Author: Schaumberg, Heike

Source: Anthropology in Action, Volume 16, Number 2, Summer 2009 , pp. 51-62(12)

Publisher: Berghahn Journals

Abstract:

The recent wave of important anthropological critiques of the global 'war on terror' is in danger of being undermined by a disciplinary vision that disregards challenging an institutional culture of fear and compliance with injustices and inequality, which is more likely to nurture discrimination and professional malpractices than commi ed scholarship. I am drawing an analogy with Zola's 'J'accuse…!' about how institutional rules of accountability in the tick-box form of neoliberal auditing can serve the purpose of oppressing the rights they are nominally intended to protect. The article argues that debates about disciplinary crisis should be reframed as one about a crisis in the reproduction of scholarship. The discipline needs to employ the anthropological tools of enquiry consistently in its practices and theory, 'at home' and in the wider world. Fundamental questions regarding discriminatory practices and professional ethics in the everyday academic workplace need to be addressed not silenced in order to nurture not only critical but also credible anthropological challenges to important contemporary historical processes.

Keywords: DISCRIMINATION; ETHICS; INSTITUTIONAL CULTURE; NEOLIBERALISM; PUBLIC ANTHROPOLOGY; SCHOLARSHIP; 'WAR ON TERROR'

Document Type: Commentary

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/aia.2009.160205

Publication date: 2009-06-01

More about this publication?

• Anthropology in Action is a peer-reviewed journal publishing key articles, commentaries, research reports, and book reviews that deal with the use of anthropology in all areas of policy and practice. Recent themes have included identity and movement, anthropology in Denmark, the effects of ethics, and anthropology and activism. Subjects covered by the journal include organizations, HIV/AIDS research, new reproductive technologies, the rights of indigenous peoples, community care and social policy, health, medicine and suffering, education and government policy, museums, place and space, management, ethnicity and violence, and overseas development.
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