Description of Group “Applying Anthropology to supranational networks and systems.”
Members of this group share ideas about the evolution of cultural systems above the level of states. Upon observing the network of corporations that dominated the mining systems in southern Africa in the 1960s Alvin Wolfe described what he saw as a “supranational system”resulting from the interaction of political states and business corporations.
As this evolution proceeded throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, business firms became wealthier and more powerful while states, themselves corporations that depended more on their populations than on their capital, weakened.
During this same period theories and methods to study complex networks evolved to the point that understanding supranational systems is now possible and anthropology is the discipline that should be doing so. After all, this is culture, and culture is our business.
Comments
Alvin -- Art's comments are well taken. Personally I'm not so invested in protecting the discipline as I am in using our theories and methods to solve problems, but I definitely agree that we need to do that on a global level. I view my very local work as combatting the impacts of the globalization of the food system -- sort of building an alternative to some small degree. And if anthropologists are to seriously be engaged in the policy conversation at the global level, perhaps we should be providing opportunities for students to "cut their policy teeth" at the local level first. Just some thoughts....I usually find myself and my interests to be marginal to most anthropological discourse!
Thanks, Merrill, for your very interesting and important comment on the food system which, although local in so many respects, has important supranational aspects.
I received your comments just as I was about to enter an earlier response I had received from Art Gallaher well before we started this SfAA Community Group.
You may recall that before we started this SfAA Community Group“ I had wondered not only why network scholars had devoted so little attention to supranational networks constituted of such powerful corporations that even the United States, the most powerful state in the world, is clearly yielding some of its sovereignty to it, and also, as an anthropologist wondering why anthropologists have paid so little attention to the close connections among corporations and states in the continuing evolution of culture. I said that I think network studies of complex societies are crucial, and that anthropologists should be involved.
Art Gallaher, a past president of SfAA and a former chancellor of the University of Kentucky which has a great place in the history of applied anthropology responded to my concerns on July 16, 2013:
“Al, I agree with you, and when I get my short-story volume in the mail, I'll be back to you.
“;(1) You are hitting a nerve for me, always there, as you know from my work, and more intense after spending a long period in university administration. Anthropologists should be involved in all aspects of our culture; if we were, we would be in a more defensible posture to protect our discipline in the enormous changes that lie ahead for higher education;
“(2) we are missing so much on the globalization of institutional areas, mainly because we cannot break free of our propensity for micro-analysis;
“(3) We, who should know more than anyone on the historical growth and decline of urbanization, hardly mention it today;
“(4) We have had little to say about the formation, and now the decline, of the "nation state construct, and possible consequences thereof: rise of fundamentalism; emergence of urban clusters world-wide that are inching toward city-state provenience; and the developing interest in regional alliance theory, such as Canada-U.S.-Mexico, in what Robert A. Pastor calls "The North American Idea;" and
“(5) why in hell are we making so little effort to make applied anthropology known to potential clients?”
Hopefully, when Art finishes his volume of short stories, we will hear much more from him!
I should mention that this work grows out of a $16 million grant we received from the CDC to create policy and systems change that prevents obesity. Another thing that we started with this grant is the Pima County Food Alliance, another more formal network of folks from all sectors of the food system (production, manufacturing, marketing, distribution etc.) who are also deeply involved in our planning and zoning work. I wrote all of this up and it will be in PA's January issue....if you are interested....
Alvin - my work is at the local level and is very applied -- so one of the things I've been involved in is working with community groups to establish networks that have can have an impact on local policy development. I'm deeply involved with folks who engage in "urban agriculture" including keeping chickens, small goats, etc. for food purposes. This work has been highly effective and over 400 households are currently participating in the development of zoning codes that support local food production. The city utilizes our network to gather information and feedback on draft regulations....we are now gearing up to use the network to engage the opponents of urban ag (mostly neighborhood NIMBY-type folks, but they do raise some reasonable questions...) to find common ground. In our case the players are city government, proponents of food sustainability (including but not limited to our 400+ families who are members of CLUCKS, a facebook group where our communication occurs), and a network of neighborhood organizations throughout the city. I'm not sure how relevant this work is to your ore global interests, but I've been a fan of network theory ever since Bert Pelto introduced it to me as a student back in the 1980s and I do want to follow your discussion.
Thanks, Alejandra, for your comment. Although my interest is much more in the networks of states and business corporations, I look forward to your comments about NGOs. A little more than a year ago, when the AAA NGO Special Interest Group was starting a bibliography on NGO studies I wrote to them sevearl times inquiring why they limited their studies to non-profit organizations when it is quite obvious that the interaction of profitable corporations and state governments are much more influntial in the world (supranational system). I never received a reply from any of their many members. I look forward to your participation in this SfAA group on "applying anthropology ato supranational networks."
Hi, my PhD research is on conservationists working in Central Africa. I used snowball sampling to track networks across countries of work and nationalities. I'm interested in finding common models of conservation among conservationists of different nationalities. I also looked at the role of international NGOs in shaping shared discourse about protected areas.
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