The Goals and Means of Alternative Anthropology

We seek to actively publish works about and by anthropologists as well as from other writers or scholars who are interested in any relevant subjects. In subject matter, style or method of inquiry, we have no preconceptions about what is preferred or not. In this regard aesthetic or literary pieces that effectively touch on subjective aspects of the shared human experience are as valuable as more "objective" non-fiction pieces or essays done in the dry manner of the social sciences.

Through other business endeavors and by other means, we are establishing a central fund for Alternative Anthropology, the purpose of which will be to provision would-be scholars enhanced opportunities for research and development that would otherwise be beyond their means, in a manner that is structurally independent of the conventional mechanisms of academic support. We are particularly interested in funding scholars at a post-doctoral level. At the same time, we are seeking to expand a base of other resources available for research purposes, as well as attempting to develop broad screens of opportunity through networks.

It has been our intention to establish via extended networks of people abroad viable programs of educational and cultural exchange at different levels and for different sets of purposes that have the goals of alternative human development foremost in mind. We have been seeking to construct a kind of exchange program that is inherently more flexible and possibly more rewarding both for prospective participants and the receptient or host societies in which these exchange activities take place. At the same time, we are seeking to extend in a deliberate and systematic way linguistic resources for interlingual mediation, translation and more open cross-cultural communication. We seek to accomplish this mostly in a non-profit framework. We also offer private and confidential cross-cultural mediation and anthropological consulting services.

It has been part of our on-going effort to establish a number of non-profit societies and programs or projects that meet a relatively broad range of interests and needs in the world, and which would otherwise be mostly unmet.

Most human suffering today is due to poverty and denial of access to basic resources. This form of poverty is manageable only from broad-based support of host governments and international organizations. Cultural constraints and government corruption that is pervasive in the world hinder the efforts at alleviation of this kind of suffereing. Most other human suffering in the modern era is due to arbitrary and unnecessary violence or violation of the victim's basic rights as a human being, and is therefore preventable at some level of social intervention and control. A great deal of such violence is promulgated institutionally through bureaucratic mediation, and hence identification of the direct or ultimate source of causation of such suffering becomes virtually impossible. Most human violence passes unnoticed in the world, except perhaps for its unwanted consequences and permanent scars. Hence, to date, human violence is widespread and endemic in almost every society on earth. No society is immune to it in some form, though the typical patterning it assumes varies substantially in different societies and contexts. Women and children, and lower class people in general, still bear the greatest brunt of such violence, and, in a sense, are the most innocent when it comes to their own situations and sources of violence in the world. Violence today also has followed the lines of least resistance in the political economic penetration of the household and in the incorporation of the traditional family into a global market economy. This means that violence reinforces patterns of political-economic exploitation, and is often so justified.

International organizations such as Amnesty International have made a noble effort to protect the rights of people around the world, particularly those who are identified as political dissidents of authoritarian systems. It is a deliberate goal of Alternative Anthropology to study and document shifting patterns of human violence in contemporary contexts, in as many forms as it can be identified, and to devise effective mechanisms that either arrest or address such patterns on behalf of the victim's interests.

Global structural integration is perhaps inevitable, unless the human species first destroys itself along with the earth. Increasing socio-economic integration entails that such global political integration is not only inevitable, but even desirable and necessary in order to effect peace and mutual prosperity for more people on earth. The Information age entails that the possibility of global integration is actually at hand, perhaps for the first time. The challenge of such strong central global government is its uncontested ability for coercion and ultimately for tyranny. The aim of Alternative Anthropology in this regard is to study the feasibility and limitations of global political organization and global structural integration, and to design alternative plans for its implementation.

Ethics and prescriptive standards or human values is not the provenience of science, except when science deals with society in a prescriptive and therapeutic way, and except when scientists as people must live in the world with other people. Fortunately, out of the suffering of the twentieth century has emerged an awakening and implicit/explicit legitimation of the basic rights of humankind as a universal platform worthy of adoption by all modern societies. It is by these metaethical standards that all actions by governments and citizens are ultimately weighed. Clear definition of and philosophical justification for a common paradigm of international standards of human conduct and value is a primary goal of Alternative Anthropology--putting into practice what we preach is its secondary goal that reaches beyond the comfort of the proverbial Academic armchair.

The Internet provides for the first time in human history the capacity for global grassroots integration and organization. Direct electronic capitate voting and forums can be achieved now that allows for participatorial democracy on a scale previously unimagined. It is the purpose of Alternative Anthropology to establish the form and foundation of a multi-party system for such grass-roots organization and to mobilize such networks for the sake of postive action and constructive change in the world.

Finally, alternative anthropology seeks to offer a comprehensive definition of "resources" that are appropriate to human stewardship and care-taking. The aim of alternative anthropology by default would be the increased recognition, analysis, creation and conservation of all resources available to humanity. It is critical that such creation of alternative resources be accomplished in an independent manner that would prevent such resources from becoming the exclusive monopoly of any particular government or private interest group.

These nine goals are not set in stone as nine commandments from on high. They are subject to discussion, reevaluation and revision as the Institute of Alternative Anthropology develops its own independent sense of history in the world. You are welcome to join in our discussion of the basic issues involved.