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Macro-scenarios. Anthropology and the debate over contemporary and future worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2003

Ulf Hannerz
Ulf Hannerz
Affiliation:
Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University, Stockholm S–10691, Swedenulf.hannerz@socant.su.se
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Abstract

In the context of events on and after 11 September 2001, this paper examines the genre of macro-scenarios, one-big-thing stories, which entered public debate in the post-Cold War period: ‘the clash of civilisations’, ‘the end of history’, ‘the coming anarchy’ etc. It is argued that anthropologists, as they engage with a wider public, should attend to such macro-scenarios, offering ethnographically based critiques of their oversimplifications, but without resorting only to ethnographic qualifications, exceptions and miniatures. Comparative perspectives toward emergent regularities in social life may still allow macro-anthropological contributions to public debates over possible, desirable or undesirable futures.

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Anthropology , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 2003 , pp. 169 - 187
Copyright
© 2003 European Association of Social Anthropologists

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Footnotes

This paper was first presented as a Munro Lecture in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, on 16 May 2002. I am very grateful for comments and suggestions from the audience on that occasion, as well as for the warm hospitality of members of the Edinburgh department during my visit. The paper draws in part on a forthcoming book, Foreign news. Exploring the world of foreign correspondents, to be published in 2003 by the University of Chicago Press.