Getting to know the IHP Faculty: Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff

This interview marks a new series on History at HEID – interviews with IHP Section Faculty, in order for students to get to know how their Professors came to be where they are today.

We begin our interview series with Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff, Professor of Anthropology in the Development Studies Unit, and Associate Faculty member in IHP. This academic year she is teaching three courses: “Anthropology and Development”, “Droit(s): les paradoxes de la reconnaissance”, and specifically in HPI, “Hybrid Histories: Indigenous Peoples and Nation-Building in North America”.

Jaci Eisenberg: What are your main areas of research, as an academic?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: Naturally, most of my research deals with anthropological issues, some classical, some less so. My main interest is indigenous peoples, especially in North America, and my research in this field focuses on legal anthropology and indigenous rights. I am also interested in multiculturalism, as well as the complex – and difficult – relationship between culture and rights.

Jaci Eisenberg: What are your specific areas of teaching?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: In the Development Studies unit I teach a compulsory course entitled “Anthropology and Development”. Teaching anthropology in an interdisciplinary unit, which Development Studies is, raises particular challenges that you do not necessarily encounter when teaching in a disciplinary department. I address all at once the theory and history of anthropology, policy issues, applied anthropology, as well as a few fundamental issues such as identity or the sociocultural dimension of economics, and, on top of that, the potential contribution of anthropology as a critical discipline to the study of development and international relations. I have also been teaching a seminar addressing specifically the rights of indigenous peoples and the transnationalisation of law – its French title using the term “Droit(s)” to refer to both “law” and “rights”. Starting in 2010, I will teach that seminar in English. The fundamental problematic of the seminar is the dichotomy – if not the paradox – of recognition (of identity rights) and redistribution (of resources). The seminar also addresses a few theoretical concerns: what is “law”? what are “rights” ? – both in a broader framework than the one generally offered by legal positivism.

My seminar in HPI, entitled “Hybrid Histories: Indigenous Peoples and Nation-Building in North America”, is an attempt to look at the history of international relations from a non-Eurocentric viewpoint, and to establish indigenous peoples as international actors. This is why I thought about the seminar in the first place. I wished to create an opportunity for students to envision a larger frame of reference when dealing with the history of international relations. This is most topical, with minorities and indigenous peoples having gained entry into the United Nations, and with indigenous peoples especially having been extremely active over the last 30 years, both in New York and Geneva, within the human rights system and other UN agencies. Moreover, the historical dimension of indigenous claims beyond contemporary politics still need to be better understood : where does the legal-political category of “indigenous peoples” come from? what is the relationship between indigenous peoples and the states in which they now live? how to address what I would call the “founding dilemma” of neo-European states ? I think these are topics most relevant for HPI, where I can make a contribution as an anthropologist – and as an anthropologist interested in history!

Jaci Eisenberg: How did you become interested in your specific areas of research? As a student, when you were at university, how did you find this field?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: By chance. I did my Ph.D. on potlatch theories. The potlatch is a form of ceremonial exchange to be found among the indigenous peoples of the Northwest coast of North America, that is, British Columbia, a portion of Alaska, even Oregon and California. The purpose of the potlatch is to confirm changes of status, or crucial moments of social life (a funeral, the investiture of a chief, a name-giving), via the exchange of so-called prestige goods. The potlatch has implications for anthropological theory and economics. Mainstream thinking has focused on allegedly wasteful spending and the apparent irrationality of ceremonial giftgiving. Yet the potlatch cannot be understood in terms of what is generally regarded as economic rationality, especially rational choice theory. So I started out with an interest in a critical approach to neo-classical economics. At the same time I discovered the situation of indigenous peoples as the somewhat forgotten inhabitants of North America. And it’s been going on from there. At one point, I started to focus more on legal issues because I worked for some years at the United Nations as a consultant for the Special Rapporteur on indigenous treaties.

Jaci Eisenberg: What was your path after working at the United Nations? Did you immediately go into teaching?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: I was always teaching and working as a researcher simultaneously, either under my own steam, after having obtained funding from the Fonds National Suisse or other funding agencies, or as a consultant, because I always thought it would be interesting to do something outside of academia in order to set off my more academic side. I taught in several universities, in Switzerland and France, after obtaining my Ph.D., then I lived for nearly ten years in Canada where I also taught in different universities. I came back to Switzerland in autumn 2003 to take up the position I currently hold.

Jaci Eisenberg: How do your current interests align with the study of history?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: My interest in history is of a methodological or epistemological nature – both because anthropologists have put a lot of effort into methodology and epistemology, and because anthropology as a discipline has a complicated relationship with history (some major classical theories, like evolutionism and diffusionism, are rather “pseudohistory”; conversely, so-called historical anthropology is an attempt to integrate anthropological concerns regarding society and culture into historical analysis). Also, one may look at archival sources as a sort of “field” (in the sense of anthropological fieldwork). It would be advantageous, especially at the level of Ph.D. studies, to expand on issues of methodology with regard to historical topics : how do you construct your object of research? how do you position yourself in epistemological or reflexive terms? As a historian no less than as an anthropologist, one must assume that one’s posture as a researcher affects the result of one’s work. One’s own interests, one’s concerns, one’s presuppositions flow into the work and ought to be objectified, to a certain extent at least.

Jaci Eisenberg: What projects are you currently working on?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: I am finishing a book, which is actually a revised edition of a book I wrote prior to my Ph.D., which was a history of anthropology from a student’s point of view (I say that with hindsight). I’m revisiting the volume, which I’ve been using in my teaching, in order to give it a more precise focus in relation to development studies and international studies. The question is: what can anthropology accomplish in an Institute like ours ? I am also finalising a book on Canada. One of my more classic research foci is the culture concept. Cultural anthropology is one of the main components of North American anthropology – more so than in Europe, really, where anthropologists tend to focus rather on social organisation, to put it in a nutshell. One of my particular interests is the relationship between culture and law, which ties into my seminar on “law/rights” as well as the one I designed for HPI on “hybrid histories”. Canadianists tend to study either ethnicity, immigration and multiculturalism, or the situation of indigenous – or, as you say in Canada, aboriginal – peoples. For my part, I try to combine both these strands which are too often dissociated. So my other book is tentatively entitled Canada: autochtonie et multiculturalisme. It will be in French, like the history of anthropology whose initial title is La vue portée au loin.

Jaci Eisenberg: What are the advantages of IHEID?

Isabelle Schulte-Tenckhoff: For anybody who is an anthropologist or a sociologist, our Institute with its thematic focus is an interesting place to be at, especially since the merger has forced all of us, from ex-IUED as well as the former HEI, to give multi- or interdisciplinarity more thought. What is interesting in this regard is that student application figures are pretty high for the interdisciplinary programmes, and there seems to be a genuine interest among students. So I suppose we have our work cut out for us. The location is also a plus for anybody interested in international organisations, in certain topics such as refugees and migration, international policies, globalisation, the transnationalisation of law, and the like. In this regard, Geneva is a unique location.