This research made an attempt to dissect public perception around governmental land grab.
Article Generating Public Consciousness around Land Acquisition for ...
Dear Abhijit,
I am not a media specialist but I think anthropologists cannot gain the public consciousness. Please, assess how many people read anthropologist papers? I am afraid a much wider and easier available approach is needed. RG is a brain worker forum however you will see soon the interests of these people.
Yes, Andras, I fully agree with you. My experience of conducting anthropological research on land acquisition proved it.When I did empirical research on this topic during 1994-2004, very few people were interested in my research.Some people also called my research non-anthropological.But then after the Singur and Nandigram resistances by the peasants against governmental land grab a lot of literature flowed in the media and academic journals.New websites were launched.Only then my research became more popular.I also began to write in Bengali in popular dailies and magazines.At present this research became popular. The abstract of the article which I just uploaded in RG is a narrative of behind the front of land grab! But, then, more land acquisition, which in turn triggered resistance under globalization made me and my text spread over a much wider audience.Followed by these events I now recommended in the paper that LA and its adverse impacts should become part of school education.If it happens in the future, how would you explain it? Was it by the writings of the anthropologist or by the resistance of the people or both which stand in a complimentary relation? What do you think?
The case of land grabbing actually seems to me one of the most successful cases of consciousness-generating on an international level. A politically engaged academia (not only anthropologists, but social scientists in a broader sense) provided the expertise for transnational social movements - that led to a diffusion of the consciousness of this problematic in many countries. I am sometimes surprised of the quantity and quality of the discussions on this topic in my country (Germany), that is, in media outside of academia, for instance, movement-related journals.
I think, it is harder to create consciousness on a local level, where the alliances between social movements, an engaged civil society and academia can be hard to build (because of the small scope). And, of course, it will be hard to impulse some kind of mayor mobilization, when most people think they are not involved.
This is one of the duties of the anthropologist but rather unfortunate in the least developed areas of the world. so it might depend on where you asking the question from.
Its going to be hard for anthropologists to gain the public consciousness.
I am now writing ethnographies on my personal journey around land grab.I do not know how far will it raise the public consciousness but it helped me to articulate with the arguments of the macro-level specialists, viz. economists.Please see my article Chapter An Ethnographer’s Journey through Land Grab for Capitalists ...