Soumhya Venkatesan

The concept of neoliberalism has become an obstacle to the anthropological understanding of the twenty?first century

The following discussion developed from a debate held on the motion: ?The concept of neoliberalism has become an obstacle to the anthropological understanding of the twenty-first century?, held at the 2012 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT) at the University of Manchester. The debate was organized and edited for publication by Soumhya Venkatesan. A full transcription of the debate is hosted on the JRAI website: http://www.jrai.net; a full podcast of the debate can be heard at the Talking Anthropology website: http://www.talkinganthropology.com/2013/01/18/ta45-gdat1-neoliberalism/#t=2:49:40.219.

The anthropological fixation with reciprocity leaves no room for love. 2009 meeting of GDAT

Two spectres haunt the debate this year, the motion of which is ‘the anthropological fixation with reciprocity leaves no room for love’. The first is that oft-encountered bugbear ‘ethnocentrism’ – Jeanette Edwards asks: ‘Could it be that the search by some anthropologists for love, the determination to find love in the ethnographic record, is because they are also in love with the idea of love?’ In other words, are some anthropologists fixated on love because of its important place in the Euro-American tradition and in ideologies of the individual? A converse trend is the concern that forms or expressions of romantic love in various non-Western locales are influenced by (or even a product of) Westernization and globalization. Critique of Anthropology 31(3) 210–250 ! The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0308275X11409732 coa.sagepub.com

There is no such thing as the good: The 2013 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory

This comprises the edited proceedings of the 2013 debate on the motion “There is no such thing as the good” held at the University of Manchester.

Attention to infrastructure offers a welcome reconfiguration of anthropological approaches to the political

This constitutes the edited proceedings of the 2015 meeting of the Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory held at Manchester.

The Group for Debates in Anthropological Theory (GDAT), The University of Manchester: The 2011 annual debate – Non-dualism is philosophy not ethnography

Does the concept of non-dualism have ethnographic purchase or is it mainly of philosophical interest? This article comprises the edited presentation and discussions of the 2011 GDAT debate on the motion ‘Non-dualism is Philosophy not Ethnography’. The debaters proposing the motion were Michael Scott and Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov. They were opposed by Christopher Pinney and Joanna Cook. Marilyn Strathern acted as jester – playfully and rigorously engaging with all four speakers. The presentations and the discussions that followed were wide ranging, lively and stimulating.

Sometimes Similar, Sometimes Dangerously Different: Exploring Resonance, Laminations and Subject-Formation in South India

This paper explores the ways in which particular individuals or groups are cast as problematically other at certain times by exploring the relationship between empathy and antipathy – identified as products of ‘resonance’, or a certain kind of responsiveness to embodied encounters with others and also to concerns, ideas and discourses that originate locally or from elsewhere. Consequent effects on subject-formation and affordances of social possibilities are explored through an intensive focus on one Muslim man. The notion of a ‘laminated subjectivity’ is presented and elucidated. The paper draws on ethnography conducted in a Tamil town and is set against the backdrop of Hindu–Muslim relations in India.