The Difficulties and Potentials of Anthropological Practice in a Globalized World (JASCA Award Lecture 2012)

<p>The upheavals experienced by the modern world have direct effects on the "field" in which anthropologists conduct their research and the people who live there. Problems such as civil wars and massacres, development and environmental destruction, immigration and exclusion, and poverty and the spread of infectious disease are not simply "local" in nature, but manifest themselves as well in the context of global relations of dependence. Moreover, it is now an everyday occurrence for anthropologists in the field to become themselves embroiled in violent confrontations and civil wars, or become involved in such activities as environmental destruction and large-scale development, or social movements to protect the environment or oppose development projects. Under such circumstances, anthropology has moved from a position that emphasizes neutrality and objectivity in the field to one that actively acknowledges the participation and value judgments of its object. In fact, from the 1990's to the present day, anthropological efforts have dramatically increased that acknowledge an active relationship with social reality, in terms of both quality and quantity. In place of the former themes of symbolism, politics and poetics, 21st-century anthropology treats engagement, commitment, intervention, involvement, attachment, and (particularly) activism as its keywords. The object of the anthropologist' s engagement and commitment includes all the issues-disputes, wars, environmental destruction, climate change, health, disasters, human rights, and so forth-that have been problematized in the contemporary world, and which are having serious impacts on people's lives. But what logic justifies engagement and intervention in foreign cultures? In the intellectual and practical struggle to respond to that question, we can glimpse the future direction of anthropology in the 21st century. When modern anthropology appeared in the early part of the 20th century, it rejected the naturalistic universalism that took intervention in the field ("primitive society") as the "duty of civilization" (that is, "the white man's burden"), and instead advocated a groundbreaking cultural relativism. It was that very relativistic way of thinking that formed the essence of modern anthropology, and which continued to be the standard-bearer of progress that criticized Western modern civilization and guaranteed the rights of non-Western peoples and cultures. Yet, based on the universal "legitimacy" of protecting human rights, the appearance of the idea since the 1990's-with the advance of globalization-of intervening against the human rights abuses occurring in front of anthropologists led to the disposal of relativism as an anthropological relic. The justification for that intervention is the strong social trend toward "re-universalization" that is occurring in the anthropology of the global age. With respect to environmental protection, the guarantee of universal human rights, and the promotion of democratic governance, it is an acknowledgment of universal "correct values" that transcend region or culture. In accordance with that standard, it has become possible for anthropology to intervene against injustices occurring in the field worldwide. In its attempt to clarify the sudden rise of that universalism, the present essay examines its inevitability and dangers, and tries to consider how anthropology can henceforth articulate or negotiate a relativistic epistemology with the reappearance of a universalistic worldview. However, that attempt is neither a simple rejection of universalistic thought to revive old-fashioned cultural relativism, nor is it, on the contrary, a dismissal of relativistic thought to place a universal standard of values at the heart of scholarship. The goal of the present essay is instead to</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>