Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (1953 - )

## Quotes

"Anthropology is a way of being in the world, of seeing the world, of living in the world of politics"

**"{I would like to be remembered} as a curious person who used his curiosity to help the curiosity of others"**

**“World anthropologies may be likened to a garden where many species proliferate, and we should only nourish it without aiming to control it.”**

**“Going beyond the power effects and apparatuses that are responsible for the discursive and material (re)production of hegemony in our own milieu”**

## Biography and History

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro earned his Ph.D in anthropology in 1988 at the City University of New York beginning his career as a scholar in Brazil, at the University of Brasilia (1988-2014). In his first years in Brasilia, Ribeiro held the position of regional secretary for the Brazilian Society for the Advancement of Science, while continuing his research on various topics such as political economy and globalization. Afterwards, Ribeiro taught in universities in different countries and contributed his expertise on environmental issues, technology, development, transnationalism and world anthropologies. He was also member of over 20 editorial boards across Europe, Latin America and the United-States. Gustavo Lins Ribeiro was the founder and first chair of the World Council of Anthropological Association and currently occupies the Angel Palerm Chair in Mexico City.

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro was a full time professor at the University of Brasilia from 1988 to 2014 and now continues to teach in Mexico City. He is a distinguished scholar in both anthropology and political science and continuously travels to Argentina, Colombia, France, Mexico, South Africa and the United-States regularly, having done over 220 presentations across the world. Some of his most famous work includes “Globalization from Below”, “World Anthropologies”, “Postimperialismo”, “Transnational Capitalism and Hydropolitics in Argentina” and many more.

## Influence

The most notable influences to Gustavo Lins Ribeiro's work is that of the school of political economy. More specificity, he himself has noted that Marxist anthropologist Eric Wolf was his most prominent source of inspiration and influence for choosing what to focus his research on. In an interview, Dr. Ribeiro explained how Eric Wolf directly influenced his interest in the study of globalization;

"*I wanted to compare the construction of Brasilia- a subject on which I did my master's thesis - with the construction of a hydroelectric plant in Brazilian Amazon. He {Eric wolf} told me that was a good idea, but asked me why do not you compare the construction of Brasilia with the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, American railroads....? Then I realized the issue was the world, not only my country. So I began to study globalization long before it was called that."*

Finally, the Marxist influence is very much clear in the fact that most of his research focuses on socio political issues such as colonialism and its effect on Latin America.

## Work

Though he has work on a myriad of topics ranging from development, environmentalism, international migrants to transnationalism and cyberculture, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro is most known for his work on globalization, and more specifically on what he calls “post imperialism”. In this context, his most known work revolves around the idea of decolonization and a critical look at the post colonial perspective. With seven published books and almost 200 papers published, the focuses of his work, how ever varying they may be, always come back to power struggles of some form and globalization, or some variation of it. Finally, from this it can be said that if Gustavo Lins Ribeiro's work where to be categorized in terms of anthropological field of research, his work would best fit in that of the post colonial and world anthropologies mind set that arose from the critical turn. A specific concept attributed to Dr. Ribeiro would be that of "connecting mechanisms" which entails the real processes through which Hegemonic and Non-Hegemonic systems communicate.

Finally, among all his works, which includes seven books and several dozens of papers, in a interview he said that, for him, his most impactful works are "Hydropower transnational capitalism and politics in Argentina: Yacyreta Dam" and " World Anthropologies: disciplinary transformations within systems of power". The first of these two was said to have a strong impact because of the fact that it "facilitated militants ecological causes a to have a conceptual apparatus to understand what was at stake in these projects from the point of view of industry". The second, though more recent, is seen as being impactful because of its ability to generate more and more discussing on the subject of anthropology's diversity and the work being done in the field.

## Analysis

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro’s research and contribution to anthropology has reflected concepts of structuralism, political economy and World Anthropologies. He has done research and written on many topics including development, environmentalism, international migration, cyberculture, globalization, transnationalism and world anthropologies.

Within his article titled “World Anthropologies; Cosmopolitics for a new Global Scenario in Anthropology”, Gustavo Lins Ribeiro explains how hegemony of United States anthropology has a tendency to confuse its own internal crises with global ones. He argues that this confusion has led to a crisis of representation within anthropology. This concept reflects that of structuralism in the way that Ribeiro argues that anthropology is deeply connected to power relations which can result in the construction and reinforcement of inequality.

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro describes anthropology as cosmopolitics which is undergoing a crisis of representation. The author explains this crisis as being perpetuated by anthropology and being heavily intertwined with power relations which can have the effect of constructing and reinforcing inequality. Ribeiro offers the concept of world anthropologies as a solution to this crisis of representation. The notion of world anthropology is explained as being aware of the social and political conditions of anthropology's production. Ribeiro further explains World Anthropologies as promoting new conditions of conversability, bringing together anthropologists and anthropological institutions to discuss how to make globalization work in favor of heteroglossic initiatives.

## Critique

Specific critiques of Dr. Ribeiro's work would appear to be far and few between. However, certain anthropologists have provided some critique, such as Carmen Alicia Ferradas, Eric C. Thompson and Sibel Özbudun.

Ferradas reviews Ribeiro's *"Transnational Capitalism and Hydropolitics in Argentina: The Yacyretá High Dam"* and refers to the "intricacies of power games played in a scenario where international and national capital meet." (Ferradas p.836) Ferradas critiques that the examination provides a vital contribution to world system debates. She further reiterates one of Ribeiro's points in saying that the projects do not ameliorate the lives of regional actors and locals. Lastly, she also critiques that despite the book claiming to be involved in a "multilocale ethnography", it fails to go further in analyzing how local groups organize, make sense and might take advantage of the inordinate power deployed in engineering works.

Thompson reviews *"World Anthropologies: Disciplinary Transformations within Systems of Power"* in which Ribeiro collaborated with Escobar and Fabian. In relation to the increasing parochialism of the dominant American academy, Thompson criticizes that Ribeiro and Escobar are "inclined toward politically engaged anthropological practice" (Thompson p.127), yet despite that they encourage world anthropologies. Thompson enforces this in saying that epistemological, political and scholarly commitments often come into conflict with the ideal of disciplinary pluralism.

In light of Ribeiro's presentation "*The Problem of Hegemony, Flows and Equity in world anthropologies*" Özbudun positively critiques Ribeiro, in Ribeiro's pointing out that the use of English as the global language as well as the vehicle to discuss diversities is quite paradoxical. Also the attention drawn to monolanguage within Academia and its hegemonizing role.

## Sources

http://brasilia.academia.edu/GustavoLinsRibeiro

http://www.enelvolcan.com/oct2011/30-entrevista-a-gustavo-lins-ribeiro

http://arq.unne.edu.ar/publicaciones/cuaderno\_urbano/cu\_10/archivos/articulos\_en\_html/lins\_ribeiro.html

http://www.iuaes.org/ex\_board\_gustavo.html

http://www.liinc.ufrj.br/pt/index.php?option=com\_content&view=article&id=272:gustavo-lins-ribeiro&catid=4:pesquisador-associado&Itemid=33

Ribeiro, Gustavo Lins. 2006. World Anthropologies: Cosmopolitics for a New Global Scenario in Anthropology. *Critique of Anthropology* 26(4): 363-368.

http://0-www.jstor.org.mercury.concordia.ca/stable/682638Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=no:4&searchText=AND&searchText=sn:00027294&searchText=AND&searchText=sp:836&searchText=AND&searchText=vo:97&searchText=AND&searchText=year:1995&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dno%253A4%2BAND%2Bsn%253A00027294%2BAND%2Bsp%253A836%2BAND%2Bvo%253A97%2BAND%2Byear%253A1995%26amp%3Bymod%3DYour%2Binbound%2Blink%2Bdid%2Bnot%2Bhave%2Ban%2Bexact%2Bmatch%2Bin%2Bour%2Bdatabase.%2BBut%2Bbased%2Bon%2Bthe%2Belements%2Bwe%2Bcould%2Bmatch%252C%2Bwe%2Bhave%2Breturned%2Bthe%2Bfollowing%2Bresults.&seq=1#page\_scan\_tab\_contents

http://0-www.jstor.org.mercury.concordia.ca/stable/23654565?seq=6#page\_scan\_tab\_contents

http://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/re-connecting-global-and-local-anthropologies-minutes-from-a-panel

https://www.academia.edu/4497120/Economic\_Globalization\_from\_Below