Anthropology of Social Change: Margins, Performances, Publics (S0E08a)

2019-2020

Section A. Setting the scene

Part 1. Introduction to the course

13 February 2019
 ASC-01

Contents

1. Beginnings – ingredients for a new anthropology of social change

2. Learning goals
3. Organisation of this course: structure, preparation
4. Overview sections/sessions
5. Evaluation
6. Having a first go at ‘publics’, ‘performances’ and ‘margins’

intro 2
 ASC-01

1. Beginnings

2. Earlier versions of this course:

- Migration and Minorities Policies: Anthropological Presuppositions and Implications
- Ethnic Relations: Majorities and Immigrant Minorities (in (western) Europe)

3. ‘Superdiversity’ & the emergence of “majority-minority cities”

Questioning fixed groupism, fixed positions, etc.
Already in 1990:

See “Deleuze: The difference between minorities and majorities isn't their size. A
minority may be bigger than a majority. What defines the majority is a model you have
to conform to: the average European adult male city-dweller, for example ... A
minority, on the other hand, has no model, it's a becoming, a process. […] But [the
minority’s] power comes from what it's managed to create, which to some extent
goes into the model, but doesn't depend on it.” (Deleuze & Negri 1990)

The apparent need for an anthropological toolkit (vocabulary, metaphors) to deal

with rapid change, uncertain outcomes, but also finiteness.

intro 3
 ASC-01

3. Personal inspiration: own research: on crisis & emergent structures in Côte d’Ivoire
(civil war period); on spatial reconfigurations (at different scales: national, regional,
neighbourhoods, etc.), on invention of new groupings/masses/publics/subjectivities
(autochthony/superdiversity); performances that constitute new groupings and new
spatial repartitions.

“(a) Super-communities, for Baumann, are relatively large-scale recombinations

(‘coagulations’) of smaller-scale communities with which people identify in ways they
did not or did less before. Well-established super-communities are Asian-Americans or
‘Latino’ in the United States and the emergent category of ‘Balkanites’ […] in Western
Europe.

(b) […] ‘meta-communities’ [are] shaped through new cultural, religious or linguistic
forms. […] Baumann characterises the superdiversity of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten as
‘coagulating’, this time, ‘around a new, but integrated combination of DJs as the pivots
of civil society, pop music as integrating but culturally multi-inscribed putty, and
religious re-landscaping’.” (Arnaut 2016: 7)

intro 4
 ASC-01

4. Two sides of change:

A. Discourse of ‘change’ and ‘transition’ & ‘becoming’, and… future

Political
• Barack Obama 2008: “change has come to America.”
• François Hollande 2012: “le changement, c'est maintenant" - 1:00
• Bart De Wever : De Kracht van Verandering
• ‘Real Change’ & ‘A future to believe in’… Bernie Sanders
• Jeremy Corbyn: “Change is coming”
Societal
• ‘The art of becoming’ (Hanne Phlypo & Catherine Vuylsteke, 2013) - migration
• Everyday rebellion: The art of change’ (Arab Spring, Indignados, Occupy, etc.)
(Arash & Arman Riahi, 2013)
• ….

intro 5
 ASC-01

B. The back side of change: disaster, climate change, clash of civilisations, …

See: Fridays for Future - Greta Thunberg

Key questions:
How has anthropology been dealing with (the ambiguities of) social (cultural,
economic, political) change?
and, reflexively:
How has anthropology changed over time in interaction with a changing society?

Initial inspiration: emergence of a postcolonial anthropology in the wake of the 1960s crisis
of decolonisation. Dell Hymes (1972):
“…the post-colonial world heralds the end of diversity as we know it. Diversity, he
argues, should no longer be located in an ongoing trend of diversification – through
dispersion and fragmentation in an ever expanding world – but in processes of
‘reintegration within complex units’ (Hymes 1972: 32-33; emphasis in the original).”
“The finite world that is evoked here resembles the one Paul Valery (1931: 11) saw as
following on ‘the era of free expansion’ and which, for Wolf, radically rekeys our way of
dealing with human diversity.” (Arnaut 2016: 50)

intro 6
 ASC-01

Eric Wolf (1964):

“For the first time in human history, we have transcended the inherited divisions of the
human phenomenon into segments of time and segments of space’ (Wolf 1964: 95).

Hence:
“no one stationary perspective will any longer exhaust the possibilities of man” (idem).

Finally:
“We have left behind, once and for all, the paleotechnic age of the grounded observer
who can draw only one line of sight between the object and himself. We have entered
the physical and the intellectual space age, and we are now in a position to
circumnavigate man, to take our readings from any point in both space and time
(idem).”

intro 7
 ASC-01

Some implications:

• Decentering dominant segmentations and static ‘points of view’ requires anthropologists

to confront the ‘variability and complexity of human life’ (Wolf 1964: 96-97).

• Agility and suppleness enable anthropologists to take sides – and throw in their fate –
with their interlocutors, and lay the basis for a more democratic and emancipatory
science of life experiences based on mutuality and exchange.

• Susceptibility for the liberatory potential of anthropology and the human and social
sciences in general: ability to describe, value and voice the creativity and originality of
human poiesis.

intro 8
 ASC-01

Towards a new vocabulary, new metaphors for the anthropological study of social change

We will engage with these three notions:

• Publics & subjectivities vs groups and identities

• Diversity discourse and the crisis of established social categorisation/classification

(cfr. Superdiversity)
• Flexible, practice-based ‘social sorting’, profiling, populations, ‘peoples’
• History: statistics, survey, tribal units, class, caste, …
• Topical: ‘we the people’, the 99%, ‘the new majority’, commons, new forms of
commonality, togetherness, amassing, ….

intro 9
 ASC-01

• Margins vs spaces
• New topographies of glocality, transversal connections (inter-urban, urban-rural),
cybercommunities, etc.
• New repartitions: multiplication of borders as membranes, differential access,
spatial/scalar complexities, etc.
• History: modern-primitive, north-south, centre-periphery, …
• Topical: new public spaces, interruptions of margins in the centre (see Occupy Wall
Street, Femen, but also refugees ‘infrastructuring’ in European city centres)

• Performances vs practices
• Performance as reflexive practice: representation-in-action
• Form cum content: styles & styling, voice & voicing,
• Focus on making/producing: ‘poiesis’ and self-realisation, “Sympoiesis, not
autopoiesis” (Donna Haraway) – 11’ etc.
• History: culture, archive, habitus
• Topical: ‘revolutions’, mediated action

intro 10
 ASC-01

2. Learning goals

1. Familiarize ourselves with the ways in which anthropology since the 19th century has
dealt with social (cultural, economic, political) change: in reflections and research on
time, history, ‘pace’ (slowness & rapidity), development, ‘progress’, globalisation,
spread (of capitalism/modernity), future, hope, etc.

2. Engage with some ingredients of a possible new anthropological toolbox of describing,

analysing and interpreting change and temporality through the in-depth exploration of
the three basic metaphors through anthropological case-studies

intro 11
 ASC-01

3. Organisation of this course: structure, preparation

Structure : 5 sections – 11 sessions

Preparation: Reading assignment & discussion notes (DNs)

- Students are asked to read the two ‘basic texts’ of the reading assignment in preparation
of each of the five sections;
The ‘suggested reading’ listed in the syllabus is optional but will be referred to (more or
less extensively) during classes.
- Students are asked to produce a discussion note for each of the basic texts, so two DNs
for each section. There is one exception: for the first section students read both texts but
produce only one DN (no free choice!).
- Students submit their DNs via Turnitin. The five deadlines can be found on Toledo and in
the syllabus.
- A discussion note is a short original text – between 320 and 400 words – comprising of
(a) a résumé of the central argument, the focus and findings of the text, and
(b) a critical intervention (comments, questions or a counter-argument) by the student;
- Make sure you have your discussion note with you (in hard or digital copy) during class. It
may serve as an aide-mémoire when invited to participate in the (break-out) discussions
of the texts of the reading assignment.
intro 12
 ASC-01

- PDFs of the ‘basic texts’ are available on Toledo (under Course Readings);
- PDFs of all the slides are equally available on Toledo;
- Feedback: One week after submitting the first discussion note, you will receive
individual, written feedback. Students are asked to take into account the remarks when
writing the second pair of discussion notes. Students can ask for additional feedback on
the second pair of discussion notes. Therefore they write an email to the teaching
assistant Annelies (annelies.kuijpers@kuleuven.be)
- During break-out group discussions a specific issue from the basic text will be dealt with,
introduced by a break-away group assignment.

intro 13
 ASC-01

Template/formatting Discussion Note

Font size: 11
Margins: A/B : 2cm; L: 3 cm; R: 2 cm
Paragraph space: 6 pt
Line space : at least 16 pt

intro 14
 ASC-01

The sessions

General structure:
Each section: mixture of close reading of the basic texts, broadening the
investigation with additional conceptual material, case-studies and also audio-
visual presentations (recorded lectures, films, etc.).

Main ingredients for each session:

 Standard lecturing
 Break out group discussions: guided by questions
 Plenary discussions
 break (remind me!)

intro 15
 ASC-01

4. Overview sections/sessions

Section A. Setting the scene: introduction to the course and its urgency in times
of climate change

Dates: 13/2, 20/2 & 27/2

Deadline discussion note: 20/2 at 12h00 (noon), feedback: 27/2

Reading assignment: only 1 DN! (last names A-M: Latour;N-Z: Eriksen)

• Latour, Bruno. 2017. "Anthropology at the time of the anthropocene: a personal
view of what is to be studied." Pp. 35-49 in The anthropology of sustainability:
beyond development and progress, edited by Marc Brightman and Jerome
Lewis. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Eriksen, Thomas Hylland. 2016. "Overheating: the world since 1991." History
and Anthropology 27(5):469-87.
Subthemes: engaging with ‘publics’, ‘performances’ and ‘margins’ in the context of
post-2008 global ‘rebellions’; how anthropologists handle ‘accelerated change’ and
‘the Anthropocene’; how anthropology is changing.
intro 16
 ASC-01

Further reading
• Bateson, Gregory. 1987 (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind: Collected essays in
anthropology, psychiatry, evolution, and epistemology. Northvale NJ: Jason
Aronson.
• Crate, Susan Alexandra. 2011. "Climate and culture: Anthropology in the era of
contemporary climate change." Annual Review of Anthropology 40:175-94.
• Hann, Chris. 2016. "Overheated underdogs: civilizational analysis and migration
on the Danube-Tisza interfluve." History and Anthropology 27 (5):602-616.
• Haraway, Donna, Noboru Ishikawa, Scott F. Gilbert, Kenneth Olwig, Anna L.
Tsing, and Nils Bubandt. 2016. "Anthropologists are talking – about the
anthropocene." Ethnos 81(3):535-64.
• Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 2016. Geontologies: a requiem to late liberalism: Durham:
Duke University Press.
• Steffen, Will, Paul J. Crutzen, and John R. McNeill. 2007. "The anthropocene:
Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature?" Ambio 36(8):614-
21.
intro 17
 ASC-01

Audiovisual
• Riahi, Arash, and Arman Riahi. 2013. "Everyday rebellion: The art of change."
Berlin: Rise & Shine.
• Thomas Hylland Eriksen. 2017 “We Are Overheating” TEDxTrondheim.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivjXlRu_3aQ
• “The Anthropocene: The age of mankind” (VPRO documentary - 2017).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AW138ZTKioM
• ‘The Anthropologist’ (Seth Kramer & Daniel Miller 2015) on Margaret Mead,
anthropology and climate change.

intro 18
 ASC-01

Section B. Changing anthropology: from evolutionism to ‘decomposing

modernity’

Dates: 5/3 & 12/3

Deadline discussion notes: 5/3 at 12h00 (noon)

Basic texts
• Lincoln, Bruce. 1987. "Ritual, rebellion, resistance: once more the Swazi
Ncwala." Man (N.S.) 22(1): 132-56.
• Ferguson, James. 2005. "Decomposing modernity: history and hierarchy after
development." Pp. 166-81 in Postcolonial studies and beyond, edited by A
Loomba, et al. Durham: Duke University Press.

Subthemes: evolutionism, functionalism, ‘dynamical’ anthropology, rise of

ethnography, anthropology & decolonisation, anthropology of the globalization.

Central question: How has modern anthropology changed vis-à-vis its approach to
change?
intro 19
 ASC-01

Further reading
• Bloch, Maurice. 1983. "Marxism and British and French anthropology." Pp. 141-
72 in Marxism and anthropology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Escobar, Arturo 1988 Power and visibility: development and the invention and
management of the Third World, Cultural Anthropology, 3, 4, pp. 428-443.
• Conklin, Alice L. 2002. "The new ethnology and "La situation coloniale" in
interwar France." French Politics, Culture & Society 20(2):29-46.
• Gluckman, Max. 1947. "Malinowski's 'functional' analysis of social change."
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 17(2):103-21.
• Stocking, George. 1968. "The dark-skinned savage: The image of primitive man
in evolutionary anthropology." Pp. 110-32 in Race, culture and evolution: Essays
in the history of anthropology, edited by George Stocking. New York: Free Press.

intro 20
 ASC-01

Section C. Margins – spaces of change

Dates: 19/3 & 26/3

Basic texts – DN deadline: 19/3 at 12h00 (noon)

• Holston, James. 2009. Dangerous spaces of citizenship: Gang talk, rights talk
and rule of law in Brazil. Planning Theory 8(1):12-31.
• Vigh, Henrik. 2008. "Crisis and chronicity: Anthropological perspectives on
continuous conflict and decline." Ethnos 73(1):5-24.

Subthemes: crisis as temporary or enduring predicament, space-times and

practices of retrogression (shrinking, marginalisation) and future-making (hope,
aspiration, endurance), marginal spaces as spaces of citizenship.

Central question: How relevant are peripheral changes and marginal imaginaries
for the centre and what does that mean for centre-periphery relationships?

intro 21
 ASC-01

Further reading
• Boccagni, Paolo. 2017. "Aspirations and the subjective future of migration:
Comparing views and desires of the “time ahead” through the narratives of
immigrant domestic workers." Comparative Migration Studies 5(4):1-18.
• Das, Veena , and Deborah Poole. 2004. "State and its margins: comparative
ethnographies." Pp. 3-33 in Anthropology in the margins of the state, edited by
Veena Das and Deborah Poole. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.
• Hann, Chris. 2016. "Overheated underdogs: civilizational analysis and migration
on the Danube-Tisza interfluve." History and Anthropology 27(5):602-16.
• Jansen, Stef. 2014. "Hope for/against the state: Gridding in a besieged Sarajevo
suburb." Ethnos 79(2):238-60.
• Kleist, Nauja, and Stef Jansen. 2016. "Introduction: Hope over Time—Crisis,
Immobility and Future-Making." History and Anthropology 27(4):373-92.
• Narotzky, Susana, and Niko Besnier. 2014. "Crisis, value, and hope: Rethinking
the economy." Current Anthropology 55(S9):S4-S16.
• Ringel, Felix. 2014. "Post-industrial times and the unexpected: endurance and
sustainability in Germany's fastest-shrinking city." Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 20:52-70.
intro 22
 ASC-01

D. Performance ‒ practices of change

Dates: 23/4 & 30/4

Deadline discussion notes: 23/4 at 12h00 (noon)

Basic texts
• Razsa, Maple, and Andrej Kurnik. 2012. The Occupy movement in Žižek's
hometown: Direct democracy and a politics of becoming. American Ethnologist
39(2):238-58.
• Parkin, David. 1992. "Ritual as spatial direction and bodily division." Pp. 11-25 in
Understanding rituals, edited by Daniel de Coppet. London: Routledge.

Subthemes: public rituals as spaces of reproduction and transformation,

ritualization and performance, new rituals of convergence and affirmation,
incorporating diversity and inequality in performances

Central question: what is the potential of performances in shaping new

constituencies of public resistance and prefigurative politics?
intro 23
 ASC-01

Further reading
• Baumann, Gerd 1992. "Ritual implicates 'Others': rereading Durkheim in a plural
society." Pp. 97-116 in Understanding rituals, edited by Daniel de Coppet.
London: Routledge.
• Chau, Adam Yuet. 2013. "Actants amassing (AA): Beyond collective
effervescence and the social." Pp. 206-30 in Durkheim in Dialogue: A Centenary
Celebration of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, edited by Sondra L.
Hausner. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
• Kapferer, Bruce. 2005. "Situations, crisis, and the anthropology of the concrete:
The contribution of Max Gluckman." Social Analysis: The International Journal
of Social and Cultural Practice 49(3):85-122.
• Salih, Ruba. 2016. "Bodies that walk, bodies that talk, bodies that love:
Palestinian women refugees, affectivity, and the politics of the ordinary."
Antipode:1-19.
• Werbner, Pnina , Martin Webb, and Kathryn Spellman-Poots. 2014.
"Introduction." Pp. 1-27 in The political aesthetics of global protest: The Arab
Spring and beyond, edited by Pnina Werbner, Martin Webb, and Kathryn
Spellman-Poots. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
intro 24
 ASC-01

E. Publics ‒ emerging subjectivities

Dates: 7/5 & 14/5

Deadline discussion notes: 7/5 at 12h00 (noon)

Basic texts
• Arnaut, Karel. 2012. "Making space for performativity: publics, powers, and
places in a multi-register town festival (Bondoukou, Côte d’Ivoire)." Pp. 81-102
in Devising order: socio-religious models, rituals, and the performativity of
practice, edited by Bruno Boute and Thomas Småberg. Leiden: Brill.
• Nicholls, Walter J., and Justus Uitermark. 2016. "Migrant cities: place, power,
and voice in the era of super diversity." Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
42(6):877-92.
Subthemes: emergent publics and subjectivities in marginal space-times, solidarity
and affirmation in precarity, commons and commoning, voice and visibility, the
politics of visibility and invisibility, disruption and subjectification, the emergence
of ‘non-publics’.
Central question: Can the subaltern be public and as such provoke change?
intro 25
 ASC-01

Further reading
• Dijstelbloem, Huub, and Dennis Broeders. 2015. "Border surveillance, mobility
management and the shaping of non-publics in Europe." European journal of
social theory 18(1):21-38.
• Fraser, Nancy. 1990. "Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the
critique of actually existing democracy." Social Text (25/26):56-80.
• Ifekwunigwe, J. O. 2016. "When commoning strategies travel: (In)visible cities,
clandestine migrations and mobile commons." Eurozine.
• Keith, Michael. 2013. "Emergent publics, critical ethnographic scholarship and
race and ethnic relations." Ethnic and Racial Studies 36(9):1374-92.
• Trimikliniotis, Nicos, Dimitris Parsanoglou, and Vassilis S. Tsianos. 2016. "Mobile
commons and/in precarious spaces: Mapping migrant struggles and social
resistance." Critical Sociology 42(7-8):1035-49.
• Papadopoulos, Dimitris, and Vassilis S. Tsianos. 2013. "After citizenship:
autonomy of migration, organisational ontology and mobile commons."
Citizenship Studies 17(2):178-96.
• Rancière, Jacques. 1992. "Politics, identification, and subjectivization." October
61:58-64.
  intro 26
 ASC-01

5. Evaluation

Permanent evaluation:
- Discussion notes.
- Willingness and ability to engage in group or plenary discussions.

Oral exam:
• Course material (slides & basic texts) will be made available.
• Students can (only) bring dictionaries.
• Time available: 15 min. written preparation + 15 min. Q & A (same room!)
• Content: will be announced in due course

intro 27
 ASC-01

Repartition of credits:
- Permanent evaluation (discussion notes): 40%
- Oral exam: 60 %

If the student does not participate in one (or more) of the assessments, this
assessment will be will be considered as non-delivered. The student will
receive a weighted 0 score for this (sub)task within the final result.

2nd exam
Oral exam + if discussion notes are not submitted, students are asked to
submit a longer reflection paper (min. 2000 and max. 3000 words) on the
material presented in this course.

intro 28
 ASC-01

6. Having a first go at ‘publics’, ‘performances’ and ‘margins’

Screening: “Everyday rebellion: the art of change” (Arash & Arman Riahi, Iran,
2013)

Synopsis: Everyday Rebellion is a cross-media documentary about creative forms of

nonviolent protest and civil disobedience worldwide.
Cases: Occupy movement in New York, Spanish Indignados, Arab Spring, struggle of
the Iranian democracy movement, nonviolent uprising in Syria, the Ukrainian
activists of Femen, etc.
Message: Everyday Rebellion is a tribute to the creativity of the nonviolent
resistance. The project studies the consequences of a modern and rapidly
changing society where new forms of protest to challenge the power of
dictatorships and sometimes also global corporations are invented everyday.
Everyday Rebellion wants to give voice to all those who decide not to use violence
to try changing a violent system. Because, as Ghandi said: “First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
- See http://www.everydayrebellion.net/wall/  
intro 29
 ASC-01

Break-out group assignment:

Observe how organisations/movements/initiatives/events… produce/create:
• Publics: new groupings, masses, peoples, constituencies, majorities,
convergences…
• Margins: topographies, disruptions, demonstrations, space-making/claiming,
visibility/invisibility…
• Performances: expressive forms & styles, spectacles, festive/carnivalesque
gatherings, identification/affirmation, rehearsing and
ritualization/formalisation…

Plenary discussion

intro 30
 ASC-01

See you next week

intro 31