artigos e ensaios - 1999 / Mariza Peirano

In pursuit of anthropology

"Despite their pretense, the declaredly egalitarian, yet to be routinized, cross-cultural dialogues are never in fact between equals, for the absence of a fully governing convention, of a mutually acceptable third, fosters hierarchy, a (silent) assertion of authority over un 'understanding' of, the position of the interlocutor. (Or its opposite). There is little to mediate to attenuate the challenge each participant, coming, as it were, from somewhere else, poses to the other."

(Vincent Crapanzano 1991).

"An alliance of multiple interests and perspectives is often a stronger political and social force than attempts to enforce a unitary movement".

(Michael M.J. Fischer 1994).

Classics, theoretical history and anthropology in context

The transnational communities of the social sciences should have a common ideology that fosters ideals of universality and cements social relations between scientists of various origins. It is within this social context that the classics are situated. The systematic reading of texts considered classics initiates students in a tradition that, in the case of anthropology, consists of the ethnographic corpus of certain key authors who brought the 'different other' to the awareness of the West. This different 'other' served not only as an existential mirror, but also prompted the refining of a theoretical corpus with universalist pretensions. The classics of a discipline are thus sociologically and theoretically indispensable creations through which its practitioners identify and reproduce themselves in diverse academic contexts. They make it possible to have a community of social scientists the existence of which gives the subject its relevance and continuity.Leia na íntegra...