This is an edited and abridged combination of
materials that appeared in several articles on
this topic on
Zero Anthropology.
“We are America; we are the
indispensable nation.
We stand tall and we see further than other
countries into the future.”
(Madeleine
Albright, US Secretary of State, 1998)
Is there a Canadian anthropology or is it just
anthropology in Canada? If it is “anthropology
in Canada,” then from where has it been
imported? If what we are doing is primarily US
anthropology, then what are we importing when we
do US anthropology in Canada? How do we do US
anthropology in Canada? Does challenging US
hegemony imply nationalism and, if so, does
nationalism imply reactionary politics? Is US
imperialism active in academia? Was US
anthropology ever really imposed? Is there a
Canadian epistemology? These are just some of
the questions that tend to be downplayed or
pushed to the side in the actual practice of
anthropology in Canadian universities. An
anthropological study of anthropology itself
should instead bring these questions back to the
foreground, and not treat them as taboo topics.
In this analysis, “anthropology in Canada” is
held as distinct from Canadian anthropology,
the latter being the focus of
another
article on the ZAP site. The aim is to
invite meditation on questions of national
traditions; the power to globalize a claim to
pre-eminence over other national traditions; the
capital deployed in and acquired from
academic-political conflict; and, questions of
intellectual independence. The ultimate aim of
this project is to renew discussion of what a
Canadian anthropology would mean, born in the
shadow of US cultural and academic imperialism.
What is Academic Imperialism?
The definition of academic imperialism used by
the ZAP is one that comes from two different
sources, and can be seen as a subset of cultural
imperialism. One definition involves modifying
Oliver Boyd-Barrett’s definition of media
imperialism (2015, p. 1), by adapting it to
academia. As a result, the definition would look
something like the following:
(1) that processes of imperialism are in
various senses executed and/or promoted by
and through academic structures and
knowledge production;
(2) that academic institutions and scholars,
the meanings they produce and distribute and
the political-economic processes that
sustain them, are shaped by and through
ongoing processes of empire building and
maintenance, and they carry the residues of
empires that once were; and,
(3) that there is academic behaviour that in
and of itself and without reference to
broader or more encompassing frameworks may
be considered imperialistic.
In other words, academic work can function to
serve actual imperialist projects; and/or
academic work may structurally resemble
imperialism; and/or, academic subject matter was
itself either created or enabled by a history of
imperialism.
Another, closely related approach came from
Johan Galtung’s exposition of “scientific
colonialism” (with a special focus on
metropolitan anthropology—see Galtung, 1967),
which then formed part of his “structural theory
of imperialism” (Galtung, 1971), when he called
it “scientific imperialism”. Scientific
imperialism focus on the division of labour
between “teachers” and “learners,” and in
particular it focuses on the location of the
(master) teachers and the (subservient)
learners. As he explained: “If the Center always
provides the teachers and the definition of that
worthy of being taught (from the gospels of
Christianity to the gospels of Technology), and
the Periphery always provides the learners, then
there is a pattern which smacks of imperialism”
(Galtung, 1971, p. 93). What we have then is an
approach similar to point #3 in the modified
Boyd-Barrett definition above.
Subservience also plays a role in Galtung’s
theory: “The satellite nation in the Periphery
will also know that nothing flatters the Center
quite so much as being encouraged to teach, and
being seen as a model, and that the Periphery
can get much in return from a humble,
culture-seeking strategy” (1971, p. 93). Without
the active collaboration of the importers of
knowledge, the recipients of instruction from
the masters in the metropolis, the system would
not function. This is another critically
important fact of academic imperialism: it is
not simply imposed by force (outside of strictly
colonial settings); rather, it is usually
facilitated, encouraged, adopted, and its
contents and methods are imitated.
Finally, completing the picture of academic
imperialism, and with special reference to
anthropology, Galtung examined metropolitan
academia’s extraction of information from
satellite nations, with all value-added
occurring in the metropolis. The finished
products—books, journals, and so forth—are then
exported back, at higher cost, to the satellite
nations from where the information was mined,
and are used as teaching materials (1971, pp.
93–94).
In his earlier article, Galtung spoke of
“scientific colonialism,” which he defined as
follows:
“Scientific colonialism is that process
whereby the centre of gravity for the
acquisition of knowledge about the nation is
located outside the nation itself. There are
many ways in which this can happen. One is
to claim the right of unlimited access to
data from other countries. Another is to
export data about the country to one’s own
home country to have it processed there and
turned out as ‘manufactured goods,’ as books
and articles” (1967, p. 30).
Canadian Universities as Retail Outlets for the
US
The “Americanist tradition” has been reproduced
in Canada in terms of the structuring of the
leading anthropology departments according to
the US discipline’s four fields of archaeology,
linguistic, cultural and biological/physical
anthropology. This is the case with university
departments that function as virtual outposts,
or bridgeheads, of the US master discipline,
particularly at the University of Toronto,
McGill University, and the University of British
Columbia. Historically, the departments at these
institutions, which garner the bulk of research
funding in anthropology in Canada, were staffed
by faculty trained at the elite US
institutions—the Rockefeller “centers of
excellence”. When they host conferences of the
Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA), it
appears that to make it worth their while they
inevitably feel the need to “partner” the
meetings with those of a US counterpart, such as
the American Ethnological Society (AES). Such
institutions sometimes share staff with US
associations, such as the case of
Monica Heller at the University of
Toronto who served as the president of the
American Anthropological Association, with all
of her degrees gained in the US. At
McGill, fully 70% of the anthropology
faculty obtained their PhDs in the US, and a
number of them are US immigrants. At the
University of Toronto, among its
Graduate Faculty category in the
Department of Anthropology, the proportion of US
PhDs is 54%—lower than that at McGill, but also
because they have tended to hire more British
PhDs. At
UBC, the proportion of US PhDs in the
Department of Anthropology is 48%. It should be
noted that other, more peripheral anthropology
programs in Canada tend to be partnered with
sociology and thus lack independent departmental
status—there are at least 11 such joint
Sociology-Anthropology departments in Canada,
out of a total of 47 anthropology programs in
Canada. (Statistics presented above were valid
as of 2016.)
In
Canada, academic employment announcements always
carry the obligatory legal statement that
Canadian citizens and Canadian permanent
residents will be given preference in hiring.
Within university administrations, there are
procedures that must be followed for justifying
a non-Canadian hire. Yet, somehow, we still have
a large portion of US citizens hired by Canadian
anthropology departments, especially in the
large urban centres, not to mention university
administrations staffed by US personnel—at the
same time as we have a high rate of unemployment
for Canadian PhDs. Our total number of
universities for all of Canada (population 34
million in 2016) was
98—while California (population 38
million in 2016) alone had
157 universities. This is an unusual
case of “reverse brain drain”—the “brains” flow
from the metropolis to the satellite in this
case, and occupy key positions to the exclusion
of local “brains” that have no similar
opportunities in the metropolis. While
structurally unequal, Canada is somehow expected
to serve as a safety valve for either rising
academic unemployment in the US and/or a place
of privileged exile for the politically
discontented.
In
2011, the Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA)
released a very important, even unprecedented,
survey of anthropology in Canada—which I have
digitized and made available online.
In terms of the hiring of anthropologists with
Canadian PhDs, the survey found that out of 306
respondents (this is roughly half the number of
anthropology professors in Canada), 168 had
earned their PhDs in Canada, while 138 had
earned them abroad. This means that, overall,
54% of those interviewed had Canadian PhDs. Just
over 25% had US PhDs, with the remainder
representing PhDs obtained elsewhere. However,
as we saw above, these proportions are not the
same when we consider the leading, core
anthropology departments in the major Canadian
urban centres—responsible for teaching the
majority of Canada’s anthropology undergraduates
(4,000 such students exist in any given year, on
average, for the first decade of the 2000s).
Notes on the “Sales Representative”
US
symbolic dominion today does not come about as a
result of a brute imposition, in most cases.
Instead, US paradigms become locally dominant
outside of the US, thanks to various “carriers”
and their relations of dependency with the US,
which retains the power to consecrate its local
acolytes. Researchers in the dominated countries
derive “material and symbolic profits…from a
more or less assumed or ashamed adherence to the
model derived from the USA” (Bourdieu & Wacquant,
1999, p. 46). Here Bourdieu and Wacquant broach
the subject of collaborating elites, the
“mystified mystifiers”. One of the lessons
taught by these carriers, is about how to
consume the right knowledge.
In
terms of the consumption of knowledge, most if
not all Canadian anthropology programs
essentially serve a retail function for
US-produced and US-published anthropology, first
and foremost. This ranges from the core texts
that students are required to purchase, to
journal articles assigned as readings, to
documentary films purchased by libraries, and
even the study of research ethics can borrow
from the American Anthropological Association.
To say that US anthropology in Canada is
hegemonic is virtually an understatement. For
the most part, Canadian anthropology is actually
just anthropology in Canada, and most of
that is US anthropology, and secondly British
anthropology.
Lecturers in anthropology in Canada can be
readily compared with the figures of the “sales
representative,” or perhaps something akin to
altar servers or what Bourdieu (1990, p. 116)
referred to as “lectors”. The point is that the
Canadian figure plays a supportive role, not
normally a commanding one, regardless of how
much that person has published on a given topic.
Deference tends to follow in one direction
primarily: away from Canada and toward the US.
As sales reps for US anthropology, Canada-based
academics seek out taxpayer-funded grants to
host their US superiors, who are given pride of
place as keynote speakers at Canadian
conferences, as the feature attraction at
plenary sessions, and are honoured as
distinguished guest lecturers. There is very
little reciprocity in return. The undeniable
pattern of asymmetry is one that facilitates the
extraction of capital (both academic and
financial) away from Canada, while it is
accumulated in the US. The more this happens,
the more it commands itself as something that
must be done, followed, obeyed, because that is
somehow “the nature of the industry”.
The Methods of Mimesis
The
question of how knowledge is produced in the
case of anthropology in Canada takes us to a
broader analysis. This question goes beyond the
structure of the leading university departments
of anthropology in Canada; the composition of
staff in terms of their PhDs and the interlocked
networks of connections those imply; and, the
incessant partnering and correspondence with US
programs. Focusing on socio-cultural
anthropology, the dominant mode of producing
knowledge in Canada is via ethnographic research
done abroad, and secondarily among Indigenous
communities at homes. Such anthropology takes
its inspiration from two imperial tradition: one
stems from the US’ war and post-war paradigm
(whereas in the 1800s and early 1900s, US
anthropology was almost always done “at home,”
and only expanded abroad as the US imperial
state expanded militarily); and the other is the
British colonial tradition. As a consequence,
Canadian graduate students in anthropology may
sometimes appear ambivalent, regretful,
apologetic or even ashamed to admit that their
graduate research “had to be” done in Canada
(usually due to insufficient funding—thus
unfairly shouldering personal blame for that
too). The impact of following US methodology is
that it commits Canadian students to the mission
of scientific colonialism as originally
defined by Galtung above.
How to Challenge Indispensable American
Anthropology?
The
situation affords us numerous options. However,
what it does not afford is numerous persons with
the willingness to choose those options. Lest
anyone protest that we do not offer solutions,
here are just some of the ways we could
challenge the alleged indispensability of US
anthropology in Canada—with more concrete
solutions added in
this
article.
-
We do not actually need to be members of the
AAA, pay dues to that organization, and
participate in its conferences. This world,
and our own nation, is full of academic
associations and conferences, there is no
need to develop a fixation with one alone.
If it is a matter of building your CV, then
surely tenure should give you more reason to
be confident about becoming less dependent.
-
We should try as much as possible to use
texts written by Canadian colleagues,
especially those who are Canadian-trained,
and in any case acquire texts from Canadian
publishers. In addition, with the weakening
of our currency due to periodic commodities
crises, this dependency automatically
increases costs shouldered by our students.
In other words, we need to reduce if not
eliminate our capital exporting function as
retailers for the master discipline.
-
We must critically question the application
of US paradigms, and be wary of following
all of the latest theoretical fads of US
anthropology, by being less innocent about
the powerful interests vested in shaping the
directions of US anthropology, and the
particular social dynamics at play in how
various US cliques formulate solutions to
what they consider problems.
-
We should explore the possibilities for a
long overdue construction of self-reliant
national and regional anthropologies in
Canada. Of course, we also need to consider
a very basic question: why do we have or
need an institutionalized anthropology in
Canada? If the answer is, “because others
have it,” then we are in serious trouble.
-
We should resist attempts by the AAA to
speak for us, and to use Canadian soil as if
it was its own territory, let alone
furnishing the AAA with its top-most
bureaucratic personnel.
“Resource nationalism is readily
applicable
to issues of academic power and academic
capital”
We
here in Canada might perhaps not recognize that
we do indeed have capital—however, being drained
of it almost immediately, we never get a chance
to hold onto it long enough for it to feel like
capital. Resource nationalism is nonetheless
readily applicable to issues of academic power
and academic capital, especially when the
Canadian university is supposed to be a public
university, mandated to serve the public
interest—and that public is only and exclusively
the population of Canadian citizens. While the
nationalism of interest has been lacking for
decades, the resources have not: they consist of
empirical realities mined and materialized by
others, as well as a large body of student
learners, professional societies, publishers and
publications, and universities themselves. If we
had no such capital, we would not have US
academics seeking and acquiring faculty and
administrative positions. The nationalization of
intellectual capital involves diminishing the
role of Canadian academics (or academics in
Canada) as the “salesmen” of empire, turning our
universities into the retail outlets for the
processed goods of the US.
[For more on this topic, read the
background to the ZAP plus “Elements
of Canadian Anthropology” and see the
articles listed under
Canadian Anthropology and Academic
Imperialism.]
References
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1990). Homo Academicus.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Bourdieu, Pierre, & Wacquant, Loic. (1999). “On
the Cunning of Imperialist Reason”. Theory,
Culture & Society, 16(1), 41–58.
Boyd-Barrett, Oliver. (2015). Media
Imperialism. London: Sage.
Forte, Maximilian C. (2016). “US
Anthropology: Political, Professional, Personal,
Imperial”. Zero
Anthropology, January 7.
————— . (2016). “US
Anthropology is Imperial, not Universal”. Zero
Anthropology, January 14.
————— . (2016). “Canadian
Anthropology or US Cultural Imperialism?”. Zero
Anthropology, January 21.
————— . (2016). “Canadian
Anthropology and Cultural Imperialism:
Criticisms”. Zero
Anthropology, May 19.
Galtung, Johan. (1967). “Scientific
Colonialism”. Transition, 30(April-May), 10-15.
————— . (1971). “A Structural Theory of
Imperialism”. Journal of Peace Research,
8(2), 81–117.
