Download SUSANA MATOS VIEGAS

SUSANA MATOS VIEGAS
PORTUGUSE ASSOCIATION OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
CONTEMPORARY WAYS OF
PRODUCING AND EVALUATING
KNOWLEDGE
– WHAT ABOUT ANTHROPOLOGY?


COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS ON A
GLOBAL LEVEL:

EVALUATION OF SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE

THE PROFILES OF THE
ANTHROPOLOGISTS

EVALUATION OF SCIENTIFIC
KNOWLEDGE

1. Action on a Global Level
- Cooperation: debating what are our
singularities.

2. Focusing on publication issues.
– Authorship; ethnography and monographs;
books and journals: against using the model
of natural sciences.
- our native language and English.
- Global debate: Empowering the specificity
of anthropological knowledge.

3. What are the consequences?
- Jobs, grants, funding for universities and
research;
- comparison of production between different
disciplines – politics of science.

PROFILES OF THE ANTHROPOLOGISTS

Assuming that anthropology is not:
a) a predefined profession;
b) a subject in which academic knowledge can not
be conceived out of social actions/engagement.
Assuming that
c) we should use our methodological tools in order
to know ourselves – open and semi-structured
interviews; - evaluating the final results in
comparative perspectives on a global level.


a) THE FIELDS OF KNOWLEDGE AND INSTITUTIONS

What are these fields and institutions in the
contemporary world?
How are they different from what they were
10/20 years ago?
Did we reach for instance Ngo demands?
Demands for understanding social life/cultural
issues?



b) ANTHROPOLOGY AS ENGAGEMENT
- Academic research as engaged anthropology
- What types of research are anthropologist doing in
the Universities?
– “Applied” research as part of academic research
(eg. immigration, religion, social impact in areas that
will be flooded by hydroelectric-power barrage,
promoting gender equality)

c) METHODOLOGY
- Interviews (e-mail)
i) details on the different types of professional
jobs;
ii) how is the training in anthropology being
adapted to different types of activities?
- Comparison as part of the analysis (anthropology
in Europe, different situations/traditions worldwide)

Global cooperation in the research on
contemporary profiles of anthropologists.

FINAL GOAL: disseminate the knowledge of
what anthropologists do – its role in different
contemporary professional fields.