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Abstract
Drawing on work with a human rights NGO in Malawi, this article considers the politics of anthropological knowledge production in Africa in the wake of Laura Nader’s classic essay. First, I briefly elaborate on the role of scalar metaphors (namely ‘studying up’) in the anthropologist’s toolkit, with special focus on how such metaphors might stabilize a normative mode of critique as negative orientation to objects of study. I then analyse two vignettes drawn from my collaboration with an NGO to show how activists and peer educators interpret and analyse their circumstances – studying ‘up, down, and sideways’ – to navigate local landscapes through which increasingly diverse resources, people, and ideas circulate. Throughout, I analyse my dual role as critic and participant in the apparatus, and conclude by suggesting that the enduring power of ‘studying up’ lies in its invitation to view social problems – in Africa or elsewhere – from various angles, and to learn from our interlocutors how individuals and communities make life more liveable. Reflection on the changing circumstances of ‘studying up’ in Africa today from the perspective of an anthropologist of and in NGOs highlights the division of interpretive labour among diverse actors and destabilizes normative definitions of scholarly critique.
Cet article, en se fondant sur des travaux avec une ONG de défense des droits de l’homme au Malawi, examine la politique de production du savoir anthropologique en Afrique à la suite de l'essai classique de Laura Nader. Tout d'abord, j'élabore brièvement sur le rôle des métaphores scalaires (à savoir «étudier vers le haut») dans la boîte à outils de l'anthropologue, en mettant particulièrement l’accent sur la façon dont ces métaphores peuvent stabiliser un mode normatif de la critique comme orientation négative envers des objets d'étude. J'analyse alors deux vignettes tirées de ma collaboration avec une ONG pour montrer comment militants et homologues éducateurs interprètent et analysent leur circonstances - étudiant « vers le haut, vers le bas et en travers » - pour naviguer dans les paysages locaux à travers lesquels des ressources, personnes et idées de plus en plus diverses circulent. Tout au long de cet article, j'analyse mon double rôle en tant que critique et participant au dispositif, et je conclue en suggérant que l’inépuisable pouvoir de l’« étude vers le haut» réside dans son invitation à voir les problèmes sociaux – en Afrique ou ailleurs – sous différents angles, et à apprendre de nos interlocuteurs comment les individus et les communautés rendent la vie plus vivable. La réflexion sur l'évolution des circonstances de «l'étude vers le haut» dans l'Afrique d'aujourd'hui du point de vue d'un anthropologue (au sein) des ONGs met en évidence la division du travail d'interprétation entre les divers acteurs et déstabilise les définitions normatives de la critique savante.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the editors of this special issue, colleagues in this special issue, audiences at the 2013 Annual Meetings of the AAA and at the Symposium on Gender and Sexuality in Africa at Yale University in 2015, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this paper. Thanks also to Gift Trapence, Wanja Ngure, Victor Gama, and other colleagues in Malawi for helpful conversations and support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Names of people, organizations, and places in this article are anonymized.
2. While Nader's title and catchphrase (‘up the anthropologist,’ ‘studying up’) are often interpreted to imply a kind of hierarchical verticality, she herself suggests in the essay the importance of studying ‘up, down, or sideways,’ noting that her call to study those in power is not ‘an either/or proposition’ (292). ‘Studying up’ does not entail a methodological gaze directed only upwards, but is one among ‘eclectic’ methods (and metaphors) that enable anthropologists to explore relationships and connections between people and institutions (293). Grandia (Citation2015) notes that many who invoke Nader's essay read no further than its catchy title, therefore assuming too simplistic a notion of ‘up.’
3. Graeber (Citation2012) considers imaginative identification with others as interpretive labour, and I borrow his definition in this paper. He suggests that within relations of domination, it is the subordinates who shoulder the burden of the work of understanding how social relations work, and how to survive their inherent violence. His ideas here borrow heavily from feminist standpoint theory.
4. MSM is a public health term that emphasizes sexual behaviours without assuming gay identification. Some critique its presumed neutrality on the grounds that it undermines self-determination (Young and Meyer Citation2005). Women who have sex with women (WSW) is likewise a public health term. McKay (Citation2016) shows how the MSM category has diffused into policy and interventions, yet fails to map onto lived experience across the capacious communities it aims to represent.
5. Nader's call for a more democratic and public anthropology aligned with social change prefigured the rise of anthropology’s normative concern with suffering others, and its alignment with the powerless. Nyamnjoh (Citation2015) critiques the present-day anthropologist’s evangelical commitment to ‘saving souls and giving back’ (59), and calls for re-evaluation of the ‘unsubstantiated, emancipatory commitment’ (61) he deems detrimental to theory-building in the discipline.