Social Anthropology Seminar - Monday, 6th February 2017 - Dr Casey High – University of Edinburgh
| Dates: | 6 February 2017 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Dr Casey High |
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Social Anthropology Seminar
Monday, 6TH February 2017
Dr Casey High – University of Edinburgh
Anthropological Collaboration and Social Transformation in Contemporary Amazonia
My paper explores how Waorani people in Amazonian Ecuador engage in a changing sociopolitical world as language consultants and videographers in collaborative research to document their language.
Building on recent methodological and theoretical writing in the field of collaborative ethnography, I describe some of the unanticipated challenges and consequences of research that prioritizes collaboration across disciplines and with indigenous Amazonian people. As Waorani bring their own agendas and expectations as research participants, collaboration presents personal, ethical and often practical challenges, sometimes subverting the interests of anthropologists and linguists. By approaching collaboration not only as key area of conceptual and ethical innovation in anthropology, but also a complex site for ethnographic inquiry itself, I suggest that Waorani engagement with language documentation presents a key context for understanding their changing relations with each other and outsiders. While collaborative research is inevitably entangled in a well-established sphere of indigenous identity politics, the use of video in language documentation renders language a cultural object in ways that challenge reductive understandings of indigeneity and “culture” within a dominant multiculturalist paradigm. Collaboration, rather than presenting a simple or universal solution to the political and ethical problems of contemporary anthropology, in fact opens up manifold ethical issues that are ultimately beyond the control of anthropologists.
2.016/2.017,
Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
4:15 – 6:00pm
(Tea and coffee available outside the room from 4:00pm)
ALL WELCOME!
Speaker
Dr Casey High
Role: Speaker
Organisation: University of Edinburgh
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2.016 / 2.017
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
