David Graeber
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David Graeber is an anarchist and anthropologist. He is an associate professor of anthropology at Yale University, although Yale has controversially declined to rehire him, and his term there will end in June 2007.
He is the author of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology and Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value: The False Coin of Our Own Dreams. He has done extensive anthropological work in Madagascar, writing his doctoral thesis (The Disastrous Ordeal of 1987: Memory and Violence in Rural Madagascar) on the continuing social division between the descendants of nobles and the descendants of former slaves. A book based on his dissertation, "Lost People: Magic and the Legacy of Slavery in Madagascar" is due out from Indiana University Press in May. As of January 2007, he is preparing four books for future publication. Two, Possibilities: Essays on Hierarchy, Desire, and Rebellion, and Direct Action: An Ethnography, are already written and in process of review by AK Press; two more (one, a history of the concept of debt; the other, an attempt with Andrej Grubacic to outline an anarchist version of world-systems analysis) are works still in progress.
Graeber has a history of social and political activism, including his role in protests against the World Economic Forum in New York City (2002) and membership in the radical labor union Industrial Workers of the World.
In May 2005, the Yale anthropology department decided not to renew Graeber's contract. Pointing to Graeber's highly-regarded anthropological scholarship, his supporters (including fellow anthropologists, former students, and anarchists) have accused the dismissal decision of being politically motivated. Graeber has suggested that his support of GESO, Yale's graduate student union, may have played a role in Yale's decision. [1]
Detractors argued that Graeber's dismissal was in keeping with Yale's policy of granting tenure to few junior faculty and Yale has given no formal explanation for its actions.
In December 2005, Graeber agreed to leave the university after a one-year paid sabbatical. He will teach only two more classes: an introduction to cultural anthropology and a course entitled "Direct Action and Radical Social Theory."
On 25 May 2006, Graeber was invited to give the Malinowski Lecture at the London School of Economics. Maurice Bloch, Professor of Anthropology (retired) at the LSE and European Professor at the Collège de France, and world renowned scholar on Madagascar, made the following statement about Graeber in a letter to Yale University: "His writings on anthropological theory are outstanding. I consider him the best anthropological theorist of his generation from anywhere in the world." The Anthropology Department at the LSE honors an anthropologist at a relatively early stage of his or her career to give The Malinowski Lecture each year, and only invite those who are considered to have made a significant contribution to anthropological theory.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Graeber's page at Yale
- In Support of David Graeber by Andrej Grubacic
- Without Cause: Yale Fires An Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar, an interview with David Graeber by CounterPunch author Joshua Frank
- Solidarity with David Graeber
Books
- Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, (free online)
Articles by David Graeber
- "Anarchism in the 21st Century" an article by David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic
- "The New Anarchists"
- "Give it Away" - An article about the French intellectual Marcel Mauss.
- "Army of Altruists" - an attempt to solve the riddle of why so many working class Americans vote for the Right.
Interviews
- Audio interview by Indymedia on air radio with David Graeber on anarchism and anthropology.
- "Teach Me if You Can" An interview with David Graeber on the Toward Freedom website (21 November 2005).
- "Take it From the Top" A Village Voice interview with David Graeber, (June 6th, 2005).
- "ReadySteadyBook.com" An interview with David Graeber on the well-known British literary blog, 16/01/2007.
- "Anthropologist and More" - An interview on politics and ethnography, May 8th, 2006.
