ANTH 303 Anthropological Theory
Introduction: One view of contemporary theory

I acknowledge that St FX is in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People.

10 Sept. 2018 What is theory? READ: Glick Schiller, Nina (2016) “Positioning theory: An introduction” Anthropological Theory 16(2-3): 133-145.

Task for next class: Review several issues of recent anthropological journals (e.g. Anthropologica, American Ethnologist, Human Organization, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Canadian Journal of Archaeology, Antiquity) especially those dealing with the subjects you are most interested in, if you have identified a favourite subject area (e.g. North American archaeology, anthropology of development, indigenous studies, etc.). Glance through five or more articles to see what theorists they cite. Again, especially concentrate on the articles that seem most interesting to you. Make a list of these.

Effective reading: (link to annotated bibliography resources: http://stfx.libguides.com/c.php?g=101558&p=658461)
    - what is the purpose of the work?
        - is it an academic article? (i.e. in a refereed journal; has an argument; presents evidence that is analysed using definitions, concepts, theory; takes the form of an essay)
            - is it an academic review article?
        - a report? (i.e. simply presents information, with perhaps a conclusion based on evidence, but is not a theoretically analysed work)
        - a polemical article? (i.e. is an argument, but tends to be light on the evidence and analysis)
        - a popular press article? (i.e. is in a newspaper or magazine; tends to present information in accessible language)
    - related to the above question is to ask why you are reading the article, or why your professor chose it – in the latter case, use cues from the course outline; for example, if it is in a section called “theory,” then you can assume that the work is being used to represent a specific theory
    [since most of what you will read in this course is academic, the rest of the questions assume that]
    - what is the argument? (Look for words like “argument,” “suggest,” “takes the view,” etc.)
    - what is the type of evidence being used?
    - what assumptions are made, or what definitions and theoretical framework are being used or presented?
    - reflect on the argument and analysis to figure out if you are convinced, or what other implications it might have


The following questions will help guide our discussion as we try to make sense
of theories we examine in this course. In addition, we will apply the theory to the video
shown in the first day of class:

How can this theory be seen as a product of the historical period in which it was created?

What questions does this theory ask?

What information does this theory see as important?

What are other relevant assumptions made by the theory?

How does the theory analyse this information to answer the questions it sees as important?

What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

First: a quick sprint through some themes in the history of anthropological theory
    - 19th century unilineal evolutionary theory and colonialism
    - idealist/social structuralist/materialist theoretical continuum
    - modernist versus post-modernist theory

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)