Location TBC

Amita Baviskar, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi

Attitude!: Doing Anthropology in a Utilitarian World
“But what use is it?” ask my engineer and banker cousins. “It’s all very interesting…” trails off the voice of my economist colleague. “I hope you will write a report that we can send to the press,” says my activist friend. What do others expect of anthropologists and what do we expect of ourselves? How are these expectations met, repudiated and negotiated? I shall reflect on these questions from my position as an India-based practitioner who must contend with the legacies of colonial epistemologies and postcolonial imperatives in an increasingly neoliberal academy and Hindu-supremacist nation-state. I shall argue that the value of critical humanism that is central to anthropology is more vital than ever; the challenge is to uphold it in ways that include and reach beyond the academy.