Call for papers
Co-convenor
Chandana Mathur
Department of anthropology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
Vesna Vucinic-Neskovic
Department of Ethnology and Anthropology
University of Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
Many anthropology departments in universities around the world have historically grown out of sociology departments. Many others face the prospect of being consolidated into sociology departments in an era of shrinking academic budgets. Furthermore, anthropology departments are often lacking in many postcolonial contexts, and what we would recognise as anthropology is taught and practised within sociology departments.
What are the intellectual consequences of the often intimate and sometimes fraught institutional relationships between the disciplines of anthropology and sociology? Is it the case that ‘good fences make good neighbours’ (to borrow a phrase used ironically by Robert Frost), i.e. is it the case that fruitful exchange only occurs when two clearly distinct disciplines engage each other in conversation? Or does the incessant work of institutional boundary maintenance obstruct the way into the social understandings that anthropologists and sociologists alike are groping for? What are the histories and strategies of various world anthropological traditions in this regard?