dialectical gavin smith

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Dialectical Anthropology

Editorial

Gavin Smith

Pretending we dont know what everyone knows we know

If editorials could start with epigraphs mine for this one would be a comment by

Zizek provoked by the Wikileaks e!posures"# $%he real disturbance was at the level

of appearances# we can no longer pretend we don"t know what everyone knows we

know&' ()*11# +, -ere I want to talk about professional intellectuals" and their role in

current politics. specifically about the agonies some anthropologists go through in

trying to figure out what they should do or say in the public domain& Guided by Zizek

/ admittedly not a necessarily good thing for one"s peace of mind / we might ask

what is the kind of truth e!posed by intellectual work when nobody out there can

pretend they don"t know what everyone knows they know&

%he way I will do this is to take a particular instance of an anthropologist worrying

about the role of the discipline in the current con0uncture (which she characterizes

specifically as global terror", and read this articlepre-TELY. that is. prior to %unisia.

gypt. 2ibya. 3emen 4etc5& 6ut the winter events in the 7ideast. combined with those

in the 7idwest. may help us to think about this thorny 8uestion of doing the work of a

professional intellectual (in this case in the guise of an anthropologist, and relating

that work to the sphere of public politics&

In the article Pnina Werbner ()*1*, works through the dilemmas she faces as an

ethnographer of moslem people. some in Pakistan. some in the 9: diaspora& She

notes the willingness of some in other disciplines to leap on to the public stage and

contrasts this with the way in which the comple!ity that an anthropologist such as


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herself recognizes causes her / and perhaps us too / to hesitate to take on this public

role& ;ne of the many issues she raises is the fact that many 7uslims. young or old.

scholar. political figure or community spokesperson have. perforce. been brought on

to the public stage to become interpreters of their colleagues for the dominant media&

7oreover with each articulate and insightful intervention providing a slightly

different perspective. what makes the sensitivity of the anthropologist to these

comple!ities distinctively useful1M in outputC by mid?month 7edvedev had

banned all e!ports& =s they say. you don"t have to be a rocket scientist if you"re in the

futures business at this point& Wheat futures went from DD* cents a bushel in Nuly to

over H** cents in Lecember& So here"s 8uestion number one# which country is the

world"s largest wheat importer< =nswer# gypt& In September the 66A was

reporting. $9kraine. another huge grain e!porter. was considering a ban. forcing

several large customers. including gypt to search for alternative supplies&' (66A 1*

Sept 1*,& 6y the time of the acebook @evolution" the wholesale cost of food hit its

highest monthly figure on record. according to the =;& (66A& > eb 11,&

So the multitude was hungry& @emember what -ardt and Kegri have told us# there"s

no longer a class enemy for the multitude so this is a far cry from the white?collar

unions facing off against the likes of the :ochs in the 7idwest& !cept that gypt has

long had the most unionized labour force in the =rab world and. thanks to structural

ad0ustment which put in place the apparatus that concentrated capital (especially

public resources, in the hands of national cli8ues best positioned to engineer this

capture. there was a pretty undisguised capitalist class too& We had already seen how

this worked in %unisia for the =bidine 6en =li clan. the President"s wife"s plane

scarcely able to take off for Saudi =rabia for the weight of the gold it was carrying&

%his brings us to 8uestion number two& Who is the second biggest importer of 9S

military aid (ne!t only to Israel,< gypt. of course& %his. combined with the greased

wheels of structural ad0ustment. meant that $gypt"s military is an economic


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conglomerate with retired generals running companies that manufacture cars.

appliances and several other products. all with enormous ta! breaks&' (7artin. )*11,&

%his is not to say that what is happening in gypt is 0ust a variation of something

happening in Wisconsin& %hough it may mean that ;bama"s s8ueamishness in

supporting grass?roots democracy in both places is not a million miles removed from

what is seen to be the basis for a healthy economy in each case& =nd observations of

this kind do. in my view. make a good case for e!posing not 0ust any linkages of

obscured connection but especially those ofpolitical economyper se&

I do not point up linkages such as these in the belief that the e!ercise constitutes a

comprehensive or even ade8uate e!posure of a spatio?temporal con0uncture& @ather

my purpose has been simply to illustrate that some of these kinds of things matter /

not in the sense that they are conte!t" or setting" for what otherwise will be the more

critically acute component# cultural ethnography& Instead I am arguing that the

features of the spatio?temporal con0uncture are integral to what can be understood

about the cultural ethnography& Aritical engagement by the anthropologist with this

dimension of the real world is therefore essential not 0ust in general and once and for

all. but in each and every instance of research engagement&

So we return to Zizek post?Wikileaks. $we can no longer pretend we don"t know

what everyone knows we know' ()*11# +,& =pplied to anthropologists I think this

suggests that confining the insights of criti8ue to localized ethnography and a level of

reality captured in the notion culture" does not constitute responsible scholarship& %he

kinds of critical awareness that drives our methods in these spheres of the social world

needs to be e!tended to a sustained e!posure of the underlying connections that

produce the spatiotemporal con0uncture in which our work takes place& $What


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everyone knows we knowO' all of the material presented in the latter part of this

editorial comes from sources we all read in our daily livesC it"s what we know we

know& If we do not sub0ect it to the acid test we reserve for the other foci of our work

we run the risk of a kind of scholastic siege mentality. chattering among ourselves

about the niceties of our latest insights into the intimacies of ethnography and the

mysteries of culture. while nervously fidgeting about the relevance of our work for

anybody else&

References Cited

=rrighi. Giovanni& )**B##dam $mith in "ei%ing& lineages of the twenty-first century'

erso& 2ondon&

=tran. Scott& )*1*# Talking to the enemy& !iolent e(tremism) sacred !alues and what it

means to be human&

66A Kews Website $9S cuts wheat production forecast' 1* Sept 1*&

66A Kews Website. $Why food prices and fuel costs are going up' > eb 11

Aalmes. Nackie& )*11# $Wisconsin battle puts president between competing political

desires&'New York Times 4Kational5 eb )1& =11

Aomaroff. Nohn& )*1*# $%he end of anthropology. again# on the future of an

inEdiscipline&'#merican #nthropologist1).D# F)D?>H

riedman. )*11 4orthcoming5# $Putting globalization in its place&' in Aarrier and

:alb (eds, *lass and anthropology& 6erghahn. ;!ford&

-arding. Neremy& )*11# $Where the Nihadis are'London e!iew of "ooks'>>.D& 1B

eb& 1B?1+

:alb. Lon and -erman %ak. )**F# $Aritical 0unctions / recapturing =nthropology and

history&' In :alb and %ak (eds, *ritical %unctions& anthropology and history beyond

the cultural turn& 6erghahn& ;!ford&

7artin. P& )*11# $-ow will =rab Spring reshape the 7ideast


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Smith. Gavin& )*11# $Selective hegemony and beyond. populations with no

productive function"# a framework for en8uiry'dentities& +lobal $tudies in *ulture

and .ower'ol 1H. D 4orthcoming5

Werbner. Pnina& )*1*# $Kotes from a small place# anthropological blues in the face of

global terror' *urrent #nthropologyF1.)# 1+>?)*

Zizek. Slavo0& )*11 $Good manners in the age of Wikileaks'London e!iew of

"ooks. >>.)& )* Nan&


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1%his of course leaves the field open not only to other disciplines but to anthropologists with less

integrity& See for a recent e!ample. =tran ()*1*, Talking to the enemy& !iolent e(tremism) sacred !alues

and what it means to be human. a kind of applied anthropology which Neremy -arding describes as.

$what happens when a government pays e!perts whose research it ignores if they decide it"s barking upthe wrong tree&' -arding ()*11# 1B, -e then asks. $Is this really anthropology< ;r is it some zombie

discipline that needs to feed on flesh from other disciplinesO&' (ibid 1H,

)%hough not of course in older literature such as that of Steward. Wolf and 7intz to name 0ust a few&

2evi?Strauss"s discussion in Tristes Tropiuesof the geological metaphor of layers" which he

associates with 7ar!"s method. is also an instance of what I am talking about here&

dialectical gavin smith

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