Culture, Identity and the Project of a Cosmopolitan Anthropology
Author(s)
Kuper, Adam
Abstract
There is a curious tendency, particularly marked in American cultural anthropology, to combine elements of the post-modernist programme with a radical political engagement. Though insisting that nothing can be known for certain, and certainly that ethnographers have no independent authority, some argue that nevertheless authentic — and preferred — native voices may be identified, articulating the genuine sentiments and aspirations of a people. This premise opens the way for an obvious challenge: if it is true, then only the native can speak for the native. The foreign ethnographer would then be merely an interpreter, a medium. As the study of ethnicity moves to the centre of the anthropological agenda, these assumptions must be urgently questioned. That requires a reassessment of the nature and purpose of ethnography.
