Southern African Anthropological Futures: Opportunities and Constraints

Southern Africa was, in many ways, a significant crucible for the early twentieth century construction of especially British Social Anthropology; and it remains a research area of significant concern for some leading contemporary anthropologists based in the USA and in various parts of Europe, whilst others from elsewhere are now beginning also to undertake research here. Within the region, the early disciplinary leaders’ global presence gave way to a longish period during which the few who were most active in the discipline tended not to publish extensively with the result that that presence declined – other that is than amongst those who left the region. Yet that is no longer the case and, despite the still relatively small cohort of anthropologists in the region at present, there is an ever increasing range of work being produced with much of it having a global reach, and there are ever larger numbers of postgraduate students completing dissertations and theses within the discipline at local universities.

The conference aims primarily to provide an opportunity for all anthropologists, and especially students and recent ex-students, to showcase their work and provide indication as to the future directions of the discipline. It also aims to identify and consider the constraints that protagonists in the discipline are likely to face as local academic institutions restructure, as disciplinary boundaries are rethought and as the local socio-political context in which much research is conducted increasingly creates potential for social upheaval and conflict – even while there is an ever increasing presence of anthropologists from elsewhere treating parts or the whole of the region as an ethnographic fieldwork site.

Questions that the conference intends to consider include:

• What are the most important themes that anthropologists in the region are likely to address over the next two decades, and how will addressing them relate to present-day disciplinary concern in the region?
• To what extent do the major contemporary contributions to the discipline in the region provide a useful springboard for future work, and to what extent might the kinds of analysis they offer impede the possibilities for new disciplinary perspectives to be developed?
• Might development of such new perspectives provide a springboard for anthropology coming out of the region to demonstrate the global value of ‘theory from the south’, and how might that occur?
• What opportunities are open to contemporary and especially to newly emerging anthropologists in southern Africa to enable them to develop such new perspectives and thereby to make a global impact?
• How should southern African anthropologists and anthropology students engage with their peers in the rest of Africa? Do we all share a common vision of the discipline and its future?
• How should local anthropologists and anthropology students attempt to relate to their peers from abroad – whether from the global north or from countries such as Brazil in the global south – particularly since some of them have located themselves in the region to do their fieldwork?
• How might the insights of anthropological work done in an interdisciplinary context in the region be formulated so that they are readily accessible to those outside the discipline itself?
• How might the particular perspective that anthropology and ethnography provides regarding the ethics of social and cultural research and practical engagement articulate with the ethical demands of other disciplines?
• How might an anthropological perspective be usefully applied in contexts of development initiatives, whether state or NGO sponsored?
• In what respects and how might development of anthropology as practised in southern Africa be constrained by academic institutional restructuring and in what respects might that process provide previously unimagined opportunities?
• How might we make anthropology a better known discipline among prospective university students?

The conference organisers call for panel and paper proposals that address the broad theme of the conference and that take particular cognisance of the above series of questions. While there is no restriction on either conceptual/theoretical or ethnographic focus, proposals for panels and papers should explicitly address the issue of anthropology’s future in southern Africa.

Panel proposals should comprise a title and a short abstract (up to 100 words) so that potential paper presenters can propose papers to be included in the panel.

Deadline for submission of panel proposals: 4 June 2012

PLEASE SEND PANEL PROPOSALS TO  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  by 4 June 2012

Paper proposals should comprise a title and an abstract (up to 100 words) and, if intended for a panel, they should indicate the panel title.

Deadline for submission of paper proposals: 16 July 2012

PLEASE SEND PAPER PROPOSALS TO  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  by 16 July 2012