Packed house for Decolonial Methods: Changing Anthropological Climates Through Methodological Disruptions in CCWest Rm 211. #AAACASCA2019

So excited for the second half of this ongoing dialogue on anti-colonial and anti-imperial #anthropology. #AAACASCA2019 #decolonizationisnotametaphor

Question for panel: How do you decolonize your work and do you even use that word to describe what you do? #AAACASCA2019

Christen Smith: anthropological genealogy owes direct debt to Decolonial Methods as imagined by black feminist anthropology.

Lucas Bessire: Task of anthropology is to be anti-essentializing and disruptive.

Theresa Montoya joined panel by invitation; acknowledged that we are meeting on the unceded lands of Squamish, Musqueam and Tseil-Waututh nations.

Laurence Ralph: Decolonize by expanding what we think counts as anthropological knowledge and expertise; how we do it is by acknowledging the extractive nature of our research practice. We are asking people what they already know. Why should they answer? #AAACASCA2019

John Jackson: how we institutionalize ethnography highlights some troubling things about #anthropology. #AAACASCA2019

JJ: need a multi-modal anthropology that allows people to represent who they fully are *as* anthropologists. They need space to not simply reproduce, but create anew and to see this work as valid scholarly research. #AAACASCA2019

Ruth Behar: everything I do is related to my identity as an immigrant. Very interested I. What counts as the canon and the genealogies that bring us to #anthropology. It’s a decolonizing process to think on these alt histories. #AAACASCA2019

RB: Risk and rigor go together. We can do both. #AAACASCA2019

Su’ad Khabeer: I initially read decolonization as a challenge to the logic of colonization. But I want to note the tensions around decolonization that isn’t directed at repatriating land. #AAACASCA2019

RK: particularly interested now as someone with power, how can I use this position? #AAACASCA2019

Aisha Beliso-DeJesus: also came to decolonization through Faye Harrison’s (sp?) volume. Didn’t realize how engaging with #anthropology would colonize me. Led to search for understanding this. #AAACASCA2019

AB-D: how do we not reproduce the inherent colonialist of anthropology? We do it through methodology—how we challenge extractive knowledge production. Also shift the gaze of power and the techniques of data collection. #AAACASCA2019

CS: colonialist can’t be separated from conquest and slavery. Decoloniality thus must be a dynamic and constant process that is not located in one space. #AAACASCA2019

CS: Imp to note that there is no such thing as ethnography for ethnographies sake. My work has to be centered around improving black and oppressed peoples’ lives. This is where my methods lie—in radical forms of collaboration. #AAACASCA2019

(Last two responses to new question: What are the decolonial Methods you use?) #AAACASCA2019

CS: #anthropology constantly haunted by colonialist because of our canon. Can it live without colonialist? If so it needs to be rebuilt and rethought because it stands on genocide. #AAACASCA2019

TM: I don’t like my subjectivity to be considered as #anthropology. Work focused on working with Diné in response to violent environmental toxicity. #AAACASCA2019

TM: I didn’t start my research interested in these violent spaces, but two crises called my attention. #AAACASCA2019

TM: the method is to not write *to* #anthropology. I write to my own people. To others. Doing good anthropology is to solve problems. #AAACASCA2019

Faye Ginsburg: touch on our place in the university as those with power. I think about how my privilege can put out ramps for people to open up spaces. Sometimes this is literal: campaigned for #lawsuitwaitingtogappen for #potempkinbathrooms. #AAACASCA2019

FG: it took five weeks of this twitter campaign for NYU admins to take note and create a committee on accessibility. #AAACASCA2019

LR: return to provocation John made about what is ethnography. What makes it distinct? A lot of us became anthropologists without having formal training in it before grad school. #AAACASCA2019

LR: Long-term engagement with peoples, wanting to be with them in a deep way, being committed to exploding the categories we take for granted—these are reasons why I was an anthropologist before becoming in this field. #AAACASCA2019

JJ: there’s a version of ethnography where there’s the possibility, the aspiration, for communicating across difference. #AAACASCA2019

RB: There’s definitely this utopian element—but at the same time it becomes part of the same thread as forming anthropology’s ideas of the “savage”. #AAACASCA2019

RB: undoing #anthropology has been a critique since the 60s. Need this self-interrogation. It’s what makes the discipline—otherwise we’d be creative fiction. Always have to be aware we are part of a discipline that is the result of colonialism. There’s deep shame. #AAACASCA2019

RB: This is the paradox—the deep shame of this coloniality and the shared utopian dream the discipline has had. The deep commitments Theresa talked of—this is leading us to new methods because our hearts are part of this intellectual work. #AAACASCA2019

AB-D: Methods to me are the most salvageable. The urgency we see with doing ethnographies with community—this is how we work towards anti-colonial projects. #AAACASCA2019

AB-D: Methods a tool to incorporate a myriad perspectives and textures into ethnography. Coloniality is not over; its very much with us. This idea we’ve overcome this history needs to be methodologically disabled. #AAACASCA2019

Audience Q: as a scholar applying for jobs, how can I find the institution’s who will support my decolonize work?

Audience Q: it’s so important to write outside of academic journals in our current climate. Uncomfortable to think we are thinking about these questions at such an elite conference that is so costly, especially for people who don’t have resources. #AAACASCA2019

Audience Q: from a neoliberal corporate univ; our capacity to live out decolonize visions is more and more difficult. Are any of AAA journals adventurous enough to publish these discussions and offer these perspectives? #AAACASCA2019

SK & AB-D: We are editors of the transforming anthropology publication and *we welcome* these perspectives so send them our way!

TM: people need to be aware of how decolonization is being used—as method vs. aspiration. Unless a museum is giving back Indigenouc culture back, their goals of decolonizing are just aspirations. #AAACASCA2019

RB: we can be doing more to educate and speak more to different audience, such as children. More anthropologists should be involved in early education. #AAACASCA2019

Audience Q: how can we get away from replicating the knowledge of empire—to include voices outside of the “centers” of #anthropology like the US. #AAACASCA2019

Audience Q: Are we at a moment where we no longer need to study power? What’s the difference between studying up and decolonizing anthropology? #AAACASCA2019

CG: studying conservative women, question is are we bound to integrate their worldviews? They deserve study—the polarization of the country is something that needs to be understood. You need to talk as if your interlocutor is in the room; that’s an ethical position. #AAACASCA2019

CG: highlight that Frank Boas is on top 10 list of individuals alt right claims has ruined the US because of his work on immigrants. Even if you don’t feel intimacy with those you work with, we need to hear what’s happening and report it. #AAACASCA2019

Correction, FG

LB: finding commonality with those whose voices haven’t been listened to can be very uncomfortable, but we need to find a way to do it. #AAACASCA2019

TM: thinking a lot about where to publish and figuring out how to ensure work isn’t behind a paywall. Question of access is important to community so they have access. #AAACASCA2019