A Possible Anthropology by Anand Pandian

It takes us to a beach in Point Reyes National Park north of San Francisco (that I was lucky enough to visit recently), where artists Richard & Judith Lang have been excavating for plastic for years, to construct 'archaeological' exhibits from the year 2885 AD.Ĭoda: The coda speculates whether it’s possible to conduct critique as something that’s affirmative, as opposed to denunciatory. Pandian wants to show us how Myers' seemingly peculiar, multisensory methods embody exactly the sort of methodology that's needed to truly grasp the world that surrounds us.Ĭhapter 3: For the Humanity Yet to Come (“Practice”): This chapter tries to illustrate how anthropology can be of help to the present moment by influencing political critique, art, communication and so on. Pandian takes us to Toronto's High Park, where anthropologist Natasha Myers has been conducting ethnographic fieldwork amongst oaks, goldenrods and Queen Anne's Laces.

It draws an unlikely parallel between the work of Zora Neale Hurston on the hand, and Bronislaw Mallinowski on the other, showing how both struggled - privately and publicly - with reconciling their own dogmatic notions of reality with what they experienced in the field.Ĭhapter 2: A Method of Experience (“Method”): This chapter tries to position anthropology and the anthropological method as fundamentally improvisational and concerned with the unknown.

Pandian says he’s tried to make it as accessible, readable and actionable as possible, so that it hopefully reaches people beyond the academy.Ĭhapter 1: The World at Hand (what I labelled “Reality” during the reading): This chapter invites us to see empirical reality through the lens of magic, myth and metaphor. The book is short, about 120 pages in length, and has three chapters. This book, he says, tries to grapple with the paradox that anthropologists see the discipline as both essential in today’s time of crises, but at the same time steeped - some may say irreversibly - in the same logics of oppression that plague the larger world to start with. A few hurried notes, based on listening to a recent reading by Pandian of this timely book.

A Possible Anthropology by Anand Pandian