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This is a good question, so I'm going to write a short thread about the lens that anthropologists work from.
We try to combine a radical ethical awareness of what's right, with the knowledge that our own understanding of morality is shaped by the culture we grew up in. https://twitter.com/shplurgicalJam/status/1306615614883078144
We try to combine a radical ethical awareness of what's right, with the knowledge that our own understanding of morality is shaped by the culture we grew up in. https://twitter.com/shplurgicalJam/status/1306615614883078144
So when I'm teaching students, I try to get them to see that the idea behind the anthropological approach to looking at social issues is to not necessarily instantly judge different cultural practices as "good/acceptable/reasonable" or "bad/abusive/horrible"...
But to understand *why* such practices exist, the cultural and political issues around it (including, for example in this case, Western anti-Islamic, anti-African and Orientalist biases), and most importantly, what the people in question think about it themselves.
Are the people in question fighting to end the practice within their own culture? Why or why not? How does the practice intersect with local regimes of power and oppression etc?
Asking these questions helps to build out a more solid ethical foundation, and to better understand
Asking these questions helps to build out a more solid ethical foundation, and to better understand
our own ethical biases, which *may or may not* be based in latent Western capitalist imperialism, depending on the topic & the person.
I have a VERY strong ethical compass, but my confidence in it is based in being able to understand multiple angles and context for diff issues.
I have a VERY strong ethical compass, but my confidence in it is based in being able to understand multiple angles and context for diff issues.
Of course it's perfectly fine for everyone to have our own ethical opinions and judgements, I certainly do! In fact, it's pretty crucial to be honest about that as the emotional/moral base you're working from, because it's not actually even possible to get rid of those biases.
But understanding relativism helps makes the difference between thinking that "Islamic veiling is a barbaric oppressive patriarchal practice" and understanding that "veiling is a complex topic that Islamic feminists have written extensively on, I should probably listen more."
So, the idea is not to withhold judgement entirely, but be careful about it until you have listened to the people affected by an issue & understood more of the context around it.
That way, you also better understand the potential solutions to the perceived problem.
That way, you also better understand the potential solutions to the perceived problem.
Hint: the culprit is usually capitalism once you dig through all the layers!
But you wouldn't know that if you just stopped at "x thing is bad because it just is." That thinking leads to "there's no good reason why people would do this so it must be because the PEOPLE are bad."
But you wouldn't know that if you just stopped at "x thing is bad because it just is." That thinking leads to "there's no good reason why people would do this so it must be because the PEOPLE are bad."
