“I asked a young White woman why she was studying social anthropology. She replied that she was hoping to go to Zimbabwe, and felt that she could help women there by advising them how to organize. The Black women in the audience gasped in astonishment. Here was someone scarcely past girlhood, who had just started university and had never fought a war in her life. She was planning to go to Africa to teach female veterans of a liberation struggle how to organize! This is the kind of arrogant, if not absurd attitude we encounter repeatedly. It makes one think: Better the distant armchair anthropologists than these ‘sisters’.”— Nigerian feminist Ifi Amadiume (via newwavefeminism)
nonononon this is so gross and so not what anthropology is about. Anthropology is about respecting and observing other people, documenting the intricacies of different cultures and appreciating them. anthropology is not about “helping” the people that you deem lower than you or voluntourism. You live with people and understand them and write about how awesome they are and make them visible. that white woman has no idea what shes studying and needs to stay in her lane
