Anthropology as Intercultural Critique: Challenging the Singularity of Islamic Identity

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Anthropology’s investigative focus has been on understanding cultural differences (Abu-Lughod 1991). Hence, even as critics point out that anthropology as a discipline has been primarily a study of the non-Western “other” by the Western “self” (Abu-Lughod 1991), constructing a divide between “the West and the non-West” and sustaining an iniquitous equation between the two (Said 1979), the field is rife as a site of complex intercultural dialogues. As the reflexive turn in anthropology opens up to scrutiny the hierarchies and power relationships structured into anthropological approaches and scholarship (see Crapanzano 1980; Fabian 1983; Clifford & Marcus 1986), this paper argues that the concerns of the discipline have been brought closer to those in the field of intercultural communication studies, which is invested in facilitating equitable and just dialogues across cultural divides.