Written by John Lounsbury
It has been almost 8 months since David Graeber died unexpectedly at the age of 59. The world lost one of the greatest anthropology thinkers of the last 100 years. He had become both famous and controversial especially through two of his books, Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011) and Bullshit Jobs: A Theory (2018), as well as his central role in the Occupy Wall Street Movement (2011).
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This week we have a presentation by David Graeber on debalie TV discussing how the study that became a famous book (Bullshit Jobs) came about.
From YouTube:
There are millions of people across the world who are toiling away in meaningless, unnecessary jobs, and they know it. Nevertheless they continue going to their work every day, continuing their ‘bullshit jobs’. Why?
The famous anthropologian David Graeber, one of the most radical political thinkers today, explores in his most recent book the phenomenon of ‘bullshit jobs.’ In De Balie he will present labour, capitalism and bureaucracy in a radical new light.
Why do we see a growth of bullshit jobs in a society dominated by a capitalist system that ought to eliminate inefficiency? And what should be done to fight against it?
From Wikipedia:
As an assistant and later associate professor of anthropology at Yale University from 1998 to 2007, Graeber specialized in theories of value and social theory. Yale’s decision not to rehire him when he would otherwise have become eligible for tenure sparked an academic controversy.[3] He went on to become, from 2007 to 2013, reader in social anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London.[4]
His activism included protests against the 3rd Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in 2001, and against the 2002 World Economic Forum in New York City. Graeber was a leading figure in the Occupy Wall Street movement, and is sometimes credited with having coined the slogan “We are the 99%“.[5] He accepted credit for the description “the 99%” but said that others had expanded it into the slogan.[6
In 1998, two years after completing his PhD, Graeber became assistant professor at Yale University, then associate professor.[3] In May 2005, the Yale anthropology department decided not to renew Graeber’s contract, preventing consideration for academic tenure, which was scheduled for 2008. Pointing to Graeber’s anthropological scholarship, his supporters (including fellow anthropologists, former students and activists) said the decision was politically motivated. More than 4,500 people signed petitions supporting him, and anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins, Laura Nader, Michael Taussig, and Maurice Bloch called on Yale to reverse its decision.[3] Bloch, who had been a professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics and the Collège de France, and a writer on Madagascar, praised Graeber in a letter to the university.[16]
The Yale administration argued that Graeber’s dismissal was in keeping with Yale’s policy of granting tenure to few junior faculty. Graeber suggested that Yale’s decision might have been influenced by his support of a student of his who was targeted for expulsion because of her membership of GESO, Yale’s graduate student union.[3][17][18][19]
In December 2005, Graeber agreed to leave Yale after a one-year paid sabbatical. That spring he taught two final classes: “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology” (attended by more than 200 students) and a seminar, “Direct Action and Radical Social Theory”.[20]
After his dismissal from Yale, Graeber was unable to secure another position at an American university.[26][27] He applied for more than twenty, but despite a strong track record and letters of recommendation from several prominent anthropologists, never made it past the first round.[27][28] At the same time, a number of foreign universities approached him with offers.[26][28] In an article on his “academic exile” from the United States, The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed several anthropology professors who agreed that Graeber’s political activism could have played a role in his unsuccessful search, describing the field as “radical in the abstract” (in the words of Laura Nader) but intolerant of direct political action. Another factor suggested by the article was that Graeber had acquired a reputation as being personally difficult or “uncollegial”, especially in light of allegations of poor conduct made by Yale during the dispute over his dismissal.[26] Graeber himself interpreted his exclusion from American academia as a direct result of his dismissal from Yale, likening it to “black-balling in a social club”, and arguing that the charge of “uncollegiality” glossed a variety of other personal qualities, from his political activism to his working-class background, that marked him as a trouble-maker within the academic hierarchy.[28] Laura Nader, reflecting on Graeber’s case amongst other examples of “academic silencing” in anthropology, speculated that the real reasons could have included Graeber’s growing reputation as a public intellectual,[27] and his tendency to “write in English” rather than jargon.[26]
From 2008 to 2013, Graeber was a lecturer and a reader at Goldsmith’s College of the University of London. In 2013, he accepted a professorship at the London School of Economics.[26][29]
The presentation covers 19 minutes, followed by an interview session moderated by journalist Ether van Rijswijk, lasting 58 minutes, including answering questions from the audience.
Source: YouTube
Some important books by David Graeber:
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