Departmentseminar: Harri Englund

Beyond the Parity Principle: African Poverty and the Imagination of Equality

Professor Harri Englund, University of Cambridge

Abstract:

Anthropologists are not unlike other social scientists in their desire to uncover inequalities in wealth and opportunity that sustain various forms of subjection and domination. The egalitarian sensibility that informs this desire is rarely made explicit, although anthropologists might otherwise claim reflexivity as their distinct strength among social sciences. This paper asks where intellectual resources for an anthropological imagination of equality might be found. The focus is on the vernacular public sphere in Malawi, where a popular radio program broadcasts listeners’ own stories about the moral and existential consequences of extreme poverty. The paper explores how these stories, and the editorial procedures that mediate them, suggest ways in which anthropology can go beyond both a culturally particularistic theory of equality and certain liberal convictions.

Profile:

Harri Englund is Reader in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. On the basis of fieldwork in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, he has worked on various topics within the broad themes of political economy, human rights and the moral imagination. Current projects examine the vernacular public sphere and the nature of obligation and equality under extreme poverty. Among his books is Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor (University of California Press, 2006).