An Alternate History of Anthropological Science (original) (raw)
Related papers
Anthropology'challenged: notes for a debate
JOURNAL-ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, 2006
In January 2006, the international community of anthropologists was confronted with a surprising piece of news. France's principal funding body, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), was contemplating striking anthropology out of its disciplinary list, attributing to it a subsidiary position within the field of history. A heated debate ensued concerning anthropology's independent position within the CNRS funding structure. One does not know whether it was thought that anthropology always had been a branch of history or whether it was thought that it always should have been or, alternatively, if the idea was that it was simply irrelevant! Ultimately, in the face of national and international outcry, the proposal was dropped and the change was not implemented. We were all very pleased about that outcome. Many of us, however, remained preoccupied by it all, feeling that a misunderstanding on that scale should not be treated as an isolated event. Rather, it should be seen as a sign that the public understanding of anthropology is not what it should be, that the issue is in bad need of further debate. 1 How ironic that this mishap should have occurred on the turf of Marcel Mauss and Lévi-Strauss, where modern anthropology was born! Now, let it be clear from the start that anthropologists have nothing against history or historians -to the contrary. Never has the dialogue between the two disciplines been richer than over the past two decades. Their disciplinary history, however, remains radically distinct. Their contributions to the humanities and the social sciences are not in competition; rather they are mutually indispensable parts of the more general socio-scientific field that modernity has launched.
1972
This is the last part of a paper entitled, "concerning the content and the political role of the social sciences in developing countries." it centers around the following question: is it not true that a discussion about ethics and attempts to formulate a professional code obscure a far more fundamental question, namely the justification of the practice of social science? Regarding an "ethical hassle," reference is made to the 1971 report, "to evaluate the controversy concerning anthropological activities in Thailand," about which great unrest had developed in the us. The question of ethics is not seen as an isolated problem, but as pointing directly to the essence of science itself and its essential components: the choice of the object, method of research, and method of application. By putting forward empirical material (in the original article) it is illustrated to what misery science can contribute when questions like "for whom" and "wh...
2001
Series Preface vii Preface to the Second Edition viii Preface to the First Edition ix 1. Proto-Anthropology 1 Herodotus and other Greeks 1; After Antiquity 3; The European conquests and their impact 6; Why all this is not quite anthropology yet 10; The Enlightenment 11; Romanticism 15 2. Victorians, Germans and a Frenchman 20 Evolutionism and cultural history 21; Morgan 23; Marx 25; Bastian and the German tradition 27; Tylor and other Victorians 29; The Golden Bough and the Torres expedition 32; German diffusionism 35; The new sociology 38; Durkheim 39; Weber 41 3. Four Founding Fathers 46 The founding fathers and their projects 49; Malinowski among the Trobriand Islanders 52; Radcliffe-Brown and the 'natural science of society' 55; Boas and historical particularism 58; Mauss and the total social prestation 61; Anthropology in 1930: parallels and divergences 64 4. Expansion and Institutionalisation 68 A marginal discipline? 69; Oxford and the LSE, Columbia and Chicago 72; The Dakar-Djibouti expedition 74; Culture and personality 77; Cultural history 80; Ethnolinguistics 82; The Chicago school 83; 'Kinshipology' 86; Functionalism's last stand 90; Some British outsiders 92 5. Forms of Change 96 Neo-evolutionism and cultural ecology 99; Formalism and substantivism 104; The Manchester school 107; Methodological individualists at Cambridge 112; Role analysis and system theory 117 6. The Power of Symbols 120 From function to meaning 121; Ethnoscience and symbolic anthropology 125; Geertz and Schneider 127; Lévi-Strauss and structuralism 130; Early impact 133; The state of the art in 1968 135 vi A History of AntHropology 7. Questioning Authority 138 The return of Marx 139; Structural Marxism 141; The not-quite-Marxists 145; Political economy and the capitalist world system 147; Feminism and the birth of reflexive fieldwork 151; Ethnicity 155; Practice theory 158; The sociobiology debate and Samoa 161 8. The End of Modernism? 166 The end of modernism? 171; The postcolonial world 176; A new departure or a return to Boas? 179; Other positions 184 9. Global Networks 192 Towards an international anthropology? 194; Trends for the future 200; Biology and culture 203; Globalisation and the production of locality 211 Bibliography 221 Index 239
The American Anthropological Association and the Values of Science, 1935-70
American Anthropologist, 2002
American anthropologists have repeatedly addressed questions about the nature of anthropology as a science and the relationship of anthropology to society. Complex interactions between anthropology and political events in American life have challenged definitions of science, including anthropologists as citizens, scientists, and professionals and the roles they appropriately play. A series of exchanges and events between the 1930s and 1970 are examined in order to shed light on some of the recurrent dilemmas of definition and practice in anthropology as anthropologists have grappled with them in different times and in relation to different contexts. [
(XII Congreso de Antropología conference panel) The profession should wholeheartedly accept its fullest responsibilities as members of the community of mankind and society (Kroeber, 1962: 93). In 1962, Alfred Kroeber along with other prominent anthropologists such as Claude Levi-Strauss and Eric Wolf, came together at the Wenner-Gren symposium on “Anthropological Horizons” to hash out the current problems and goals of their field. Nearly 50 years later, we find ourselves revisiting many of these same doubts and aspirations on both sides of the Atlantic. Drawing on my own experiences in anthropology at UCB-UCSF and in Spain where I conduct research on the current exhumations, I will be exploring the role of anthropology and how its circulation into the everyday flows back and impacts the discipline: What role can anthropologists play and what expectations do we have for the discipline? How do we draw anthropology out of the periphery and into new publics? What and where are our boundaries? I will begin by looking at the current critiques and solutions proposed by anthropology itself, particularly George Marcus’ interview (2008) on the end of ethnography and Joao Biehl and Peter Locke’s (2010) response and suggestion of where anthropology can go from here. Next, I propose to rethink anthropology as a revolutionary discipline, constantly reframing and reinventing itself. Finally, I draw on the exhumations in Spain as a way for anthropology to learn how to engage in new publics.
Two Things Wrong with Anthropology
academia.edu, 2022
The first of my issues, is that anthropology is extractive, yet that anthropological reports subsequently direct ‘indigenous’ research. Secondly, perhaps my main problem with anthropology, arises from its orientation to pleasing secularists (acquiring mainstream anthropological credibility seems to require rendering of any ‘religious’ commitment overtly subservient to secularism’s hegemony).
"History, Anthropology, and Rethinking Modern Disciplines"
in *Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Anthropology* , New York: Oxford University Press, 2021
In discussing together history and anthropology, it is often argued that the relationship between the two has been contradictory and contentious, but that their interplay has also been prescient and productive. At the same time, such considerations are principally premised upon framing anthropology and history as already known disciplines. Arguably, what is needed is another approach to the subjects of history and anthropology, sieving them against their disciplinary conceits. Moreover, this requires exploring the constitutive linkages of the two with empire and nation, time and space, race and reason as well as with wider transformations of the human sciences. These reveal curious connections as much as mutual makeovers. Finally, all of this suggests thinking through received configurations of tradition and temporality, culture and power, and hermeneutic and analytical procedures. These make possible the tracking of astute articulations of subaltern formations and historical conceptions, gender and sexuality, colony and nation, slavery and heritage, and empire and modernity-based on the shared sensibilities of anthropology, history, and associated enquiries. I