Abstract
Projects of political emancipation are often underpinned by certain universalist ideals, whether explicitly articulated or not. How does this articulate with anthropology’s emphasis on the particular and its long-standing suspicions of universalist claims or projects? This paper explores different types of universalism and interrogates the possibility of universalist principles for anthropological practice whilst maintaining the tension between anthropological work and activism. In doing so, it expands on some questions that arose from my book Decolonizing Anthropology (Polity 2024).
Bio note
Soumhya Venkatesan is a Professor of Social Anthropology. Venkatesan’s research covers complex and ambivalent social, moral and intellectual situations, which are particularly effectively analysed ethnographically. Her work has covered a wide range of topics in anthropology, including studies of Craft, development and paradoxes, Freedom and the Right, Decolonisation, Philosophy in the world and worldly philosophy.
Decolonization has been a buzzword in anthropology for decades, but remains difficult to grasp and to achieve. Venkatesan's book Decolonizing Anthropology: An Introduction offers not only a critical examination of approaches to decolonization, but also fresh ways of thinking about the relationship between anthropology and colonialism, and how we might move beyond colonialism’s troubling legacy.
Professor Venkatesan is also the organizer of the meetings of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT), founded by Tim Ingold in Manchester in 1988.