At the Crossroads of Modernity: Critical Anthropology in Contemporary Europe

This article addresses anthropological involvement in a political sphere constituted by the politicization of “difference” in European modernity projects, and in this context, especially conflicts related to gender, sexuality, race, nationality/ethnicity, or religious beliefs, which result in visions of antagonized, political Others. The author refers to the autoethnographic perspective and discusses her own disciplinary practices from the mid-nineties to today, pointing to the positive and negative sides of those practices. She first discusses the idea of critical anthropology as an element of academic activist debates within gender and queer studies. Then she looks at a more academic position, which makes critical anthropology into an instrument for creating images of a better future. Ultimately, she advocates a vision of critical anthropology that focuses on affective agency, thanks to which conflicting factions may perceive shared experiences and feelings. She does not assume that this kind of critical engagement is capable of bringing about broader social or political change, but believes it could make a contribution to acceptance of the Other on the micro-scale.