In the article, “The changing nature of anthropological knowledge,” the fist point Moore (1996) wanted to raise was on the question of who produces knowledge. According to her, there was a call for the re-evaluation of the actor’s point of view as an offshoot of post-modernism and there is a demand to recognize positionality and location. Local people have been recognized as producers of local knowledge. However, outside the local context, such knowledge is sidelined and considered not comparative with the dominant and recognized western theories. To the critics of post-modernism, this was exacerbated with the idea that all theories, other than those produced by western science, are partial and local. Still deconstructionism maintains that “all theories are partial and there is no distinction between local theories of anthropologist and those of people being studied”, (Moore, 1996). The major issue is the ongoing politics on how anthropologists treat each other. What is conveyed is that theories produced outside the mainstream western framework are considered to be partial and not comparative.
The second point in the article is an offshoot of the first. It involves a critical review of African and western theories and interpretations to expand the possibilities for future knowledge production. This starts with the non-recognition of African philosophy by western academic institutions. This also holds true with third world and feminist theories. According to Moore, it reiterates the failure to recognize some groups of people in the world as producers of knowledge. Despite clashing discourses among African scholars on how African philosophy is based, the issue is the failure of non-African scholars to recognize the historical and political aspect on searching for identity and authenticity. The relationship between knowledge and power remain bound up with questions of individual subjectivity and collective identity, (Moore, 1996).
However, it would be a mistake to say that giving opportunity to the local and specific, and refuting totalizing theory entails prohibition to comparative thinking. Anthropology should recognize that local knowledge does not constitute closed systems, that they are incapable of self-reflection and auto-critique. Local knowledge can also be part of the wider set of political economy and the social sciences and can be compared outside the local field.
Moore pointed out a third consideration, that of the role of science and technology in the transformation of anthropological knowledge. She floated the idea of ‘technologized selves’, not a singular, self-contained entity, but a participating, relational one. Although the description of ‘selves’ as the conglomeration of ‘parts’, aside from being human, is a complicated description, the breach of technology to culture or social relations is indeed at hand. With technology, the self is not constricted to specific locations but it permeates and extents beyond physical borders. It is a way for other people to be acknowledged as producers of knowledge, albeit in the technological field, that is comparative and global. In a way, it facilitates everyone to be producers of knowledge and jump-starts people’s transformation and line of enquiry.
The fourth idea in the article is on the production of knowledge in the margins. The emphasis is on the perspectives from the ‘periphery’ with the recognition that knowledge works differently in different locations, and that constant change happen in such domains, as well as on power relations in the production of theories. Moore (1996) reiterated that production of knowledge is simultaneously local and global. With the transformation is the rise of social movements and interest groups that are empowered, generating and transmitting analytic knowledge.
Lastly is on Foucault’s concept of governmentality as an object of anthropological enquiry in the local and comparative scope. According to him, the government is connected with the knowledge of all the processes related to the political economy of the state. What is being discussed is the impact of governmentality on social practices, social institutions, discourses (such as moral and ethical debates) and rationalities on a given context. This includes rationalities in the international setting and local bodies. Rationalities, as described by Moore, are forms and techniques of knowledge that tie people into processes of modern living in which they are forced to participate directly or indirectly. All are involved in the techniques of government, from those who are engaged in development, to the producers of knowledge, to those who teach the complex processes of knowledge in different circumstances.
Summarizing the points raised by Moore, there is a need to transform how anthropological knowledge is defined and applied. Producers of knowledge whether that is outside the western realm of thinking or not has to be considered. This include the onset of technology accelerating the changes, and the notion of governmentality as object of anthropological enquiry.
As such, a degree of openness has to be employed in understanding the processes behind the transformation of knowledge. Despite conflicting discourses, highlighted is the involvement of all in the rationality of knowledge. Everyone is touch and transformed by it, one way or another, may that be in the local or global scale.
