Historical anthropology and anthropological history : two distinct programs (original) (raw)
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Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 2009
Leiden structuralanthropologyachieved internationalrenownthrough the worko fJ.P.B. and P.E.deJosselin de Jong and theircolleaguesand students.Inthe 1980s,especiallyafterthe retirementof P.E.deJosselin de Jong in 1988,itgrewquietaround thisschool.Thisarticle investigatesthe status quoo fstructuralanthropologyin the Netherlandsbyfocusing on developments in the last twenty years.Itisargued thatthe structuraltraditioncontinued,though in less conspicuous ways,becauseitchanged and atthe same time retainedcharacteristicfeatures.Old concepts and methodswere refined and developed,newemphasisadded and currentproblemsapproached. Overthe decadesthis inventiveprocess wasenhanced byacreativeopposition and closebut criticalcooperation withvarious wavesof Frenchstructuralism. Atthe turnofthe twenty-first century,Marshall D.Sahlinsdiagnosed the discipline of anthropologyass uffering from a"paralysing fearof structure" (Sahlins1999:399). Various formsof "afterology"(postmodernism,postcolonialism,etc.),he states,assume morallyappropriateattitudesw ithrespectt ocolonialismo rr acism,forexample,b ut insteadoffacilitating the understanding of othercultureswould rathermake "cultural logicsdisappear"(ibid.:406). Although Europeananthropologymighthavebeen slightlyless in thrall toafterologiest hane lsewhere,itisalsotruethatr ecentlyt here hasbeen no discernible focus on structureand,in Germanyatleast,therearef ew who would nowdescribethemselvesass tructuralistsorbesod escribed byothers. However,the stateofanthropologyin Europe isnotthe same everywhere. While there wasneveratradition of structuralanthropologyin Germananthropology,the circumstanceswered ifferentin the Netherlands. The namesof J.P.B.and P.E.deJosselin de Jong,although perhapsconfused outside the Netherlandsattimes,areinternationallyrecognized,and notonlybyIndonesianists.Inthe late1 970s and 1980s especially,severale dited volumesappeared that claimed astructuraltradition forLeiden anthropology,a nd workspreviouslyonlyac
International Encycloaedia of Anthropology, edited by Hilary Calan, 12 vols. 2018, 2018
Anthropology in the Netherlands is a rich field of studies with a tradition going back to the eighteenth century and established during the nineteenth century. Ethnology, or volkenkunde, as the field was called, had multiple links to history, geography, linguistics, and biology. Attention was primarily directed to the study of peoples overseas, especially of the Dutch East Indies, the Netherlands’ principal colony until 1949, and of Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. After decolonization, the field broadened to include other regions. In 1952-53, cultural anthropology was linked to a new study, the “sociology of non-western peoples,” now known as development sociology. Many institutes in the Netherlands serve both degree programs. Dutch anthropology is a vibrant field, with hundreds of practitioners who carry out research all over the world. It has a predominantly international, extra-European outlook, even as transnational studies of diaspora, globalization, migration, and multicultural society increasingly come to the fore.
In the Company of Retired Dutch 'Masters' in Anthropology
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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.
Anthropology and Humanism, 2012
Some 45 years ago, I was presented with an examination question that asked me to discuss a dictum by the distinguished Victorian legal historian, F. W. Maitland: "My own belief is that by and by anthropology will have the choice between being history and being nothing." I had no real idea what the question meant, but, as anthropology and history are and were good things, I had no objection to anthropology's becoming history. However, I did not answer the question. Were I to do so now, I might ask what kind of anthropology and what kind of history are signified, as the answers to such questions depend on temporal, spatial, social, and personal factors, inter alia. Do we mean the old-fashioned high school history with lots of dates and battles, biographies that detail who had tea with whom, Whiggish history, strict historicism, Marxist history, or even Foucauldian genealogy? Do we mean evolutionary anthropology, structural-functionalism, historical particularism (which, after all, contains the word history)? What about French structuralism, political economy, or anthropological postmodernism? Most anthropologists reading Maitland's remarks today would not realize that for him (as for Boas in another country) the details of history were a necessary correction to premature, scientific attempts at comparative, evolutionary generalization. All of this means that one should have an idea what one is discussing when one talks about boundary crossing between academic disciplines and the blurring of genres, because the genres may be blurred to begin with. Accordingly, I approached this collection of chapters, based on a workshop at Cornell University, with a degree of skepticism, thinking that it would be another, tiring attempt to exhaust banal questions. I was favorably surprised in all possible ways. The editors, Willford and Tagliacozzo, claim that the volume's authors "use the interdisciplinary boundaries of history and anthropology to reveal the contingencies of knowledge production" (p. 1). Two of the chapters are primarily theoretical (Arnold and Cohen); the others examine ethnographic or historical issues in particular locales. Arnold's chapter and most of the remainder are to some degree concerned with the relationship between power and the generation of representations, narratives, and identities; and many are concerned with issues of "agency and subjectivity." bs_bs_banner 256 Anthropology and Humanism Volume 37, Number 2