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Association for Feminist Anthropology
Oral Presentation Session
Jamie Shenton
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Centre College
At its most basic, anthropology asks us to consider all perspectives as potentially valid. In introductory classrooms, this usually takes the form of lessons on cultural relativism. Intrigued by the initial luster of relativism, students are attuned to relativism’s many cousins: ethnocentrism, self-reflexivity, and multiplicity. The parallels of multiplicity, ethnocentrism, relativism, and reflexivity, to diversity, privilege, intersectionality, and positionality—or cornerstone concepts of social justice conversations—are striking. Through developing a critical perspective on the familiar, and a critical appreciation for that which they may not know or understand, students of the introductory classroom develop what might be called intersubjective empathy. Intersubjective empathy emerges only through engagement with others. For the work of an anthropologist to be done properly, this engagement must be deep, attentive, collaborative, and selfless; the work is ongoing. Many describe allyship in the same way. Intersubjective empathy is necessary for any justice-minded folks interested in a more equitable society. Though our discipline has yet to (and may never) resolve the power imbalances that have been a struggle since our earliest days, the study of cultural anthropology, and the intersubjective empathy that materializes from this study, are invaluable tools for students interested in applying their appreciation for sameness and difference among human communities to their work making the world a more just place. Through modeling self-reflexivity and “anti-ethnocentric” assignments and content that ask students to deconstruct their own privileged positions, anthropologist-instructors become allies beyond the “armchair.”