallinn University; currently a senior researcher at the University of
Cologne:
      I would definitely call Estonia a marginal place in relation to the global
      academic scene. This has tangible manifestations in (small) national research
      funding, (limited) library resources, (internationally negligible) potential for
      work communicated in the country’s official language, and many other aspects
      of academic life. Working under these conditions can be rather frustrating at
      times. Nevertheless, I have found that Estonian academics make extremely
      good use of this marginality ... Estonia has been receiving sizable funding from
      the EU ... I have experienced how some of this money was spent to facilitate
      interdisciplinary networks within the country, invite interlocutors from abroad,
      and finance a series of extremely pleasant events for inclusive academic
      audiences and with exceptionally good catering – something that I had not
      known in other locations, like Germany or the UK.
      Another noticeable advantage of working at the margins is that many scholars
      are well aware of what happens in other academic traditions, and are able to
      engage with their discussions, not least through a good command of the
      respective language ... This conceptual and linguistic cosmopolitanism gives
      Estonian scholars a perspective that many of those at the “centres” of academic
      production, for instance in the USA or the UK, often lack, as the latter limit
      themselves to domestic debates and their mother tongue. I believe that new
      ideas are not only born in the centre, but can particularly come out of the
      periphery, where an outsider’s perspective on multiple dominant discourses
      may provide a productive vantage point.


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                                     181


      As an anthropologist, I am fond of the margins. These are the places that
      anthropologists have traditionally studied in search for manifestations of the
      otherwise, and often in the conviction that those at the centre have something
      to learn from life at the margins. Where centres have classically been seen as
      static and monolithic, the margins have been conceived as more dynamic and
      heterogeneous. This is not to glorify marginality. Having to work multilingually
      and pluriconceptually is a challenge, especially if this work is salaried so low
      that many academics need additional jobs to maintain their families … But
      working at the margins nevertheless has the potential to try out things and
      thoughts impossible at the centre, to “capitalise” on marginality by invoking it
      in European funding schemes, and to develop new ideas by critically re-
      evaluating and re-combining multiple insights from various elsewheres.

   Uku Lember (native-born Estonian), lecturer in Eastern European History
at Tallinn University:
      Estonia is marginal for its linguistic isolation and its population size in relation
      to Western Europe and also to its former imperial centre(s) … This marginality
      towards both “East” and “West” could then be also described by a certain in-
      between status of the region. Being located on the margins of the Western
      academic establishment, Estonia actually offers quite easy access to academic
      positions and centres – when national representation or diversity is sought
      after, then it is easier to become a representative of Estonia than, for example,
      of Germany or Russia. At this point in my career, I have personally never felt
      marginalised ... I have also enjoyed access to EU funding that has facilitated
      attendance in academic events abroad (and such funding is less available to
      many young scholars from Western Europe). However, an Estonian scholar of
      humanities or social sciences needs to balance between the topics of local and
      global academic interest and to engage in various forms of translation, which,
      however enriching, often has to happen in “free time”. Such burden of
      translation is certainly more foreign to Anglophone scholars and I have
      experienced this linguistic privilege as often taken for granted.

  Raili Nugin (native-born Estonian), senior researcher in Youth Studies at
Tallinn University:
      I would first of all challenge the approach of “margin”, as this seems to
      presuppose the binary opposition of margin and centre … Estonia is in several
      senses inbetween: neither on the margin nor at the centre. It is part of the
      Western world, which produces hegemonic discourses about many academic
      issues ... At the same time, for example in social sciences, Estonia is hardly in
      any sense a leader of discussions or debates in the field… On the other hand,
      Estonia offers a fruitful lab for applying several theories of social change, as it
      is an interesting country in which changes have been abrupt and visible in
      virtually all spheres. Therefore, it offers interesting material for researching
      several questions that cannot be researched in rather stable contexts.



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182                                                                      FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


      Another point in terms of Estonian academic life is that it is shaped by size.
      The number of academics is inevitably scarce and thus, the topics to research
      are not always covered. This, from its part, means that it is relatively easy to
      find an under-researched topic and become an expert on it in your own
      country. At the same time, if you find such a topic you can be an equal partner
      to those researching the same topics in other, so-called “centre” countries,
      where the competition is much higher. There are disadvantages... The
      resources are scarce, and also understandably, the academic world is not
      interested in Estonia as such... so when you publish in an international journal,
      you have to relate the topic with wider research done in other countries. When
      you publish research data about UK, you normally do not have to do that.

  Hugo Reinert (foreigner), former researcher in anthropology at Tallinn
University. Currently, a postdoc at the University of Oslo:
      The advantages of marginality are complex, and depend on how you frame the
      concept … I am also myself predisposed to certain kinds of marginality, almost
      as a constitutional factor: on a personal level I associate marginality with
      autonomy, independence and the freedom to pursue my own interests. In fact,
      this positive notion of marginality has been an important organising principle
      for my academic career to date: moving to Estonia was a deliberate move away
      from the key recognised “centres” for my discipline (both geographically and in
      disciplinary terms), precisely because their “centrality” (with what this
      entailed) did not suit me.
      In geographical and historical terms, of course, the complex position of Estonia
      at the “edge” of Europe renders it a particularly interesting base for social
      science and humanities coming from “outside” – offering a wealth of material,
      and exposure to intellectual traditions that might not be visible from the
      “centre”. Academic knowledge is shaped – in ways both subtle and obvious –
      by its conditions of production, and knowledge “from the margin” often speaks
      in different ways to different issues, other than the knowledge produced “in the
      centre”.
      In disciplinary terms, I would say that I have experienced the “marginality” of
      Estonia as liberating, even emancipatory. Margins may function as frontiers,
      and it seems to me that it has been far easier for me to explore unconventional
      interests and perspectives here – at the “margin” – than it has been for many
      of my peers in more densely populated (and policed) areas of the “centre”.
      There is also to my mind a sense of something like freedom to working on the
      Estonian “margin” which I find difficult to describe well: a sense perhaps that
      things can happen, or that they have yet to happen…
      ...To my mind, the disadvantages of the margin depend primarily on your own
      constitution as a researcher: if the margin is a frontier, frontiers are not for
      everyone. There are material issues to do with resources, support,
      remuneration – but again, in my experience these can be overcome, and
      addressed, in ad-hoc ways. Supposedly there is also the matter of prestige, of
      stigmatisation relative to more prestigious knowledge institutions of the centre




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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                                     183

      – but for myself I must say that in my field I have never experienced such
      effects. Rather, an “exotic” affiliation like Tallinn sparks interest, curiosity and
      engagement – functioning, if anything, as a social asset. Generally speaking,
      for me the so-called margin functions as a highly productive space, open to
      spaces (both literal and figurative) that are not necessarily accessible from the
      “centre”. Increasingly, rapid technological and social change is also rendering
      obsolete the spatial paradigm that underpins the conventional mappings of
      “centre” and “periphery”. In my own discipline, the traditional “centres” are
      largely associated with dying imperial projects, and there is an ongoing
      flourishing on the periphery...


Conclusion: Working out the peripheral muscle
   In this article, I have reviewed how anthropological research is embedded
in particular locations and the kind of entanglements developed to practice
ethnography at the margins. By considering my own geo-disciplinary
position, I have described how relations between core and periphery are not
just relations of struggle, but are negotiations as well that evolve over time
(Marcus 1995). As a result, margins might change, relocate themselves or
acquire new meanings. In this light, we can say that academic peripheries
are not what they used to be. One can find a great deal of diversity within the
European anthropological practice, including projects that expressly
cooperate at the margins and challenge traditional relations of alterity
within the continent. In this sense, the power and knowledge asymmetry
within European anthropology might be decreasingly based on an East/West
divide, and more connected to ongoing global phenomena such as neoliberal
policies, social acceleration and the commodification of knowledge. Looked
at from Estonia, European anthropology appears as increasingly
transnational, multiscalar and para-ethnographic (Holmes, Marcus 2005),
with different intersections and niches, orientated through problems and
themes (e.g., dozens of institutional networks as housed in EASA or SIEF or
the Wenner-Gren Foundation). European anthropology is also aware of its
own internal peripheries and multi-centred character (Green, Laviolette
2015a; 2015b; Martínez 2016), reinvigorating channels of communication
between its peripheries (i.e. South-South, East-East), despite the actual
context of globalisation and the neoliberalisation of academia, which are
shrinking the positions on the edge, transforming along our notions of
home, scale, risk, temporality, labour and value.
   In 1982, Ulf Hannerz and Tomas Gerholm noted how anthropologists of
different countries on the periphery take little note of each other’s work, at
least unless it is brought to their attention through central anthropologies.
And, in 1997, Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson observed how anthropologists

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184                                                                    FRANCISCO MARTÍNEZ


working at the “centre” learned quickly that they can ignore what is done at
peripheral sites at little or no professional cost. Nowadays, however, the
multiplication of niches of knowledge production and multi-scalar cross-
located networks make more difficult to ignore the work done in the
peripheries. To reflect further about how processes of location and
knowledge production inform our research, I have also gathered the
opinions of fifteen colleagues in Estonia. Based on them, we can conclude
that the ethnographer’s encounter with the peripheral is located as much in
our methods and notions of epistemic validity as in the place where
anthropology is done. For instance, as noted by Reinert, anthropology at,
with, and through the margins is an adventurous practice, for which some
people are more prepared than others6. To be at the margins is a
circumstantial condition that requires particular muscles, such as openness
to risks and collaborations with unexpected epistemic partners, and also
ability to resist or adapt to rapid changes and ruptures.
   We can add three further conclusions: The negative one is that the
precarity and vulnerability of peripheries (regarding the conditions of
possibility) seem to have come to places that were traditionally considered
as central. The positive ones are that anthropology constantly renews itself
from the margins, centripetally. And also, that the use of the peripheral
condition depends on the researcher’s background, interest and aptitudes to
a great extent. Indeed, one of the things that make a difference is the
person’s state of mind and capacity for having an impact beyond academia
(adding the nuance of getting to know the tricks that help to mobilise
resources and overcome discontinuities). In short, more than ever before,
believe in the periphery. Writing this article helped me reconcile my own
peripherality, as well as assume that maybe my own character and work
might better fit the ambiguous edge. There are delights and values in not
occupying the core – there is freedom, there is excitement, there is
vulnerability, and lots of learning. The peripheral refers to epistemological
margins and invisibilities, whereby we can immerse ourselves in conceptual
and methodological explorations, practice unconventional forms of doing
research and elicit new kinds of relationships.




6. The very same person might will or reject to embrace edgy explorative risks depending on
matters such as career stage or current personal situation (e.g. having children).


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AN EXPERT IN PERIPHERIES                                                           185


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 Francisco MARTÍNEZ is a Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of
 Leicester. In 2018, he was awarded with the Early Career Prize of the European
 Association of Social Anthropologists. Francisco has been a postdoctoral
 researcher at the University of Helsinki and Aalto University. Currently, he is the
 co-editor of the Berghahn book series “Politics of Repair” and member of the
 editorial board of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. Francisco has
 edited several books – including Repair, Brokenness, Breakthrough: Ethnographic
 Responses (Berghahn, 2019) and is the author of Remains of the Soviet Past in
 Estonia (UCL Press, 2018).
 fm211@leicester.ac.uk




This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Francisco Martínez
An expert in peripheries: Working at, with and through the margins of European anthropology
2019 | ANUAC. VOL. 8, N° 2, DICEMBRE 2019: 167-188.
ISSN: 2239-625X - DOI: 10.7340/anuac2239-625X-3626
