So how does it look from the white side? I wish I could say it is a lot brighter, but… to be honest, a lot of things you mention sound awfully familiar. I wish I could blame it on the race, or on the men, or on the lack of funds… but tbh it is all about me and my choice of subjects. When I started in academia 20 years ago, I thought it to be a sanctuary of the knowledge, a light for the society and so on… yeah right… 20 years later and it looks more and more like a dusty tomb… and I am there on some kind of a tour, hosted by a deadly serious and slightly unhealthily pale undertaker – so, you know, not to disturb the peace… of the late cannons of the research and anthropo-methods. 🙂 If I flirt with feminism, I piss off the traditionalists, if I flirt with neurology, I piss off gender studies… If I question the methods – I am doing the research wrong… If I insist the data is human and personal, I get questioned if I am even researching the human groups… and on top of it all, if I am talking about my people, our Eastern European experience of soviet occupation and concentration camps… I am dismissed as irrelevant and inconvenient… because, you know… talking about the emotional backgrounds formed when living with your dead piled on your porch… because you cannot dig a hole in the permafrost and perform the rites… is a bit too gruesome subject really, can’t we find a happier one?…and… it is white cultural experience, so it leads to nationalism and demonic men anyway… actually can’t you just find those in there while you are at it? 🙂 Sigh… and the list goes on, while inside the little scientist shouts IT IS NOT THE POINT, look what you actually found!!!. 🙂

In the end, I think it boils down to the question of freedom. Freedom to be able to speak free, in a rigid academic environment, dominated by the middle-class (American) values (does not matter left or right, nazi or metoo). As in that song… “I struggled with some demons | They were middle-class and tame.”… New ideas are fairly inconvenient thing, they tend to shatter the old believes and theories… and it does not matter if those theories come from the very rigid traditional anthropology or ultra contemporary gender studies, the result is the same, it is an uphill battle.

First, an important part of anthropology’s colonial heritage is the way in which students trained in North America and Europe see anthropology as a field dominated by white men from these parts of the world. The largest concentrations of anthropologists elsewhere are in Asia, in China, Japan and South Asia. When I read your list of notable, non-EuroAmerican social theorists, I note the absence of Nakane Chie and Umesao Tadao from Japan and Fei Xiaotong from China. It is surely the fault of my ignorance that I cannot mention South Asian scholars of similar prominence.

Second, I recall Thomas Kuhn’s observation that scientific paradigms change when those who embody the old paradigm die. The white men whose works are most often cited are doing just that. The figures who shaped my anthropology, Geertz, Turner, Douglas, Lévi-Strauss are gone. So are Irving Goffman, Ward Goodenough, David Schneider, Dell Hymes, Edmund Leach, Rodney Needham, etc., etc., etc. The last five presidents of the American Anthropological Society have all been women, including women of color. As Dylan once sang, “The times, they are a’changing.” For what it is worth, I encourage you to hang around and be part of that change.

Thank you for this. In building Mbembe’s vision of the pluriversity, he also talks about reconfiguring the way the university works, and I think we need plural and dynamic ways of configuring what our work looks like — we need to be able to imagine teaching, research, writing, etc… to exist in different configurations, just as you show by sharing your exciting and nourishing work/life experience in your current job. I am so glad you have a working environment that is enriching and rewarding. That’s really what I hope for everyone. That the work we do is meaningful, enriching, and has room for joy. Thanks for showing me it’s possible!

thank you for your bravery and your integrity. I know that you’re making an impact, and whether you stay or go, you are going to carry your stories with you into really meaningful engagements, work, forms of community.