Antro Radikoj

About the project

What is anthropological knowledge and theory, where is it produced, and by whom? For many years, anthropologists have been struggling, on many fronts, to tackle the multiple inequalities that exist within our discipline and the wider academic landscape in which it is embedded. Slowly but surely, marginal voices in and around the anthropological powerhouses of the world, mostly located in the so-called ‘Global North’, are getting more recognition. Because of the ways in which global academia is currently structured, however, it is much more difficult to spotlight anthropological insights produced by anthropologists outside the hegemonic centers. Changing this would require a radical makeover of the systems of knowledge production and circulation.

Antro Radikoj aims to tackle this issue by starting modestly and by facilitating changes to something most anthropologists still largely control themselves, namely what and how they teach. As part of the ongoing process of ‘decanonizing’ the curriculum, we want to focus our attention on anthropological theorizing outside the hegemonic centers. This serves as a long overdue corrective to what is conventionally taught in anthropology curricula across the world. Shifting the focus to the so-called ‘periphery’, not as a place from where knowledge is merely extracted but where knowledge is also actively produced, means amplifying voices (in languages other than the currently dominant English) and spotlighting conceptual frameworks and insights that are usually silenced. Not only is decanonization intellectually stimulating and enriching, but it also helps us disentangle the power dynamics involved in knowledge production, circulation, and consumption in general.

Antro Radikoj will include weekly questions to invite people into the debates at the core of decanonization processes. What we expect is that anthropology teachers who find these questions and debates compelling will respond with interest and enthusiasm for this project and we will begin to build our collaboration to include more scholars that represent the diversity of anthropology as a discipline or disciplines around the world.

Project Members

Noel B. Salazar holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He is Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven, Belgium, where he founded the Cultural Mobilities Research (CuMoRe) cluster. Salazar is editor of the Berghahn Worlds in Motion book series, co-editor of eight edited volumes and eight special issues, and author of Momentous Mobilities (2018), Envisioning Eden (2010) and numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on (im)mobility, heritage, and travel. He is secretary-general of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), past president of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) and founder of AnthroMob, the EASA Anthropology and Mobility Network. Salazar serves as expert member for the European Parliament’s Committee on Transport and Tourism, the ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee, and the UNESCO-UNITWIN Network ‘Culture, Tourism and Development’. In 2013, he was elected as member of the Young Academy of Belgium.

Emily M Metzner holds a PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Metzner serves on the Publishing Council of the World Council of Anthropological Associations and on the Members Programmatic, Advisory, and Advocacy Committee of the American Anthropological Association in the World Anthropologies Seat and as the incoming Sub-Chair of the Committee. She is an Adjunct Professor in Anthropology at Western Connecticut State University, USA.

Heather O'Leary holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Minnesota, USA. She is an Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of South Florida, USA, where she directs the EcoFem Lab--a research hub that explores social and material dimensions of extractivism. O'Leary has several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on the intersection of environment, social difference, and discourse. O'Leary has served as the Head of the Council of Scientific Commissions of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) and as an expert of water and society for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the International Science Committee.