Vícios privados, virtudes públicas: o neoliberalismo e a vocação antropológica

Résumé

This article examines the enduring and pervasive impact of neoliberalism on anthropological practice and, more broadly, on scientific activity as a whole. It interrogates the processes of commodification affecting the three core missions of the university – research, teaching and dissemination – and their consequences for academic institutions, disciplinary configurations, and faculty members. Drawing upon salient critical elements from the history of anthropology, the text advances a reflection on recurrent manifestations of disciplinary nihilism arising from collusion with power, subordination to market logics and from particular modes of constructing militant engagement. In counterpoint to the tendency toward the annihilation of anthropology within the perspectives of its interlocutors – whether political or media actors, indigenous or indigents – the article affirms the political centrality of scientific thought.