A Case For Why Anthropology Shouldn't Be Handled By Arsonists

 I've been recently troubled by a line of thinking in Anthropology, and this subject is going to require context.  The field I find myself in has a bleak history, and that is putting it very kindly.  We're implicated in supporting such glowing moments in history as racism, eugenics, and colonialism.  So is biology, psychology aaaand most anything else you can think of.  The way the field developed is well within the boundary of Western hegemony which means that, in order to talk about human diversity, we've mainly been doing that based on ideas originating in Europe and held together by a complete dominion over ideas for centuries.  However, built into the history of Anthropology are movements in opposition to this harrowing past.  

I can think of two without needing to dig for references.  

1. Cultural relativisims and structuralism, for instance, were a response to eugenics and racism.  
2. As the basis for Biological Anthropology, Darwin's theory of evolution provided the necessary framework for this subfield to take vital steps in reshaping ideas about what it is to be human in spite of lingering racist ideas.  

In Anthropology, yes, there are a handful of the 'Old Guard' hanging onto tenured positions and archaic beliefs about the best ways to theorize the human condition.  They're dying.  We can't just go shoot them, because murder is a thing.  Besides which, oodles of Anthropologists have been working hard to develop theories and methodology to progress and move the field along.  They've been engaged in the conversation of power and knowledge production, and they're a lot more aware of their own problems than any other field I've studied.  That's worth something to me.

Apparently, that's not good enough.  Of course we have problems to deal with.  I'd struggle to think of a single Anthropologist I've met that would deny that, and there are a lot more than the ones I've mentioned or the ones that follow:

• Yes, that is partly to do with the institutions we've developed in the academic world.  There have been changes to the availability and structure of universities.  Students demanded more power, and they got it.  There are still processes to be recognized as worthy of being heard (I'm an international student, don't start with me).
• Yes, there are problems with having a colonized canon, but I also don't want to rehash the dumb ideas we've had before.  How else do we progress as a discipline if not by acknowledging the discipline we learned by critiquing the ideas of parade of old white guys as opposed to admonishing them for being a product of their time?  
• I came into an Anthropology MA thinking functionalism was the best thing ever cause that's how I was thinking.  Spoiler alert!  It a'int.
• Yes, we have issues of representation and diversity in peer review processes.  In general, I'm not much for the concept of peer review myself, but do we really think that experts in the - many - niche fields that we have on which to publish are going to ever have perfect representation and diversity?  Personally, that sounds naive to me without a myriad of other institutional changes.  
• I had a hard enough time finding a program that could accommodate my topic and I'm really going to expect a reasonable cross section of human variation as my peers?  I'm not seeing it.

Guess what?  Anthropologists haven't been ignoring these problems.  

Guess what else? No one has been able to solve systemic social issues, but I switched disciplines, because I saw the value in the work that Anthropologists do.  No one else had the language or the experience with humility to engage me in a conversation about racism.  Public schools?  I grew up in rural Alberta in a country largely in denial about recent cultural genocide and equivocating bullshit around national reconciliation.  My parents?  They went to the same schools I did under a government that extolled residential schools in their time.  Exactly where else was I going to come into contact with this conversation?  You want to try to tell me that there's nothing worth saving and we should let it burn?  Wow...

Guess what else...again?  In the interview I read and the article thereafter, the author specifically avoids offering to expand on solutions or ways to address the very valid problems raised.  Now, I like to think of myself as a problem solver, and I've yet to locate a solution to a problem by pointing at one and exclaiming about it in the context of a crisis.  It's not the most productive thing when we're thinking with fire about the possibility of being rendered obsolete as a discipline.

For some context, I turned away from Psychology, at least in part, for the criticism leveled on Anthropology by this person.  So, let's speak in largely unspecific terms, for the time being, while I make a metaphorical case for burning things down like we have a bit more sense.  There are a few reasons for this:

1. I really enjoy burning things.  
1. Y'all can ask my Mother.  She'll tell you stories.
2. I have this crazy idea about academic responsibility, and I expect better from people with Ph. D. after their name.

Here's the logic behind occasionally burning things down (take note that I did not phrase this as letting things burn, because there is a difference).  Fires are the harbingers of new growth.  In fact, some forests require fire in order to stay healthy.  There are acorns that won't go to seed without fire, and variety in forest stages is a foundational element of ecosystem success.  In addition, there are burning practices that have been passed down in indigenous communities all over the planet.  There are some great stories about colonial governments ignoring indigenous communities and getting literally getting burnt.  I have a weird sense of humour, so you'll have to go with me on this, because that's incredibly funny.  I come back around to feeling harrowed, because I'm interested in people that deny climate change.  

Moving on!

Yes a fire can rip through a trailer park like they're nothing, and they can cause losses that humans find devastating.  I worked in insurance during the Fort McMurray fires in Alberta which cost over 9 billion in damages.  This was during a time when the province was recovering from years of infrastructure cuts under the UCP, so our fire fighters were stretched thin.  There were literally volunteers coming in to help us - it was amazing.  This was during a time when large scale fires were becoming a trend that I needed to talk about when I was talking about house insurance premiums.  This was during a time that Summer fire bans or restrictions were common.  Wanna know what happened?  Humans let unkempt final stage forests grow right up to the edge of the city over the course of many years.  Then we had the nerve to be surprised when a fire tore through a major economic hub due to some human being an idiot with a spark.  

It doesn't take much to create a national tragedy.  Though, I'd argue that neglect takes a certain kind of work, because it's not like no one raised concerns about the problems.  It's not like there weren't ways to manage the risk.  It feels odd to say this, but no one advocated for letting Fort McMurray burn to the ground just because it was poised to be on fire.

Here's the big take away message I have for you.  Fire can be a very good thing if it's done with intention.  Intention requires an acknowledgement of the problems and an imagining the kind of future we ought to create.  From there, we can actually have the conversation we need to have about things that need to happen.  I'm advocating for a controlled burn in order to come out of this conversation with something other than complete destruction followed by sprouts that we can't know how or why to nurture.  Running around setting things on fire cause they a'int doing exactly what we want exactly the way we want it doesn't mean there's nothing worth saving before tossing it in the burn bin, and it staggers the fuck out of me that I need to say that.  

Wanna know the really funny thing about this to me?  I think that anthropology is operating within a controlled burn already, because I've seen professors respond to student concerns about decolonizing syllabi, and I've seen anthropologists participating in activism, and I've read from authors like bell hooks and Vine Deloria who have dope slapped Anthropology and inspired a new generation.  Now, we have advocates for arson rather than a unified effort to continue the hard and necessary work we have to do.  

If we're going to set fires, let's do so carefully and with intention.