Hey Matt.. where are you studying? I've also got a few weeks left of my anth degree. Unlike you tho I'm no way in love with my degree. It sucks. Haven't found anything which comes to mind worth reading tho.
Thats a helpful post for you 
!
Anarchism and Anthropology
i think graeber himself admits that there's been a fair bit of anthropology that leans in an antiauthoritarian direction, but none that actually spells it out. that is, until he came along 
alas, i can't think of anything that would be particularly helpful. i suppose Jeff Ferrell's work is quite anthropological, however he is rather partial to skipping as a tool of revolution rather than just a nice free meal...
I think Graeber's Fragments is a much weaker text than his Towards and Anthropological Theory of Value.
Another anarchist anthropologist who springs to mind is Harold Barclay : professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Alberta and author of The State, Buurri al Lamaab: A Suburban Village in the Sudan, Culture: The Human Way, The Role of the Horse in Man's Culture, People without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy, Culture and Anarchism and Longing for Arcadia: Memoirs of an Anarcho-Cynicalist Anthropologist.
I've found both Graeber and Barclay responsive to email.
Currently, I'm reading Pieree Claustres Society Against the State; which is regarded as something of a foundational text in political anthropology; or so the back of the book jacket tells me.
Matt_efc wrote:
I'm at Manchester. Our departments not too bad, what is it that you dont like?
hey man, i believe there are some other anarchists studyting athropology in manchester uni?
I work at the uni, and there is a great new students anarchist group Student Direct Action packed with libertarian communists/anarcho-syndicalists - you part of that?
Quote:
Another anarchist anthropologist who springs to mind is Harold Barclay : professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of Alberta
I'm looking out my bedroom window at the University of Alberta wondering why this guy sounds vaguely familliar and yet I've never spoken to him in person. Perhaps I should drop the fellow a line, emeritus eh? An older chap?
harold barclay has also written a autobiography:
"Longing for Arcadia: memoirs of an anarcho-cynicalist anthropologist" Trafford. 2005. interesting / amusing etc.
also worth checking out:
Pierre Clastres "Archaeology of Violence" Semiotext(e) 1994
Brian Morris has written a short pamphlet "Anthropology and anarchism: their elective affinity" published by Goldsmiths College, London 2005
which mentions something I've never seen:
Reclus, E. "Primitive Folk: studies in comparative Ethnology" published by Scott, London 1903.
(probably not on current reading lists I suspect.)
other titles by brian morris include:
Religion and Anthropology: A Critical Introduction by Brian Morris (Paperback - 7 Nov 2005)
Kropotkin: The Politics of Community by Brian Morris (Hardcover - 20 Dec 2003)
Anthropology of the Self: The Individual in Cultural Perspective (Anthropology, Culture & Society)
Anthropology of the Self: The Individual in Cultural Perspective (Anthropology, Culture & Society) by Brian Morris (Unknown Binding - 24 Sep 1994)
and others listed here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Morris_%28anthropologist%29
(strange the wikipedia omits the books on kropotkin and bakunin he has written)
EdmontonWobbly wrote:
Quote:
Another anarchist anthropologist who springs to mind is Harold Barclay : professor emeritus in anthropology at the University of AlbertaI'm looking out my bedroom window at the University of Alberta wondering why this guy sounds vaguely familliar and yet I've never spoken to him in person. Perhaps I should drop the fellow a line, emeritus eh? An older chap?
So I gather. Anyway, he's pretty responsive to email. He made some interesting comments on my Iroquois article.
No it's not. Brian used to be connected to Goldsmiths Uni not dead sure about now but i think he still is. He's very easy to talk to and very well informed, well worth tracking down. I have a mate who knows him quite well, so i can probaly get a contact address if you need it, just pm me.
Yeah man, I study anthropology and am completely in love with it. The plan right now is graduate school (I'm actually looking at Manchester as an option). I'm interested in both paleoanthropology and political anthropology, but knowing that I must choose I would have to say political anthro.
People seem to not like Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology mostly, as far as I'm concerned, because they have no interest in anthro. I've read it a few times and it has led me to contact Graeber on occasion for a chat. He's a very responsive guy, despite what he's going through right now.
I can't help you out much with references to anthro books written by self-professed anarchists, but here are a few books I enjoy:
Power and its Disguises by John Gledhill
Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution by Ronald Cohen and Elman R. Service
A bit more specific:
How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory by Timothy Earle
I have quite a few more suggestions if you've already read these. Also, if you're interested in political anthropology at all I can suggest more specific (country/people) based studies that are interesting.
I have had the luck of being taught by John Gledhill on a module about Mexico and Guatemala. Im off to Mexico in June so hopefully i can have a chat with him about that as well.
I'd be interested in the studies, i've managed to pick up a few from Fragments. Im not 100% sure about throwing myself fully into the world of political anthropology just yet. Its probably my main area of interest, but it just seems a little dry.. if that makes no sense sorry. My main interest is in Power i guess, but more specifically how it is possible to permeate power through culture, so that acts of violence can start to become symbolic. I havn't really found anything completely to my liking yet, although i found myself nodding quite a lot whilst reading "Fragments"
makaira wrote:
People seem to not like Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology mostly, as far as I'm concerned, because they have no interest in anthro. I've read it a few times and it has led me to contact Graeber on occasion for a chat. He's a very responsive guy, despite what he's going through right now.
Actually, I don't like fragments because I think when Graeber examines some contemporary activists movements, he seems to be very short in his analysis. The book is short, but for someone whose been involved in those groups, I felt like he was really leaving a lot out. Anyway, that was just my impression from reading it once. I should probably give it another chance.
His Towards and Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of our Own Dreams should only appeal to anthropologists, and I like that text a lot. I think it's a lot more solid.
MalFunction wrote:
Brian Morris has written a short pamphlet "Anthropology and anarchism: their elective affinity" published by Goldsmiths College, London 2005
Apparently Morris helped form Brighton Anarchist Group in the 60s. He still occasionally lectures at Goldsmiths, and his books on Kropotkin and Bakunin are on the reading lists for the Anthropology degree.
Alan wrote:
MalFunction wrote:
Brian Morris has written a short pamphlet "Anthropology and anarchism: their elective affinity" published by Goldsmiths College, London 2005Apparently Morris helped form Brighton Anarchist Group in the 60s. He still occasionally lectures at Goldsmiths, and his books on Kropotkin and Bakunin are on the reading lists for the Anthropology degree.
He has written for Organise! on Kropotkin and wrote the following for our 20th anniversary edition:
ORGANISE! for revolutionary anarchism - Magazine of the Anarchist Federation - Autumn/Winter 2006 - Issue 67
THE POLITICS OF THE ANARCHIST FEDERATION - A TRIBUTE, By Brian Morris
http://flag.blackened.net/af/org/issue67/AF_tribute_brian_morris.html
We also have anthropology expertise in the AF...
See also: http://flag.blackened.net/af/ace/aspects.html#Part13
on 'human nature' which has some useful references.
PS Sorry about slowness of website - flag is a bit slow - we're moving to new server v. soon.
Brian Morris taught me at Goldsmiths. He's mostly sound and very well informed, until he slips into the "Buddhism and Toaism is just like anarchism" spiritual stuff which can be a bit hard to swallow, not sure how much that comes over in his writing though. Very nice chap indeed.
He lectures only part-time at Goldsmiths now.
when i were studying anth i met someone doing the 'anthropology of development' masters at brighton, who gave me a list of interesting sounding writers. ive lost it somewhere in the course of movings, but if you could get their course reading lists or contact some of the staff at sussex uni who teach that course, they might be able to point you in the direction of more radical anthropological writings.
may be of interest:
Quote:
Anthropology and John Zerzan: A Brief Critique
http://www.insurgentdesire.org.uk/anthropologyandzerzan.htm
you will, of course , bve aware of the journal "critiaue of anthropology" but that isn't a specifically anarchist journal.
abstract of journal article of relevance?
Quote:
OF SAVAGERY AND CIVIL SOCIETY: PIERRE CLASTRES AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF FRENCH POLITICAL THOUGHT 1
SAMUEL MOYN a1a1 Department of History, Columbia University
Abstract
This essay examines the thought of the French anthropologist Pierre Clastres (1938–1977). It situates his once-famous depiction of savage politics as a premonitory rejection of the state at the crossroads of several traditions, long- and short-term. First, Clastres's thought resonates with the primitivistic appeal by French “moralists” since the early modern period to the lifestyle of prehistoric societies; second, it casts light on the history of French anthropology in the crisis years of structuralism; and third, it reflects the revival of Friedrich Nietzsche in French thought of the era. Above all, however, the essay explains Clastres's thought as an attempt to resist and to overcome the well-known communist allegiances of postwar French intellectuals. Early in rejecting communism, Clastres owed his prominence to the 1970s popularization of the critique of “totalitarianism.” The so-called “passing of an illusion” of communism, one version of which Clastres pioneered, is often interpreted as the replacement of confusion with truth. It is more interesting, the essay suggests, to situate it in its time, as a complex achievement as defective as it was creative, if Clastres's thought is taken as an example. In closing, the essay suggests some legacies, often unintentional, Clastres left behind in French political thought of the years since his death.
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=213233
also Clastres text:
French Marxists and their Anthropology (Les marxistes et leur anthropologie), 1978 was issues in pamphlet form (I'll OCR if I can find it)
Solidarity with Graeber
If anyone here appreciates Graeber's work, as I do, then please note the website created in support of Graeber. His political stance and his defence of university union organisers was being used as a reason for Yale not to rehire him. His contract was due to run out in June 2007, and after initially attempting to oppose their decision and find out their reasoning, he has since decided not to appeal.
Of course, I would like him to come here, to Britain, where there is tolerance for Anarchist Philosophy in Academia. The treatment of Graeber, an 'out' Anarchist, well respected for both his anthropological and anarchist theories, by US academia is a resurgent trend of academic-witchunting, originating from the ultra-right, 'emboldened' via Campus Watch, and directly linked, via the Pipes family, to old sovietologist 1950s communist(red)/pink/trades union/jew/anti-war/dissident/activist witchunts as pioneered by McCarthy.
http://www.geocities.com/graebersolidarity/
Update - Graeber made a deal with Yale - he gets a year's full pay by way of severance and won't return...I wonder where he will show up...
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Graeber drops appeal, leaves Yale this spring (2006)Anarchist anthropologist David Graeber agreed to leave Yale University this spring, dropping an appeal over whether his termination was politically motivated, according to ap. David Graeber said he will teach two classes next semester, then take a yearlong paid sabbatical, after which he will not return:
"Normally, you get a sabbatical on the condition that you come back and teach the following year. I'm getting the sabbatical on the condition that I don't come back and teach."
His final two classes will be an introduction to anthropology and a course titled "Direct Action and Radical Social Theory."
http://antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/index.php?p=1531&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
but anyway - I'm positive a continued show of solidarity will be welcomed, even though the original cause is no more, Graeber is not the only Academic to have been subjected to neo-mccarthyism.
More here on Graeber: http://henwood.blogspace.com/?p=968
I think he is now writing a book on Direct Action.
There are also a couple of little-known anarchist anthros down under, namely Ken Maddock (a NZer) and Les Hiatt (an Ozzie).
Maddock wrote a lot in Colin Ward's Anarchy, including “Action Anthropology or Applied Anarchism?”, Anarchy, 8 (Oct. 1961), pp. 232-36, “The Bounds of Possibility”, Anarchy, 16 (June 1962), pp. 171-78 and “Primitive Society and Social Myths”, in A Decade of Anarchy 1961-70, Selections from the Monthly Journal “Anarchy”, ed. Colin Ward, London: Freedom Press, 1987, pp. 59-71 (The article originally appeared in Anarchy, 23 (1963)).
He also wrote a well known textbook on the Aborigines called The Australian Aborigines: A Portrait of Their Society, 2nd edn., Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1982.
Les Hiatt wrote "Arguments about Aborigines: Australia and the Evolution of Social Anthropology", Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 94. His Chapter 5, “People without Politics”, is a useful overview and discussion of the anarchistic interpretation of the Aborigines.
Hiatt and Maddock were both Sydney Libertarians, who called themselves "anarcho-cynicalists". That's where Barclay got the term (anarcho-cynicalist) from. I think Barclay was influenced quite a lot by the pessimistic Sydney Libertarians. I think also there were a number of other anthropologists who were Sydney Libertarians.
re the Maddock articles
I can OCR then if anyone is interested.
The clastres polemic on French marxists and their Anthropolgy (with some caustic replies from Godelier and Meillassoux) can now be found here:
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/blackchip/french_marxists.htm
(feel free to add to the library!)
Its been a few years since I've posted on any kind of political message board, in my youth i was a well meaning usually well thought out lefty with anarchist leanings, turning into a fully fledged anarcho-communist. I ended up getting disillusioned with things i guess, and while never bowing out of discussion, i dropped out of any kind of recognised action. Fast forward now and I'm sitting in my final year of an Anthropology degree wondering what I'm going to do with my life when my cushy life runs out.
Unlike lots of people i know i am still in love with my degree, and am considering carrying on into postgrad stuff, but what i have noticed is that i have very rarley been taught anything from an perspective that best compliments my beliefs. Im aware of David Graeber and have just started to read "Fragments of An Anarchist Anthropology". Is there anyone else out there that studys anthropology? Anyone worth reading? I'm being tempted towards cultural theory and semiotics aswell at the moment so anything around there would be nice