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"Seen from an anthropological view, humanity is at risk of extinction"

Published on January 14, 2021 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, cosmopolitanism, development empowerment, ecology nature, politics, Us and Them

What are the connections between climate change, global capitalism, xenophobia and white supremacy? [Marc Schuller](https://www.niu.edu/clas/anthropology/about/faculty-directory/schuller.shtml) does in his new book something rather unusual: He asks big questions. [Humanity’s Last Stand. Confronting Global Catastrophe](https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/humanitys-last-stand/9781978820876/) is the name of the book that not only analyzes the state of the world but also offers advice about what to do according to an [interview on the Northern Illinois University website](https://newsroom.niu.edu/2021/01/13/mark-schuller-confronts-question-of-extinction-of-human-species/).

There is a [virtual book launch tomorrow 15.1.2021](https://calendar.niu.edu/event/dr_mark_schullers_book_launch_humanitys_last_stand_confronting_global_catastrophe#.X_3FouhKhPY).

It is refreshing to see that Schuller – in contrast to the majority of social scientists – is not afraid of making bold statements.

Asked about the “apocalyptic” title of his book, if “humanity is truly headed toward extinction?” he answers:

> Seen from an anthropological view, as a species, the warning signs are clear. This is the mandate of the [Anthropocene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene): Ever more species are becoming extinct, including our closest relatives, primates. As the creators of this catastrophe, we can turn this around but only by taking deadly seriously the existential threats of climate change, proliferating warfare, xenophobia and racism.

Asked about the interconnections between climate change, global capitalism, xenophobia and white supremacy, he explains:

> Capitalism was founded on plantation slavery, following Indigenous genocide. Capitalism requires growth at all costs; global capitalism entails colonial expropriation. Resources are taken from colonized peoples to enrich an increasingly small group, which builds literal walls, as well as walls of racism and nationalism, protecting its privilege. Following abolition, fossil fuels replaced slaves’ blood, sweat and tears, heating up the planet.

But there is hope according to him, as “in humanity’s ugliest hours, we have demonstrated our capacity for love, solidarity and justice”.

He suggests cultivating “an anthropological imagination”, which means highlighting the “connections we already have, despite the fog of ideology that keeps us feeling isolated”:

> We need to see the human beings behind our food, shelter, electricity and consumer goods. That’s the first step in building a bottom-up platform for making necessary global changes. We will never muster the courage or will while we continue to dehumanize other people and their problems and ignore the consequences of our unsustainable consumption.

[>> continue reading the whole interview](https://newsroom.niu.edu/mark-schuller-confronts-question-of-extinction-of-human-species/)

In the [introduction](https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/11202050/Schuller_intro.pdf) he explains this concept further:

> Before we can act, we need the ability to see how issues such as the Syrian refugee crisis, the mass shootings in Parkland and El Paso, and the rising tide of ultra-right nationalism across Europe and the United States are all connected. Seeing how these global issues are lived and confronted by real, living human beings and how they are connected to other issues and people can be called an “anthropological imagination.”

> An anthropological imagination also underscores that these issues are products of human action, and therefore changeable: they are particular local manifestations of the inhumanity of our global political and economic system based on in equality and private profit seeking at the expense of the collective good.

It is clearly an activist book. I am not sure if I like the activist language in some parts of the introduction, though. While I agree with his general message, there is – for my taste – too much “black and white” thinking about who is good and who is bad and too much labelling of people (although he aims for the opposite). But [have a look yourself](https://d3tto5i5w9ogdd.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/11202050/Schuller_intro.pdf)! There is also a [useful website about the book](https://humanityslaststand.org/) with [summaries of all chapters](https://humanityslaststand.org/chapters/) including explanations of core concepts, a very good idea!

Schuller has also his own website at http://www.anthropolitics.org/ . He has worked alot within disaster anthropology, especially in Haiti and received the [Anthropology in Media Award in 2016](https://www.americananthro.org/StayInformed/NewsDetail.aspx?ItemNumber=20907):

> Schuller embodies the best attributes of the contemporary engaged and activist anthropologist. Last year, he was the recipient of the Margaret Mead Award, presented by the AAA and SfAA. The Anthropology in Media Award similarly honors a scholar who effectively communicates anthropological ideas and research to broad audiences beyond the academy.

His recent project reminds me of an earlier research project by Thomas Hylland Eriksen at the University of Oslo, that I have been involved in as a journalist until 2016: [Overheating. The three crises of globalisation: An anthropological history of the early 21st century](https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/overheating/) that explores exactly the same questions. You can read [many interviews with the researchers in the News section](https://www.sv.uio.no/sai/english/research/projects/overheating/news/).

**SEE ALSO:**

[Haiti Earthquake: Worldwide solidarity, a common humanity?](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2010/haiti-earthquake)

[Too engaged anthropology? The Lumpenproletariat on the US-Mexican Border](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2006/too_engaged_anthropology_the_lumpenprole)

[João Biehl: “Anthropology needs to engage in an activist way”](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2007/anthropology_needs_to_engage_in_an_activ)

[“Discuss politics!” – How anthropologists in Indonesia engage with the public](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2006/discuss_politics_how_anthropologists_in)

[“We have a huge responsibility to give back to the places we study from”](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2005/we_have_a_huge_responsibility_to_give_ba)

[The Five Major Challenges for Anthropology](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2006/the_five_major_challenges_for_anthropolo)

[Criticizes “scholarly and political indifference toward the workers’ lives”](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2011/workers-in-romania)

[Anthropological activism in Pakistan with lullabies](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2009/anthropological_activism_in_pakistan_wit)

[Why was anthropologist Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez Ávila beaten to death?](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2009/anthropologist-beaten-to-death)

[Iran jails anthropologist for “subversive research”, “seeking cultural changes” and “promoting homosexuality”](https://www.antropologi.info/blog/anthropology/2021/iran-jails-kameel-ahmady)

What are the connections between climate change, global capitalism, xenophobia and white supremacy? Marc Schuller does in his new book something rather unusual: He asks big questions. Humanity's Last Stand. Confronting Global Catastrophe is the…

Anthropologists on deported migrants, unusual bureaucrats, and the thriving solidarity economy in Greece

Published on April 12, 2015 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, development empowerment, globalisation

While I am trying to get back into the blogging business, here three selected pieces that I've written recently for the University of Oslo.

Two of them are accounts on somehow positive change that is happening.

Many anthropologists have contributed to the understanding of the economic crisis in many parts of the world during the recent years, see among others the earlier posts "Use Anthropology to Build A Human Economy" or "Similar to the Third World debt crisis" – David Graeber on 'Occupy Wall Street'. But few studies deal with the ways people tried to create alternatives to the currently dominating economic models.

I found it therefore particularily interesting to talk to Theodoros Rakopoulos who is currently studying the thriving solidarity economy in Greece: an economy based on mutual aid, cooperation, bartering and collective welfare.

Time banks, volunteer-run health clinics and pharmacies, alternative currencies, food distribution without middlemen: People “mostly from humble economic backgrounds” are experimenting successfully with alternatives to austerity policies that have been dictated by the EU Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Theodoros Rakopoulos has been on fieldwork among the anti-middlemen movement, one of the most successful solidarity economy initiatives that popped up in Greece since 2010.

Strangely enough, I haven't heard about these developments before. I suppose it's because media was more interested in reporting about the rising xenophobia in Greece. But the researcher explains that the new solidarity economy has "arguably a wider impact on peoples’ daily life than the much talked about rise in far-right parties like Golden Dawn”.

>> read the interview with Theodoros Rakopoulos: From economic crisis to solidarity economy

Anthropologist Knut Christian Myhre is currently writing a book about unusual bureaucrats. Instead of reviewing laws and policies in their offices, they tour the country, hold public meetings and communicate with citizens via social media. This initiative, Myhre thinks, can serve as example for other countries wishing to revive local democracy and expand their political and legal repertoire.

His main focus was the so-called Shivji Commission that in 1991 was appointed by President Ali Hassam Mwinyi to inquire into the state of land conflicts in Tanzania. For one year this commission toured around the country, held 277 public meetings in 145 villages and 132 urban centres in all of mainland Tanzania’s 20 administrative regions. Around 83,000 members of the public took part in the process. Local researchers and experts prepared six major studies, while the commission made visits to Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Korea to learn from their experiences.

>> read the interview with Knut Christian Myhre: "A model also for other countries"

We are living in times characterized by increasing mobility and transnational connections — or so it seems, at least, for some people in the richer parts of the world. Anthropologist Heike Drotbohm has been on fieldwork among people for whom the opposite is true.

My story about her research begins like this:

"When Jacky was deported from the USA to Cape Verde, his life came to a sudden standstill. Within a short time his face grew deep wrinkles; it looked resigned, exhausted, and drained. Merely at his age of 45, Jacky looked like an old man.

Anthropologist Heike Drotbohm is looking at a recent picture of Jacky and is puzzled. She met him six years ago and now she can hardly recognize him. While peering at more pictures of deported migrants she met between 2006 and 2008 on Cape Verde during her fieldwork, she is compelled to make the same conclusion. All of these people seemed to have aged disproportionally fast.

Their faces, it seems, tell us uncomfortable stories about the transition from a mobile and independent life to the forced immobility on Cape Verde: an arrow-shaped archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean that the men left many years ago."

>> read the whole story: The wretched face of forced immobility

While I am trying to get back into the blogging business, here three selected pieces that I've written recently for the University of Oslo.

Two of them are accounts on somehow positive change that is happening.

Many anthropologists have contributed…

– Use Anthropology to Build A Human Economy

Published on December 7, 2010 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, books, development empowerment, gift economy gift giving, globalisation, interdisciplinary

Book launch in the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo with Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Keith Hart and Desmond McNeill. Photo: Lorenz Khazaleh

Anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, economists and activists have come together and written a citizen guide for a human economy.

In The Human Economy more than 30 authors from 15 countries show alternatives to our current dominating economic system.

Anthropologist Keith Hart launched the book Friday last week in Oslo together with two contributors: Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Desmond McNeill.

The table of contents looks promising: There are essays on for example solidarity economy, community participation, fair trade, ecological and feminist economics, alter-globalisation, social entrepreneurship and also articles on two topics that are especially relevant when we’re sitting in front of the screen: gift economies and digital commons.

I like the authors’ approach. They are not dreaming of an obscure and distant revolution. We don’t need a revolution. The alternatives do already exist, explained Keith Hart in Oslo:

The problem with posting an radical alternative to the socalled capitalist economy is that it raises question how do you get there from where we are.

What I want to argue is that the economies are much more plural than ideologies or conventional theories make them out to be. We live in a world in which we say if we can identify the economy as capitalist we’ve somehow done the job. Or if we want to build another one and call it socialist we’ve done the job.

My notion is that we live by a large numbers of economic principles which includes family economy, the importance of the state as an agent to redistribution, voluntary associations, NGOs etc

If we want to push the world economy in a new direction, then we should build it on what people are doing already – even if what they are doing already is marginalised, obscured or even repressed.

Keith Hart made me think of what I wrote nearly ten years ago when I prepared my final exam in economic anthropology. The more I read about Kula, Potlatch and other gift economies in distant places, I wrote (in German only), the more I got convinced of that we are operating in a similar way, that capitalisms’ importance is overrated. I found lots of examples of local exchange trading systems, even in my neighborhood, that work without any money involved: You repair my bike, and I’ll help your with your English homework.

The internet is a huge gift economy. Wikipedia, Flickr, blogging, we’re giving away our work for free. Or think of the free software movement or the way science works. Capitalism dominates only a small part of our economic system.

The authors are optimistic. It’s more easier than ever to realise a Human Economy. In the introduction (pdf), editors Keith Hart, Jean-Louis Laville and Antonio David Cattani write:

This world is massively unequal and voices for human unity are often drowned. But now at last we have means of communication adequate to expressing universal ideas. Anthropologists and sociologists have shown that Homo economicus — the idea of an economy based on narrow self- interest, typified as the practice of buying cheap and selling dear — is absent from many societies and does not even reflect what is best about ourselves. We ought to be able to do better than that by now. But ideas alone are insufficient. Emergent world society is the new human universal – not an idea, but the fact of our shared occupation of the planet crying out for new principles of association.
(…)
The Human Economy is a work of reference that has come out of a dialogue between successful social experiments in many parts of the world and theoretical reflection on them. The resulting synthesis is an invitation to advance knowledge along the lines we have begun and to dare to build a better world.

Unfortunately, this “citizen guide” exists on paper only. I asked Keith Hart if a webversion is in the making. His answer was No. Lack of time. “I’m totally overworked”, he said.

I’ll try to write more about the book in the coming weeks.

>> short presentation of the book on Keith Hart’s blog’

>> download the introduction (pdf)

>> After the Crash : A Human Economy for the 21st Century (published in Revue du MAUSS permanente)

>> read Keith Hart’s book “The Memory Bank. Money in an Unequal World” and his blog

Used anthropology to predict the financial crisis

What anthropologists can do about the decline in world food supply

The last days of cheap oil and what anthropologists can do about it

The Internet Gift Culture

Why were they doing this work just to give it away for free? Thesis on Ubuntu Linux hackers

Anthropologist uncovers how global elites undermine democracy

Democratic Publishing = Web + Paper

Book launch in the House of Literature (Litteraturhuset) in Oslo with Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Keith Hart and Desmond McNeill. Photo: Lorenz Khazaleh

Anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers, economists and activists have come together and written a citizen guide for a human economy.

In…

Do they really need our “help”? New Anthropology Matters is out

Published on November 4, 2010 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, development empowerment, journal articles / papers, persons and theories

What kinds of theoretical insights have emerged from the anthropology of development? What can anthropologists learn from development work? Anthropology Through Development: Putting Development Practice into Theory is the topic of the new issue of the open access journal Anthropology Matters that was released a few days ago.

This issue, edited by Amy Pollard and Alice Street, consists of four interesting articles.

In Beyond Governmentality: Building Theory for Weak and Fragile States, Priscilla Magrath calls for a better understanding of “weak states”:

(A)nthropological theory, drawing on Western European philosophy and political history, appears focused on strong governments, highlighting the potential dangers of excessive government, rather than the challenges of weak government.

Detailed ethnographies of the development encounter, including those undertaken by development practitioners themselves, can provide a foundation for building new theory to address contemporary issues, such as those faced by governments and the governed living in ‘weak and fragile states’. Such studies can enrich our understanding of development processes, while helping to bridge the gap between ‘applied’ and ‘theoretical’ anthropology.

Reconstruction efforts after the tsunami is the topic of Sonia Fèvres paper Development ethnography and the limits of practice: a case study of life stories from Aceh, Indonesia.
Development anthropology has an important part to play in contributing to the design and evaluation of humanitarian aid, she explains. Ethnographers should in her view not limit themselves to a meta-analysis of the development framework itself, or the anthropology of development.

Antonie L. Kraemer explains in Telling Us your Hopes: Ethnographic lessons from a communications for development project in Madagascar why it might be a good idea to turn informants into ethnographers.

She calls for “a more publicly engaged anthropology which does not merely “translate” other cultures, but which opens up for people to conduct their own ethnographic research by asking their own questions and capturing each other’s voices, stories and hopes as ethnographers in their own right.”
The anthropologist’s role should include “giving voice to marginalised people by facilitating access to written and online media, providing the necessary background context, and by translating and communicating joint research findings to key audiences, including the narrators themselves, the media and relevant decision makers.”

It might be fruitful to read her article together with Chris Campregher’s text Development and anthropological fieldwork: Towards a symmetrical anthropology of inter-cultural relations.
Here he questions popular assumptions about “voiceless people” and asks: Do they really need our help?

“Even as a trained anthropologist sensible to questions of ethnocentrism and cultural alterity”, he writes, “I relied on this basic imagery of the poor and marginalized when I started to work for the first time in Central America. How not to? Engaging in development work implies that there will be some class of people who need support of some kind.”

Inspired from Science and Technology Studies (STS), he argues that anthropology should strive to become more symmetrical:

The interesting question that STS poses to us as anthropologists is the following: STS scholars state that they need to treat science and its outcomes (“scientific facts”) with the same methodological scrutiny that they use to explain “wrong” statements. So, how can development agents and anthropologists continue to differentiate between scientifically legitimized “knowledge” and culturally constrained “beliefs” of local communities?

Anthropologists should question and study their own methodologies, concepts, and actions in the field in the same way they study their informants. This, he thinks, “will not only lead to a new way of looking at the anthropologist as an actor in the field, but also represents a strategy favourable to those of us who work as applied anthropologists.”

>> Overview over the new issue

Floods in Pakistan: On silent anthropologists and real heroes

Published on August 24, 2010 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, development empowerment, ecology nature

Photo: Giro555 / Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties, flickr

Anthropologists are following in media’s and politicians footsteps: They care less about the floods i Pakistan than for the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Katrina floods in the USA and the earthquake in Haiti.

A quick search reveals nearly complete silence. While several anthropologists mention the desaster or call for help, they don’t contribute with any analyses.

The only piece by an anthropologist that deals specifically with the floods consists of rather dubious culturalisations: Cultural wisdom in crisis by Kashmali Khan from Oxford University, published in the Pakistani Tribune.

But while I am writing these lines, suddenly an interview about the flood pops up at the great blog Anthropologyworks. Pakistan expert Maggie Ronkin (who’s recently taught on Justice and Peace in Pakistan and Social Development in South Asia at Georgetown University) interviews Fayyaz Baqir, Director of the Akhter Hameed Khan Resource Center in Islamabad.

Fayyaz Baqir describes the floods as “the worst in the entire world during the past hundred years”. But he is eager to add – and this is the interesting part in my view – that we “are underestimating the resilience, resourcefulness, and capacity of the people to cope with the disaster due to the presence of hundreds of formal and informal institutions and mechanisms that help people on a day-to-day basis.”

This capacity and the will to help is echoed in several stories in Pakistani media.

“In the last 10 days”, Zeresh John writes, in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, “I’ve seen Pakistan come together in ways never seen before.” “It is an overwhelming feeling”, Zeresh John adds, “when people unite for a cause. When in an instant, strangers no longer remain strangers”:

The Pakistani youth has risen and literally stepped out on the streets to help their countrymen affected by the flood. (…) Each day brings a relentless and constant chain of support. Where the monetary contributors stop, there is a group of people ready to take over by running to crowded bazaars everyday to buy food supplies, clean drinking water and medicines. From there yet another massive portion of the population is stepping in to pack those supplies and load them into trucks to deliver them to the affected areas.
(…)
As Pakistani authorities failed to provide the necessary leadership needed and with no proper coordination in the relief efforts, the civilian population of Pakistan has taken it upon themselves to do what they can in the face of this crisis; in the process, developing a conscientious society that we’re all proud to belong to.

But these stories are not told by the media, a reader comments:

“I live overseas and this post was quite educational for me. How is it that none of our TV channels are highlighting this spirit ? All I’ve seen so far are stories about corruption, fake camps and immoral feudals diverting the flow of flood waters to their benefit. Our free media seems to be failing miserably by promoting only the demoralizing but sensational stories.”

My favorite story is written by Shabnam Riaz in The News: The Real Heroes (see also cached version). She is also writing about “a spirit-lifting experience in this whole nightmare”: Pakistan’s youth, young men and poor laborers who help other people:

Small, scattered groups of young boys and men had formed where the rain was the harshest and was threatening to sweep away cars along with their occupants. (…) They worked in unison, all of them had a single purpose and that was to rescue other human beings. (…) They waved at us, hurriedly preparing to help the next hapless driver who was blindly careening into their path. We waved back with euphoric ‘thank you’ but they had already become busy in helping others.

I was touched beyond words. These young men were poor labourers who were most probably hungry as a day full of rain would not have given them a chance to earn their daily wage. I am sure that none of them were owners of a vehicle either. But their dedication to help the other members of society who definitely had more material possessions than they had, without any contempt at all, told me something. It told me that deep inside they were people of substance. Those individuals who had their moral compasses pointing in the right direction.

It also told me something else; that in fact, these were our heroes. Also, these people who slog from sun-up till sun-down for a meagre amount that could hardly put a decent meal on anyone’s table, are our actual role models.

Here another story about how people help themselves (video by Al Jazeera)

Pakistan flood victims build makeshift transport

Save Pakistan from the catastrophe is the title of an earlier article where anthropologist Fazal Amin Baig calls for action. Fazal Amin Baig wrote it earlier this year in the aftermath of a heavy landslide that took the lives of 19 people and displaced more than 1,500 people. “The year 2010 witnessed a natural disaster, which did not indicate a good omen to the people of Pakistan.” Unfortunately, the anthropologist was right.

Check also Dawn’s excellent special section about the flood and the updates at Global Voices and al-Jazeera and don’t forget to help.

For an excellent example of how to contribute as social scientists, see my earlier post on anthropologists on Katrina.

(update: Pakistan: Netizens In Action Helping Flood Victims. (Global Voices 24.8.2010))

SEE ALSO:

Why we need more disaster anthropology

When applied anthropology becomes aid – A disaster anthropologist’s thoughts

“Disasters do not just happen” – The Anthropology of Disaster (2)

After the Tsunami: Maybe we’re not all just walking replicas of Homo Economicus

Haiti Earthquake: Worldwide solidarity, a common humanity?

Photo: Giro555 / Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties, flickr

Anthropologists are following in media's and politicians footsteps: They care less about the floods i Pakistan than for the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, the Katrina floods in the USA and the earthquake in Haiti.

A…