Tag: history

“Anthropology” in The Handbook of Marxism (2022)

by ericamichellelagalisse

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To access a PDF of the book, click here.

Marx relied on anthropology in his logical and historical exposition, and anthropology has long existed in dialectic with Marxism. To study anthropology with Marxist categories or subject Marxism to ethnographic scrutiny, it makes sense to proceed chronologically—the importance of history is something anthropologists and Marxists often agree on. In the process, we consider how philosophical idealism continues to interfere in efforts to build grounded ethnographic theory, yet how ethnography remains a uniquely useful tool to unsettle idealist abstractions that limit Marxist debate itself.

I begin by discussing Marx’s treatment of anthropology in his project to historicize capitalism, then how Marxist theory influenced anthropology: By the middle of the 20th century, the anthropological notion of society was no longer the integrated whole imagined within functionalism, but rather a field characterized by conflict and struggle. Following experiments in material and ecological determinisms, it was feminist and postcolonial revisionings of the “class consciousness” concept that sparked an epistemological debate that informs the politics of ethnography to the present day—insights of the poststructuralist turn may transcend those of Marx, but they also contain them.

I then present my research of anarchist social movements in North America to illustrate the continued utility of anthropology within Marxist theory and practice: In my study of the ethnographic category “good politics”, it becomes clear that people concerned about oppressed identities are not necessarily looking for recognition—as opposed to engaging in “class struggle”, yet insofar as identities are mobilized as property, no amount of intersectionality makes things better for the working class. Insofar as this chapter is staged as an intervention, it is to remind 21st century anthropologists the material importance of knowing their (disciplinary) history, and to challenge the Marxist who still considers identity politics a conundrum to consider applying the materialist method of ethnography.

Lagalisse, Erica. (2022) “Anthropology” in The SAGE Handbook of Marxism (Vol.1-3) edited by Sara Farris, Beverley Skeggs, Alberto Toscano and Svenja Bromberg (London: SAGE)

To order from the publisher, click here.

To access a PDF of the book, click here.

A photo of Erica Lagalisse giving a lecture at a podium; Erica is wearing a hat and the book cover is projected behind.

“Occult Features of Anarchism” LSE Public Lecture (2019)

by ericamichellelagalisse

A podcast version of my public lecture at the London School of Economics, “Presenting Occult Features of Anarchism – With Attention to the Conspiracy of Kings and the Conspiracy of the Peoples” (2019) is available here.

This lecture took place March 20th, 2019, and was chaired by Mathijs Pelkmans of the Anthropology department.

Event description (also available on LSE website):

“Erica Lagalisse explores the relationship of 19th century anarchism with the clandestine fraternity, challenges leftist attachments to atheism, and intervenes in current debates concerning “conspiracy theory”.

In the nineteenth century anarchists were accused of conspiracy by governments afraid of revolution, but in the current century various “conspiracy theories” suggest that anarchists are controlled by government itself. The Illuminati were a network of intellectuals who argued for self-government and against private property, yet the public is now often told that they were (and are) the very group that controls governments and defends private property around the world. Intervening in such misinformation, Lagalisse works with primary and secondary sources in multiple languages to set straight the history of the Left and will illustrate the actual relationship between revolutionism, pantheistic occult philosophy, and the clandestine fraternity.

Exploring hidden correspondences between anarchism, Renaissance magic, and New Age movements, Erica Lagalisse also advances critical scholarship regarding leftist attachments to secular politics. Inspired by anthropological fieldwork within today’s anarchist movements, challenging anarchist atheism insofar as it poses practical challenges for coalition politics in today’s world.

Studying anarchism as a historical object, Lagalisse will show how the development of leftist theory and practice within clandestine masculine public spheres continues to inform contemporary anarchist understandings of the “political,” in which men’s oppression by the state becomes the prototype for power in general, how gender and religion become privatized in radical counterculture, a historical process intimately linked to the privatization of gender and religion by the modern nation-state.

Erica Lagalisse, author of Occult Features of Anarchism, is an anthropologist and Postdoctoral Fellow at the International Inequalities Institute, LSE. 

Mathijs Pelkmans is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, LSE.

The International Inequalities Institute (@LSEInequalities) at LSE brings together experts from many LSE departments and centres to lead critical and cutting edge research to understand why inequalities are escalating in numerous arenas across the world, and to develop critical tools to address these challenges.”