Post by @strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz

Strap in for another mega-thread of quotes and reflections folks. I just started reading The Dawn of Everything, by the late David Graeber, and David Wengrow.

My first reflection is that whether or not institutions support them, we need more anthropologists like Graeber. Researchers willing to question entrenched narratives and go where the evidence takes them. If you're that way inclined, I recommend Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology;

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-fragments-of-an-anarchist-anthropology

#anthropology

The Anarchist Library

Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology

David Graeber Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology 2004

#anthropology

58 Replies

5 Boosts

Ooze 𓁟

@Ooze@wirejunkie.net 2 mo. ago

@strypey I love this book. I have read it five times! It is everything I wish the academy was but isn't.

@cy@fedicy.us.to 2 mo. ago

Seriously though, Graeber's greatest strength is he spent his life going out to these cultures and working with them, which satisfies the "whiteboy saves the savages" trope but he really spoke from experience, if you want to listen to a whiteboy in particular.

The fact that he questioned entrenched narratives...... less of a strength. Yeah it's great but oh my god he cannot write a single paragraph without ranting about those Fools back at the Institution.

In that sense, the collaboration really helped. Debt is a lot more adversarial than The Dawn of Everything.

I did hear a nasty rumor that Graeber and Wengrow besmirched the reputation of earlier anthropologists who they actually agreed with, just to take credit. I never managed to look up the earlier anthropologist though what's his name... Boehm so can't confirm.

https://masto.ai/users/GhostOnTheHalfShell/statuses/116443910422177108

Rather than being caught up, complaining about the ideological propaganda of hierarchy, the framework has an explanation of why it structured that way.

🙄 I'm sure Boehm wasn't ideological at all, in the slightest, nope, nosirree. He's just saying.

The page you are looking for isn't here.

Mastodon

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz 2 mo. ago

@cy
> The fact that he questioned entrenched narratives...... less of a strength ... he cannot write a single paragraph without ranting about those Fools back at the Institution

To be clear, when I say;

> willing to question entrenched narratives

I mean exactly that; questioning *narratives*. You seem to have interpreted it to mean 'sniping at colleagues', which is not unusual among academics, but I see less than the average in Graeber's writing. He focuses on structures, not individuals.

@cy@fedicy.us.to 2 mo. ago

Yeah, you know, I might be full of shit. I was flipping through Debt just now and couldn't find any of the mentions of other unspecified anthropologists I remembered.

Still not sure why my mother couldn't stand to read it though. She loves anthropology. I guess the notion that one should not repay one's debts was too much to put up with.

@cy@fedicy.us.to 2 mo. ago

There was never one moment in the movie where the natives gathered around in awe as James Cameron showed them the magic of photography, or eyeglasses, or apple pie.

1 more reply

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz 2 mo. ago

(1/2)

Oh, and as for;

@cy
> the "whiteboy saves the savages" trope

This kind of talk has become a lazy way to dismiss non-indigenous people when we take indigenous perspectives seriously, and try to convince others to do the same. It simply has nothing to do with Graeber, not in anything he believed, did, nor wrote;

https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@strypey/116780239236755426

Strypey

@strypey@mastodon.nzoss.nz 2 mo. ago

(2/2)

Even the way James Cameron got slammed for Avatar by non-indigenous critics was an example of this.

When I first saw the movie, I thought it painted a very sympathetic picture of an indigenous group experiencing a horrifying first contact with a colonising force. I saw the protagonist (a *disabled* protagonist BTW) not as a valourisation of the "white savour" trope, but a subversion. A model of a well-intentioned but clumsy attempt to be a good ally, after a cross-cultural exchange.

@cy@fedicy.us.to 2 mo. ago

I just get tired of every "great" academic being of European descent. Doesn't mean Graeber's wrong. I'm more complaining about the academic institution as a whole, who's hidden from me all the brilliant people who aren't honkeys.

That and the fact that I can't read Spanish, Chinese, or Hindu.

1 more reply