Glick Schiller, Nina (2016) “Positioning theory: An introduction” Anthropological Theory 16(2-3): 133-145.
Some key concepts and positions from this reading:
- Glick Schiller, and the other contributors to this issue of Anthropological Theory, see theory as political
- specifically, theory should address issues of social justice,
understand inequality, work to decolonize the discipline, and seek to
be inclusive
- “theory from and for everybody”
- theory should not emanate only from European modes of thinking
- theory should be glocal
- theory should be accessibly written
- theory should arise from careful observation, and should approximate reality
- critical understanding of “science” and of “reality”
-
reject notion of incommensurable cultural distinctiveness (“the
ontological turn;” “worlding”); rather, theory should recognize
commonalities, “shared human capacity to experience, understand, and
communicate with others that has not been articulated by Euro-American
universalisms” (p. 136)
- argue that understandings are politically positioned, thus,
need to understand who does theory, and who it is for
- theory should have the goal of achieving social justice (futurity)