As part of the conference 'An Anthropology for Troubled Times' in honour of Prof. Paul Clough that will be held on 14 and 15 November, Prof. John Gledhill, from the University of Manchester, will give a public lecture entitled ‘Moralities, Engagement, Capitalism: Current Challenges for a Critical Anthropology’.
This public lecture will be held on Friday 15 November from 18:00 to 19:15.
venue: Gran Salon, National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta.
venue: Gran Salon, National Museum of Archaeology, Valletta.
Staff. students and members of the public are welcome: For catering purposes please RSVP by email to david.brincat@um.edu.mt.
Abstract
It is tempting to see crises, whether in anthropology or the world, as cyclical, but difficult to deny that our “troubled times” demand new thinking about how anthropologists should respond now that earlier visions of how to construct better and more socially inclusive futures for humanity have ceased to convince. Even the future role of universities and academic research is uncertain in the digital age. Many now urge anthropologists to escape our neoliberalised professional silos to embrace interdisciplinary dialogue and methodological diversity, redoubling efforts to communicate effectively with non-academic publics. Paul’s critical vision embraced both theory and practice.
He argued against a left politics based on Eurocentric theoretical foundations. Anthropology invites us to look at the world from the perspectives of other places and other histories, and for Paul it was a moral and political imperative to engage with the people we study beyond the horizons of our fieldwork and academic writing. His engagement with West Africans as migrants as well as in their homelands sets an example relevant to many other regions. So does his focus on alternative social and moral logics in economic life at a moment when the principal legacy of colonialism, imperialism and capitalist globalization seems to be dispossession without limits, multiplying expressions of violence, social and political polarization, and ecological catastrophe. We still need his ideas to think about specific issues, such as the impact of new financial technologies in the global South, and to support struggles to build alternative futures that are also practical.
He argued against a left politics based on Eurocentric theoretical foundations. Anthropology invites us to look at the world from the perspectives of other places and other histories, and for Paul it was a moral and political imperative to engage with the people we study beyond the horizons of our fieldwork and academic writing. His engagement with West Africans as migrants as well as in their homelands sets an example relevant to many other regions. So does his focus on alternative social and moral logics in economic life at a moment when the principal legacy of colonialism, imperialism and capitalist globalization seems to be dispossession without limits, multiplying expressions of violence, social and political polarization, and ecological catastrophe. We still need his ideas to think about specific issues, such as the impact of new financial technologies in the global South, and to support struggles to build alternative futures that are also practical.
John Gledhill is Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester and a fellow of the British Academy and Academy of Social Sciences. He has conducted ethnographic and historical research on society and politics in Brazil and Mexico, in both rural and urban contexts, and also written on broader comparative issues. His most recent books are La cara oculta de la inseguridad en México (2017); The New War Against the Poor: The Production of Insecurity in Latin America (2015); (editor) World Anthropologies in Practice: Situated Perspectives, Global Knowledge (2016) and (editor, with Mariela Gabriela Hita and Mariano Perelman) Disputas em torno do espaço urbano: processos de [re]produção/construção e apropriação da cidade (2017).