Panel no. 109 - ROUNDTABLE: Empowering Anthropology in the Face of Crises
Title Prof First name Junji Last name Koizumi
Institution Osaka University and the National Institutes for the Humanities (NIHU) City Osaka/Tokyo Country JP
Title Prof First name Carmen Last name Rial
Institution name Federal University of Santa Catarina City Florianópolis Country BR
ROUNDTABLE: Empowering Anthropology in the Face of Crises
The news that anthropology is facing crisis is on the rise. A similar process seems to be underway also in some disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. Changes in classification of science, weakened position in the academic system and student enrollment, dominance by neoliberalism and instrumentalism, decreasing institutional and financial support, difficulties in field research and cases of arrests of researchers, targeted attacks on certain research areas, loss of unretrievable materials due to fire and other destruction, to name a few. On the other hand, there are cases in which anthropology goes strong and expectations are high that anthropology among human and social sciences can make valuable contributions in the contemporary globalized and globalizing world. This panel sponsored by WAU, the World Anthropological Union, asks: What exactly is the nature of these crises and what are the real threats we are facing; If we can theorize the general contexts in which they arise, or we should understand each and specific situation in order to cope with them better; What WAU can do as a newly established global organization based on the integration of IUAES and WCAA, and what are the new resources we obtained through this integration; How, after all, we can effectively empower anthropology in general and anthropologies in specific as WAU, IUAES and WCAA, and what are anthropology's unique strengths in contributing to a global public good. These are among the central questions this panel will address.
World Anthropological Union
Please note that this is a roundtable and abstract submission is not possible to this panel.