Anthropology And Advocacy

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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One of the most debated issues in anthropology is anthropologic advocacy. From the onset of the subject, it is understood that anthropology mainly entails understanding the world. On the other hand, the term advocacy means pursuit of a given interest. Anthropology advocacy may be an emerging branch of anthropology but it has already raised so much controversy. Is it the role of anthropologist to try and change the world, or does their role just ends with merely understanding the world? Should anthropologists work as advocates for rights of minority groups they strive to understand and does this compromise their objectivity? There are endless questions that ought to be answered in exploration of subject of anthropology and advocacy.
Karl Max, who was one of the renowned wise men who shaped the world, once said that the most important thing about something is not to understand it, but to change it. This means that our understanding of something should not be limited to retaining status quo but we should engage in critical review to assess the positive and negative aspects, and consequently do our best to change the negative ...
... aspects. This means that the mission of understanding something should be to perfect it. In line with this argument, we should reason whether anthropologist should strive for objectivity and how should the scope of this objectivity entail.
Anthropology advocacy is emerging as one of the most important branches of applied anthropology. Advocacy anthropology looks beyond mere understanding of the world to look at the role that anthropologists can play to change the status quo for the communities it has strived to understand over the years. However, while anthropology advocacy appears to be most suitable for the 21st century, there are cracks on the extent of the role that anthropologist should play. Critics argue that it is difficult to deal with anthropology without putting into consideration anthropologic representations. They argue that it is one thing to understand some of the communities and problems they are facing but the issue of advocacy cannot be anthropological in any way. The difference in application of the two terms is that while anthropologist tries to understand the interest of a given community, advocacy entails the pursuit of the community interest. Hastrup and Elsass (1990) argue that anthropology provides a background for anthropologist to engage in advocacy but at the same time, it can become a moral imperative. Hastrup and Elsass (1990) contend that knowledge in anthropology provides anthropologist with important background that can be used in advocacy but advocacy is not ethnographic and in reality, it remains essentially a moral issue. However, it is important to note that Hastrup and Elsass (1990) discussion may be misguided when advocacy is perceived in moral perspectives because even anthropologists have a moral responsibility.
Advocacy in anthropology is supported by different arguments which ranges from pragmatism to fundamental approaches in morality and ethics. Essentially, putting into consideration that anthropologist have moral responsibilities, anthropologist therefore acts as advocates. By merely documenting and communicating the perspective of their informants’ to others, they are playing an important advocacy role. The practice of advocacy is derived from anthropological practices since it is an integral process of representing the view of other people. Thinking in line of this perspective, anthropology is therefore advocacy as it is goal oriented towards presenting view of a given people to the rest of the world.
The mere difference made between anthropology and advocacy is that anthropology ends with collecting and documenting information about communities which may end up in archives. On the other hand, advocacy goes an extra mile from taking this information from archives to the world and call for an action. In the 21st century, it has become difficult for anthropologist to just collect and document information about social groups and led it gather dust in archives.
Scheper-Hughes (1995) who remains one of the most respected anthropologists argues that anthropologists should no longer remain “neutral, dispassionate, cool and rational, objective observer of human condition” (410). She calls anthropologist to be transformed from ‘objective anthropology’ to politically and morally engaged advocacies. Scheper-Hughes has worked as Peace Corps volunteer where she worked in Favel, Brazil, as a political community organizer. When she returned to the Favel twenty years later as an anthropologist, it become difficult to carry out her research and she had to divide her time between anthropological work and as a campaigner. Most anthropologists are finding it their moral duty to call for intervention of a third party to advance the interest of a community they have documented. Advocacy is becoming an integral part of anthropological work. In essence, there is inherent reflexivity in anthropological practices where anthropologists are engaging social problems and political struggles of most people. For example, in Columbia, anthropologies have been turned to advocacies for their communities.
Hastrup and Elsass (1990) argues that advocacy and ethnographic are incompatible. They argue that the main role of anthropologist should be scholarly where they should raise the context awareness among the people and let the people advocate for their own cause. However, most people, especially in the native communities, lack leadership courage and enough connections to advance their cause. Therefore, it may prove a futile exercise for anthropologist so just strive to raise the awareness of communities without leading them.
This line of argument is advanced by Kirsh (2002) who argues that the line of neutrality in anthropology may not assist local communities to advocate for their rights. In his experience with community in Ok Tedi copper and gold mine in Papua New Guinea, he shows that it is difficult for the local community to advocate for their causes because of power imbalance. For a long time, the community in New Papua Guinea has been complaining about environment pollution downstream and has carried out legal and political campaign but they have not been successful due to the influence of the transnational corporation. He argues that anthropologist should not just collect and document data on the struggle of such communities but the need to take an active role in activism to ensure that their causes are addressed.
It is evident that anthropologist hold moral duty to the communities they interact with. The role of anthropologist should not just be collecting and document data about native communities and letting it gather dust in archives. Like Karl Max said, it is important to change something rather than just understand it. The debate on anthropology advocacy shows that those in who do not support advocacy in anthropology argue that it is not the role of anthropologist to campaign for the cause of such communities. Therefore, this paper restates that anthropologist needs to take a central advocacy role to ensure that community causes are addressed.
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