Universidad del Rosario Estudios Sociales de la Cultura Alejandro Gonzlez

Marcus and Fischer: The so-called crisis of representation, according to the authors, has multiple levels of understanding for anthropology as a science. In one sense, it shows the challenge that is implied in trying to study other non-Western peoples. In another sense, it shows a sceptic attitude through what Lyotard calls the metanarratives or, more generally, the sceptic attitude in every attempt to capture in a theory the world just as it is. In the first sense, we dont have the problem of legitimacy of Anthropology as a science, but rather a discussion about what method would be better for the understanding of the foreign and the possibility of cultural critique; in the second sense, not only Anthropology but rather all sciences (both natural and social) and even philosophy starts to collapse, since all of them has the pretension of represent the world (either fragmentarily, as in science, or either as a whole, as in metaphysics). Considering this my question is: What if new methods, new theories or new ways of approach is not enough to save Anthropology (or whatever science) of this crisis? Is not the crisis of representation an epistemological and ontological crisis for all sciences?