A Critical Anthropology of Anarchy

22-23 September 2010
Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge

This workshop, organised by Holly High, investigates the intersections between anthropology and anarchy. The burgeoning uptake of anarchist perspectives in the political realm and the academy (Scott 2009, Graeber 2004, Morris 2005) prompts a critical reflection. What ideas of human nature, society, power or community are at play here? Anthropological research and comparison promises to be powerful in destabilizing any seductive mirages here of ideal societies located somewhere in anthropology’s Other. Anarchist theory, too, provides a potentially useful critique of established and emerging trends in the anthropology of the state and political action. The challenges of thinking through anarchy and anarchist theory in critical and anthropological terms suggest potentials for anthropologist’s efforts at cross-cultural analysis, grappling with contemporary political and economic conundrums, and articulating the uses and ends of anthropology. Anarchy will be considered in terms of its usefulness as an analytical concept, as a normative arrangement, and an ideology.

Sponsored by Critique of Anthropology and the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge