{"id":97364,"date":"2025-02-19T12:10:32","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T12:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/anthropology\/david-graebers-lasting-influence-on-anthropology-and-activism-sapiens\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T12:10:32","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T12:10:32","slug":"david-graebers-lasting-influence-on-anthropology-and-activism-sapiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=97364","title":{"rendered":"David Graeber\u2019s Lasting Influence on Anthropology and Activism \u2013 SAPIENS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">EDWARDS<\/span>: \u201cWhat would Graeber say about this?\u201d How often, over the past four years, have we asked that question, in need of his voice and vision? Watching Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza, and inspired by the students organizing against it on campuses in Australia and elsewhere, I\u2019ve been imagining how Graeber would have responded. As a fellow Jewish academic, I\u2019ve been wondering about Graeber\u2019s relationship to <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobin.com\/2020\/09\/david-graeber-obituary-judaism\">traditions of Jewish thought<\/a>, and how these might have informed his vision for what the university could\u2014and should\u2014be, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opendemocracy.net\/en\/opendemocracyuk\/first-time-my-life-im-frightened-be-jewish\/\">his powerful critique<\/a> of the dangerous weaponization of antisemitism claims.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">MAURER<\/span>: For me, Graeber functions like a series of favorite science fiction novels I can use to build a riff, whether I\u2019m writing about inequality, or money and payment practices, or alternative forms of finance, like my current obsession with cooperative finance. I think some of my readers expect a certain quirkiness from me\u2014and, for them, it\u2019s fine for me to weave in references to speculative fiction authors such as <a href=\"https:\/\/nkjemisin.com\/\">N.K. Jemisin<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marthawells.com\/\">Martha C. Wells<\/a>, for example. For my more, ahem, staid interlocutors, Graeber is just familiar enough to serve as my touchstone, even if I might think of him as more of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teenvogue.com\/story\/what-a-witchs-familiar-really-is\">a \u201cfamiliar\u201d<\/a> in the magical sense!<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">PEEBLES<\/span>: I have <a href=\"https:\/\/mitpress.mit.edu\/9780262049641\/the-first-and-last-bank\/\">a book<\/a> under production at MIT Press that attempts to leverage anthropological theory and monetary history to find a pathway forward for \u201ceveryday activists\u201d to fight climate change rather than relying only on corporations and governments to save us. By building locally owned \u201ccarbon banks\u201d that would be \u201cin the Commons,\u201d we can build a currency infrastructure that sequesters carbon just as gold was sequestered during the gold standard. David\u2019s fearless and lifelong pondering of whether \u201canother world is possible\u201d gave me the courage to take the leap with this sort of \u201cpolicy-oriented\u201d book, which can be fairly atypical for anthropology.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">RENO<\/span>: I am working on a new book about imagination and the weird world we live in now that is at least partly inspired by Graeber\u2019s lifelong interest in imagination. I am also trying to find new ways to convey anthropological ideas to new audiences and through alternative means. To that end, I am writing a graphic novel with a lifelong artist friend that blends history and fiction, ethnography and magical realism to talk about a place I did some growing up in, Seneca Lake in Western New York.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">STEWART<\/span>: The legacy of Graeber for me personally resides in the political significance of the topics he chose to write about, coupled with the compelling quality of his writing. He is one of a small number of authors\u2014others are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ursulakleguin.com\/\">Ursula K. Le Guin<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orwellfoundation.com\/the-orwell-foundation\/orwell\/biography\/\">George Orwell<\/a>\u2014who I consider as models of excellent writing, and for using writing to change how people think, and, thereby, to change the world.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"uppercase\">HIGH<\/span>: Graeber once described himself as \u201ca professional optimist,\u201d and after reading all his works, I think that rubbed off on me. Graeber showed that someone bookish and largely absorbed in seemingly arcane debates about little-known parts of the world can join much wider conversations. And he seemed to do so not despite the quirky characteristics of his discipline, field sites, or personality, but on the strength of them. He wrote as if diversity is always enriching (even if we all know how hard the realities of such conversations can sometimes be). He wrote as if already free.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>EDWARDS: \u201cWhat would Graeber say about this?\u201d How often, over the past four years, have we asked that question, in need of his voice and vision? Watching Israel\u2019s assault on Gaza, and inspired by the students organizing against it on campuses in Australia and elsewhere, I\u2019ve been imagining how Graeber would have responded. As a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":97365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11767],"tags":[14104,3735,3701,7363,45882,14913,1782,6692,1783,7613,16132],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-97364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anthropology","tag-activism","tag-anthropology","tag-david","tag-economics","tag-graebers","tag-influence","tag-lasting","tag-politics","tag-power","tag-relationships","tag-sapiens"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>David Graeber\u2019s Lasting Influence on Anthropology and Activism \u2013 SAPIENS - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=97364\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"David Graeber\u2019s Lasting Influence on Anthropology and Activism \u2013 SAPIENS - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"EDWARDS: \u201cWhat would Graeber say about this?\u201d How often, over the past four years, have we asked that question, in need of his voice and vision? 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