In this panel, we attend to the social life of religious concepts, asking how concepts coined within particular discursive religious traditions circulate within and shift in relation to national, transnational and multicultural contexts. The turn to the anthropology of ethics has shifted analyses from the hermeneutics of religious concepts to the role that these concepts play in the discursive production of subjecthood, sociality and human flourishing. This literature also shows that religious endeavors and ethical aspirations do not emerge in a vacuum. Neither are they static. Rather, they develop with and within environments largely structured by modern and secular ways of seeing and being in the world where multiplicity serves as an overcharging frame of reference. What happens, then, when actors on the ground are compelled to negotiate this condition of plurality? This panel is interested in interrogating the way in which concepts and words which foreground particular definitions of the ethical go beyond the traditions in which they originate and circulate within the national and transnational frames of multiculturalism of which these traditions today are only a part. How do subjects of particular ethical traditions encounter multiculturalism? How do they translate, interpret, embody and engage with the tradition-specific concepts amidst competing and often incommensurable worldviews, forms of reasoning, and ways of being in the world? How do these encounters, in turn, disrupt the established ways of relating to and understanding difference vis-à-vis the structures of nation-state, secular modernity and liberalism? Through ethnographic explorations of such classical anthropological concepts as purity, sacrifice, sorcery and spirituality in a variety of contemporary societies, papers of this panel employ the lens of multiculturalism as a way of understanding religious experiences and ask how those religious experiences challenge the way we think about multiculturalism. In doing so, these papers bring to light how the condition of multiplicity bears and expands upon the ethical turn in anthropology.

Diversity in Purity: Politics and Ethics of Islamic Food Practices in Contemporary China

The Social Life of Religious Concepts: Multiplicity and Difference under the Conditions of Multiculturalism

technical paper

Truth and Responsibility
“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Many consider anthropology to be a holistic social science dedicated to cross-cultural understanding as a way to reduce bigotry and more fully comprehend “what it means to be human.” Others push against this readily circulated origin story, arguing that “human” remains a highly contested, political category—evident as the presumed set of rights and protections associated with the “human” continue to be stripped away violently in the communities in which some of us live and work. Which violent histories and epistemologies must anthropologists take responsibility for in telling truth(s) about the discipline’s development? How do the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery continue to influence anthropological thought and practices? In these political times, how can anthropologists throughout the globe work to secure a capacious, progressive vision of the human? How might movements for anti-racism, decoloniality, queer liberation, and healing such as #BlackLivesMatter, #ProtectMaunaKea, and #MeToo push a future anthropology out of the ashes of the anthropological past? Finally, what are the limits and possibilities of the anthropological imagination?

Across subfields, we find truths in patterns of human behavior, language, evolution, and cultural worlds. Industry-positioned anthropologists do this by extending the boundaries of the discipline not as an administrative solution to job shortages but as a source of intervention and knowledge production. Increasingly, anthropologists who make use of the scientific method question how status and identity help to decide which facts come to represent truth. How might quantitative researchers use our methods to identify patterned truths, and what responsibility do we hold in challenging conventional wisdom about these patterns? What responsibility do we have to both our colleagues and larger publics, to push toward increased transparency and ethical grounding in our data collection, analysis, and presentation?

Pedagogy is a key medium for the communication of anthropological truths. Which (and whose) truths are foregrounded in our curricula? What are the possibilities for a liberatory pedagogy in a precarious, “post-truth” era? Conferences, museums, organizing spaces, and classrooms are sites where pedagogy and various forms of communication can help us interrogate the performativity of truth. How might anthropologists conceive of truth performances? Might visual, aural, and choreographic performances during AAA sessions offer anthropologists alternative genres for truth-telling and truth-making that provoke discussions about responsibility?

In accordance with the urgency of the year’s theme, the questions posed in this call for papers do not have easy answers. The hope is that those who submit proposals will take up these questions and engage in collective thinking and imagining about the truths we hold, the truths we challenge, and the responsibilities we bear in co-creating a free and more equitable world. All panel proposals should have a statement about how the panel has incorporated the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or analysis of power.

Executive Session proposals have already been selected and speak directly to the theme “Truth and Responsibility.” To practice the critical reflexivity this call for papers invites, we asked that Executive Session submissions explicitly address the diversity of session participants, such as organizational/institutional affiliation, career stage, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class, religion, national identity, and gender. Proposals for Executive Sessions that demonstrated a commitment to equity and inclusion and/or a clear analysis of power (i.e. anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, decolonial, anti-ableist, feminist, anti-transphobic, anti-xenophobic, etc) were given priority. We are excited to be in conversation with residents of the Baltimore region and look forward to the discussions, performances, and actions generated by the dynamic group of anthropologists attending the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting.

AAA Annual Meeting 2021

“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Ruslan Yusupov

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Diversity in Purity: Politics and Ethics of Islamic Food Practices in Contemporary China

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