Critique is option #1 in our Top Ten Ways for Anthropologists to Make a Difference, and the principal way most anthropologists approach being relevant. Relying only on critique can be problematic – it emphasizes passivity over engagement, promotes an academic idea of change, and can keep us from developing ideas and getting data about other ways of making a difference. But critique also has a real-world impact.
Amidst a wealth of work, I have highlighted two prominent books as well as recent examples of putting critique into action. I also cover how critique is often most useful when used to improve our own efforts.
(1) Critique. Our default position, but sometimes it does work. (Just not as well or as often as we hope.)
Jonathan Marks’ 2003 book What It Means to Be 98% Chimpanzee is an excellent example of critical work in biological anthropology. Marks draws on the breadth of anthropology to produce a trenchant analysis of both science and popular ideas about genetics and human nature. As the American Scientist review says, “A trenchant assault on genetic reductionism and a spirited call for a more critical science, one better informed by the perspectives of anthropology and the humanities.”
James Ferguson’s (1994) The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho is now a classic in the anthropological critique of development. Ferguson shows how poverty and powerlessness are reduced to technical and bureaucratic problems, even as the state extends its realm of control locally. As the American Political Science review puts it, “He strips the development community of its conceptual attire and leaves it naked for all to see.”
Open Anthropology is Maximilian Forte’s admirable effort to put critical analysis to use, both with respect to the field and to the current state of the world. Open Anthropology aims to “transform anthropology into something that is neither Eurocentric nor elitist,” while also focusing on critical issues such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how the military is co-opting social science through projects like the Human Terrain System and Minerva. With Open Anthropology, critique is now online.