SUSANA MATOS VIEGASPORTUGUSE 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.