Syllabus for History of Anthropological Theory II (spring 2015)

J Neurosci, 2009

Theory and action are closely connected in medical anthropology. Theory frames the way for finding pertinent meanings and making intelligent interpretations that open the door to relevant action. Kurt Lewin's maxim that there is nothing so practical as a good theory is well known. Theory is practical because it produces the questions that matter in medical anthropological research. This book contains 37 essays and one poem. All of them address prominent issues in present-day anthropology and medical anthropology in particular. The contributions focus on people who are excluded or marginalised because of their age, their illness, their 'madness', or violent circumstances. Others are oppressed because they do not fit in the dominant societal discourse. The essays show, however, that people are not solely victims of marginalisation. They have impressive agency and resilience, often driven by their determination to remain connected with their loved ones. Although there is much pain, fear, loneliness, injustice and violence in the contributions, there is, fortunately, also hope, friendship, care, spirit and humour. 'Theory and Action' is a gift of friends to Els van Dongen

Like the narrator in Antoine de Saint Exupery's The Little Prince, I felt stranded in a desert beside my crashed aircraft-Voices. For over a year I had been trying to reassemble it and escape this void. And then during the ides of March I conjured up images of its withering away. Most disheartening were the spate of outpourings on the virtual media-e-journals, web-journals, on-line journals, a whole jungle of wild-rose bushes-a deluge, a groundswell, that most certainly could wash away my 'rose', so painstakingly nurtured over the past ten years. 'Lord', said I, 'I question whether I can take much more …/ No more afters or before'? Is my Voices just another spoke in an unhinged wheel? In an attempt to break the ennui, I settled my debts and dropped my last coin in the wishing well. And lo and behold, at my singular behest, the genie opened flood gates that could outmatch the webbed tsunami. A texted request and 'Orwell, Foucault and Modernism' came by return mail, to be quickly followed by Sanjukta Dasgupta, Santosh Gupta, Mini Nanda, Anuradha Marwah, Rakshanda Jalil … it was unending and the crashed aircraft is ready for flight! Thank you Prof. Jasbir Jain for this spur to re-begin a stalled journey and what could be more relevant than what Orwell and Foucault stand for, our 'locatedness' in these times of 'virtual' encroachments that goad us on to preserve ourselves, our privacy, despite the traumatising 'progress'. Professor Sanjukta Dasgupta's article on Tagore's poetic psyche replenishes our quest for confidence and creativity in these ambivalent times. Professor Santosh Gupta homes back to the polemics of the prison and how these can become transforming spaces which can empower one to overthrow the victim image and Dr Mini Nanda argues that 'I am' must be asserted for a domino effort so that we, especially women, do not have to succumb to unfairness and injustice. Taking up Indian women pioneers from the 19th century she weaves a dialectic of uprising. From the two nodal points of justice and fairness Anuradha Marwah begins her questioning, the 'why' in Media and Kabuliwala. Spanning her search over nearly two centuries she argues how 'social justice' has become so very critical in our times. It was so when times began and it is so now that I am 'man'! Sunita Agarwal furthers the exploration of creativity by re-contextualizing the innovative folk theatre as a means of reinventing ourselves in these apocalyptic times. The human movement that Professor Jasbir Jain talks of and Anuradha Marwah expounds, Nidhi Singh takes up as myths of dislocation and relocation. Peggy Mohan's Jahagin becomes the beginning of an attempt to decode immigrant experience that forces one to navigate unknown terrains in order to validate the 'self' and combat fracturing 'otherness'. The journey metaphor. continues with Charu Mathur's historiographic narration of the Partition enshrined in Salman Rashid's A Time of Madness which simultaneously posits the literary relevance of a memoir. Charu Mathur sums up by emphasizing a 'fluid relevance' which could undermine fossilized terror. And, what could be more befitting than valorising 'Charal' literature which gives the Bengal Dalits courage to swim against counter currents and live life at their own terms. It is not a giant step to arrive on the threshold of 'feminism', what Mini Nanda began and Nidhi Singh added to is continued in Swatti Dhanwani reading of Sita's Sister by Kavita Kane. The hermeneutical analysis helps bridge opposing contentions about Urmila, the unsung wife of Lakshman in the Ramayan, opening a more validating space for her. Alpana then decodes enslavement and emancipation in Masaan (2015). In analysing cinema as text Alpana ends on the promise of a new horizon of hope. The next section, poetry, works out the myriad colours of 'hope' and 'despair'. Opening with Lakshmi Kanan's '14th of April' there is promise that whenever the Neem buds will bloom it'll be a new year again! Sanjukta Dasgupta too vows to overcome the 'enemy' till 'Doves of hope settle on their open palms in her 'Hope'. However the 'Lockdown Blues' demand a 'New Normal and I' which is bizzare and surreal, where the 'contagion continues to spike and surge' but she ends 'If winter comes, can spring be far behind? echoing the prophetic Shelley. Sandeep Sen's 'Obituary' to the 9/11 victims is as relevant today for 'they were us', all those who died, die and are dying. But lives matter and it is 'Hope' again which can drive the darkness out, and it leaks through unknown spaces. Sen's 'Asthama', 'Quarantine' and 'Saline Drip' seem to be stages where we recognize that 'breathing' is a 'blessing' and in the quarantine that has been imposed one becomes more conscious of the chirping birds, the colours of leaves and skies and also more aware of those for whom we did not 'make time'-family, neighbour, neglected friend. But this 'Saline Drip' will vi • Editorial indeed regenerate, refine and rekindle and soon wash away the fuzziness that has crept over us. Rashmi Narzary takes us back 'years and years ago' and then brings us back 'years and years later' thanking God for a 'blessed life' where fireflies light the night and nature sustains us. Rakshanda Jalil sounds a warning note again in her translation of Javed Akhtar's 'Hum-safar' that the scorching-searing road that we are walking today leads not to bliss but to destitute isolation with no fireflies to light the dark night. The fire in the bellies consumes one's hopes and reduces him to naught as realization dawns that there are only two castes-the rich and the poor. But Manasvini Rai again raises hopes and 'In Continuum' affirms that love's labours would again, perhaps, accumulate and transform the vision where once expanses were parched. Joya Chakravarty writes another 'Obituary' for our own 'plain Janes' who live a death-in-life with no one to hold their hands in grief. But 'plain' you may be yet there is much in a name to make us glide through the tangles and find our roses. The book review section with four intensive explorations makes for critical reading at its best. Professor Mukesh Srivastava unfolds the dialogics of censorship while looking at Rajiv Dhawan's book. Natasa Milandinovic reviews Susheel Sharma's Unwinding Self, a collection of poems, and forays into aspects of knowing and unknowing, of Atman and Man. On a lighter note Anuradha Marwah reviews Jeanie Cummin's American Dirt and ressurrects it from searing criticism. Bandana Chakrabarty's review of Jasbir Jain's Interpreting Cinema: Adaptations, Intertexualities, Art Movements is a literary insider into the book's polyphonic dialogic. Spaced between the poems and the reviews is a memoir, a testimony of those first flushes that dislocation embarrasses us with before we settle down to the graveness of re-location. As a newly transported immigrant Shubhshree flaunts her inherited riches with innocent aplomb till life teaches one to pack 'herself' till more opportune times. A beautiful encounter of a 'dil hai hindustani' with acculturation blues! These pieces sewn together in this volume testify how 'what was invisible to the eye' has been slowly uncovered, layer by layer; what we see is only the shell, what is truly important we connot see-a lesson from The Little Prince again to round it up. Here I would gratefully acknowledge Annanya's depiction of the essence of the book The Little Prince which frame the cover of this issue. For fellow travellers in literature, I hope these 'fire flies' will light up areas of darkness and pave the way for a better knowing. Adieu, till the next issue!

Short abstract We argue that the current resistances to neoliberalism remind us to depart from stagnant forms of social analysis. We show the relevance of (Post-) Marxisms put forth by Lacan, Žižek and Deleuze and Guattari to understand social transformation in a world shaped by neoliberal oppression. Long abstract Following Balibar, with Marx, theory and practice became intrinsically linked. Dissolving the dichotomy between anthropological theory and practice is now more urgent than ever, if anthropology strives toward holding future social value for those involved. We argue that with the help of (post-)Marxist theoretical currents, anthropology should be reoriented towards progressive social change. The first of these examples is centred around a critical understanding of the subject along the lines of Lacan and Žižek and their understanding of dialectical materialism. An examination of the ethnographic example of Greece after the imposition of harsh austerity measures after the financial crisis of 2010 may show the various ways in which the split subject position is a key factor in understanding modes of interpellating a subject under neoliberalism and how progressive resistance may arise from that. Secondly, ways of resisting neoliberal interpellation are reflected on by a reading of the Zapatista movement through Deleuzian political philosophy. Deleuze gives social scientists theoretical tools to understand the deterritorialization of subjectivities in the Zapatista struggle. In forming a political assemblage, Marxist guerrilla members and indigenous people engaged in processes of becoming that made the creation of a flexible, autonomous region possible. In rejecting the subjectivation processes of a neoliberal governmentality, the Zapatistas put forth a shifting process of emancipation trying to create a "world in which many worlds fit". We conclude that the current resistances to neoliberalism remind us to depart from stagnant forms of social analysis and show the relevance of contemporary Marxisms to understand social transformation in a world shaped by neoliberal oppression.

While matters of security have appeared as paramount themes in a post-9/11 world, anthropology has not developed a critical comparative ethnography of security and its contemporary problematics. In this article I call for the emergence of a critical "security anthropology," one that recognizes the significance of security discourses and practices to the global and local contexts in which cultural anthropology operates. Many issues that have historically preoccupied anthropology are today inextricably linked to security themes, and anthropology expresses a characteristic approach to topics that today must be considered within a security rubric. A focus on security is particularly important to an understanding of human rights in contemporary neoliberal society. Drawing on examples from Latin America and my own work in Bolivia, I track the decline of neoliberalism and the rise of the security paradigm as a framework for organizing contemporary social life. I suggest that security, rather than a reaction to a terrorist attack that "changed everything," is characteristic of a neoliberalism that predates the events of 9/11, affecting the subjects of anthropological work and shaping the contexts within which that work is conducted.

New Proposals Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, 2009

called Engaged Anthropology, and out of that came a session at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings that year called Politically Engaged Anthropology: Projects Under Construction. Anna L. Anderson-Lazo, the editor of this issue, was one of the presenters. It is an inspiring experience to be part of this continuing conversation, and to hear how these scholars-many of whom I have known during their graduate and even undergraduate student days-continue to live their praxis. In that 1995 seminar, we began with one of the dictionary definitions of engaged, which is "to be mired in muck." As many of the authors have said here, resonating with a larger conversation, this work is not easy, not comfortable, and it is never finished. It can be joyful, maddening, heartbreaking, and the only way we feel we can live our lives-finding ways to collectively refuse neoliberal capitalist structuring of our communities, livelihoods, thoughts and relationships. That refusal is a full-time job, it seems, as we see the very forums we use to talk back to white supremacy, to heteronormativity, to neurotypicality and other normativities, and the interests of neoliberal capital, inhabited by those same dominant discourses. Collectivities have been both well-problematized and encouraged by the authors here, and I will comment on what I have learned from these and other ongoing activist/teacher/collaborators. Lena Sawyer writes about finding role models who live the critique and stand up to power relations in the university as well as talking about power

Poetics Today, 15, no. 3: 341-381, 1994