Bio:
Elísio Macamo is professor of sociology and African studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He is currently working on how to think about African Studies as a methodology of the social sciences.

Abstract:
The Reversing the Gaze project explores what happens when concepts developed in African (or other non-European) contexts are used to understand European societies. Instead of comparing “regions,” I compare the moral work of concepts themselves. i.e., how they travel, prescribe, and judge. I will propose two related ideas, namely a moral ecology of concepts, which treats concepts as living in environments of facts and values, and communities of virtue, which describe how people everywhere respond to uncertainty by reaffirming essential categories of belonging. By tracing how “retribalization” reappears in Swiss political life under new guises, I argue that reversing the gaze is not an act of epistemic revenge, but a contribution to a more plural, responsible, and reflexive science.