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Re: Anthropology and politics
Alx V. Dark (avd5863@IS.NYU.EDU)
Mon, 11 Sep 1995 21:32:49 -0400
Just briefly, it seems to me Mr. Price has it backwards... if our work
was inconsequential, then there would be little reason to be political.
We should be thinking about the politics of our research if we are going
to entertain that it might actually be read, used. So in the last ten
years we have learned a lot about politics, and perhaps, less about other
things (there's so much academic anthropology, it seems to me, that we write
about everything and that's a bigger source of triviality), but the
lessons learned are hardly inconsequential, even if we don't maintain a
primary focus in future ethnography on the politics of representation, of
ethnographic authority, etc. etc. etc. If you don't think about the
politics of your "scientific" research, you can still bet that everyone
one else will, if what you're doing matters at all. And that's natural,
like that philosopher once said.
Nevertheless, I practically penned a fast and furious reply to RJ's last
two posts, mostly because I made the mistake of reading them (I don't
usually do that). Somehow, I can't quite put my finger on it, RJ has
managed to really drag down this mailing list with misdirected energy.
Alx V. Dark <avd5863@is.nyu.edu>
Native Americans and the Environment WWW Page:
http://minerva.cis.yale.edu/~lisamc/native_env.html
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