Thinking Temporally or Modernizing Anthropology

Recent changes within social and cultural anthropology have made history a key issue, but in this essay I argue that the field has yet to develop the resources that are required to deal with temporality. This point is made through an extended examination of Jean and John Comaroffs work on Christianity and colonialism in southern Africa. Arguably, the Comaroffs read history backward and then present its unfolding as a kind of inexorable logic. In doing so, they homogenize missionary and Tswana "cultures" and attribute agency to abstractions rather than to people acting in particular material contexts. In contrast, I argue for a narrative approach to historical anthropological explanation. The emergent qualities of events—and the variable ways in which capitalism, hegemony, Protestantism, and vernacular modernisms relate—require narrative for explanation, narrative that encompasses within itself the narratives of social actors themselves, [historical anthropology, narrative, the modern, South Africa]     

On the ethics and practice of contemporary social theory: from crisis talk to multiattentional method

Using an approach derived from the anthropology and sociology of knowledge, this article explores the historical emergence of European social theory and its contemporary place in the human sciences. I direct ethnographic attention to a sense of crisis or impasse in social theory’s capacity to frame and to analyze the complexity of contemporary relations in the world. By reanalyzing this crisis talk as a phenomenological reaction to the growing (sub)specialization of social theory, I offer a new way of thinking about social theory in terms of specialized analytical attentions. I also suggest how we can move from crisis talk to a new ethics of theoretical complementarity, inspired by Dilthey, which I term “multiattentional method.”     

Anthropologists only need apply: challenges of applied anthropology

The application of anthropology is attracting increasing attention, where once it was thought at best a dubious enterprise. The resurgence of applied anthropology reflects the discipline's broad spread, with persons seeking applications in an array of areas. In this article I reflect on some contentious issues that I have encountered in trying to take up the challenge of applying anthropology, notably in the context of 'indigenous knowledge' in development inquiries, issues that demand attention to take this work forwards. A brief historical review suggests that a failure to deal with these arguably hindered previous attempts to establish an applied anthropology. They include definition of the subject we seek to apply, the implications of interdisciplinarity for the social sciences, and the matter of expert status. Other considerations concern giving ethnographic methods an applicable edge, engaging, for example, with the challenging demands of participatory research. I outline five ways to envisage applying anthropology: facilitating others' exploitation of exogenous know-how; using knowledge of local understanding to further development; transferring people's learning and practices cross-culturally; seeking ways to assist market use of knowledge; and finally radical ethno-criticism of development. They all present us with challenges. And signal interesting times for anthropology.     

Key informants on the history of anthropology: an itinerary

The history of anthropology is a growing field of study within the discipline itself. Our series ‘Key Informants on the History of Anthropology’ contributes to the discussion of how anthropology, as it is understood and practised today, evolved and took shape. In the following invited contribution Marc Augé, Professor of Anthropology at École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, reflects back on his work in Africa, in light of his more recent explorations of contemporary global issues. He observes how history intervenes also with previous research ‘as if the facts which I observed in former times were only taking on their full meaning today’. This relationship between past and present research reinforces his faith in social anthropology as a discipline that is particularly well suited to address contemporary issues of globalisation.     

Amazonian historical ecologies

Historical ecology may be defined as the undertaking of a diachronic analysis of living ecological systems, with the view to accounting more fully for their structural and functional properties. Historical ecology, more an approach or a research strategy than a paradigm, addresses a central question: 'How does environmental change relate to the historical development of human societies?' An integral part of the new ecological anthropology, historical ecology seeks to dereify the concepts of nature and culture, and to rethink critically the complexity of the biological world, particularly the problematic distinction between the wild and the domesticated, which has hitherto inspired natural science research on the diversity of biological life. This paper examines the ways in which historical ecology has been used to research nomadic bands subsisting with few or no domesticates in lowland South America. I argue that current knowledge of the Amazon biome, which is far more sophisticated than it was in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, when Steward edited the Handbook of South American Indians , allows us to rethink human occupation of, and adaptation to, the Amazon; to redefine the forces that have shaped the material dimensions of social life, and to recognize that Amazonian hunter-gatherers have played an active part in the making of the natural environment that they have occupied for millennia. I also argue that 'trekking', far from representing a necessary intermediary stage in the regression from horticulture to foraging, constitutes, in some cases, a sui generis solution to deep contradictory forces of a political, religious, and social character. Such internal processes may have long predated the Conquest and the disruptions it caused. I conclude that reliance on resources created in the past may be a characteristic shared by various trekking and foraging groups of the Upper Amazon.     

Functional Cerebral Asymmetry and Its Possible Evolution in Historical Times

The paper addresses problems of the development of visual spatial functions of the right hemisphere of the human brain in ontogeny and phylogeny. The problem is being treated as an interdisciplinary one, and its potential as evidence of significant changes in cerebral asymmetry in historical times is discussed. Data from evolutionary physiology, anthropology, neuropsychology, and visual art history beginning with the Paleolithic are considered together. The authors pay special attention to such functions as perception of volume of objects and depth of three-dimensional visual scenery as well as perception of the face and emotional expressiveness both in clinical pathology and in normal subjects at different stages of ontogeny, and the appearance of these features in the history of art.     

Anthropology and history: the revaluation of history in anthropological research

The main premise of this paper is that the accepted view of history based on written documents (historiography) is marked by hierarchical ordering and evaluation implicit in it. The paper examines the context of the negation of history, and the revaluation of history in anthropological research. The lack of written documents concerning particular social groups on the internal plane, but also particular nations (ethnic groups) on the global plane, earned them the name of "nations (groups) without history". This criterion of historicity--the existence of a writing system and written documents--implies the hypothesis about the inferiority of those nations and groups. The attributes of history seen in this way are modernity, linearity and cumulativeness. This system implies ethnocentrism based on a twofold negation: a) the negation history, and b) the negation of otherness. What we must not forget is that the symbolic universes are social products with a history, and in order to understand their meaning, one must understand the history of their production. It is very important to pay close attention to the historical practice of projecting our cultural practices onto others. The question of who determines the history and which views are presented to a particular audience is a matter of power and contest. contemporary history-oriented sociocultural anthropology focuses on the total reconstruction of the way of life and thinking in particular periods of history: on the everyday life. This brought together the intellectual traditions of "new history", ethnology, sociocultural anthropology and the sociology of culture. While modernism stresses the present change versus the static past, postmodernism denies the past ever being static and hypostatises fluidity and change as permanent condition. Postmodernism strives to undermine the old, Euro-centric notion that "we" have a history but "they" do not; it has also lead to social scientists' renewed interest in history.     

Reclaiming Applied Anthropology: Its Past, Present, and Future

Growing concerns about anthropology's impact in both academia and the broader social arena have led to calls for more "public" and more relevant anthropology. In this article, we expand on these exhortations, by calling for systematic joining of critical social theory with application and pragmatic engagement with contemporary problems. We argue for the repositioning of applied anthropology as a vital component of the broader discipline and suggest that it should serve as a framework for constructing a more engaged anthropology. In revisiting disciplinary history and critiques of applied anthropology, we demonstrate the central role that application has played throughout anthropology's evolution, address common misconceptions that serve as barriers to disciplinary integration, examine the role of advocacy in relation to greater engagement as well as the relationship of theory to practice, and conclude with an assessment of the diverse work that is subsumed under the inclusive rubric of "anthropology in use."     

Anténor Firmin: Haitian Pioneer of Anthropology

Anténor Firmin published De I'Égalité des Races Humaines in 1885 in Paris as a response both to Arthur de Gobineau's racist tome L'lnégalité des Races (1853-55) and to the racialist anthropology of the nineteenth century. This pioneering work of anthropology has been translated for the first time into English by Assclin Charles as The Equality of the Human Races (Firmin [1885]2000). In 662 pages of the original text, Firmin systematically critiqued the anthropometry and craniometry that dominated the anthropology of his day, while he envisioned a broad, synthetic discipline that would follow once this narrow approach to the study of man was abandoned. He challenged virtually every extant racial myth and laid a basis for the understanding of human variation as adaptation to climate and environment. Contrary to the polygenist doctrines of the infertility of interracial matings, Firmin extolled the value of racial mixture, especially in the vigorous New World hybrid populations. He developed a critical view of racial classifications and of race that foreshadowed much later social constructions of race. In the book he also articulated early Pan-Africanist ideas as well as an analytical framework for what would become postcolonial studies.
The Equality of the Human Races is a text that lies historically at the foundations of the birth of the discipline of anthropology, yet it is unknown to the field. It is a pioneering work in critical anthropology that awaits recognition 115 years after it was first published. [Anténor Firmin, history of racism, antiracism, historical texts, Haitian anthropologist, critical anthropology, nineteenth-century pioneer]     

Trainmasters or Easyjet pilots? Historical production,labor organizing,and the Spanish engine drivers’ union

This article presents an analysis of the relationship between historical memory and the emergence and reproduction of a specific model of unionism. I argue that in order to understand the militant particularism of the Spanish engine drivers, we need to look at the historical representations that it is embedded in. Recourse to a generational framework makes possible the sustained presentation of the union as a case of successful workers’ organizing, in spite of evidence to the contrary. The historical ethnographic analysis of SEMAF, the Spanish engine drivers’ union, contributes to the analysis of historical memory within the contemporary anthropology of class. The article contributes to theoretical debates in the anthropology of class by reclaiming Michel Trouillot’s conceptualization of the historical process. Two aspects of Trouillot’s work are singled out: his dynamic understanding of the process of historical production and the corollary formulation of the overlapping capacities in which people participate in it (as agents, actors, and subjects) and his emphasis on the importance of expanding scholarly views of the field of historical production.     

‘Follow me,and I will make you fishers of men’: the moral and political scales of migration in the central Mediterranean

This article offers recent dynamics of unauthorized migration and interception in the central Mediterranean as an example of historical anthropology of transnational region formation. It exemplifies how we can rescale classical themes in Mediterraneanist anthropology – hospitality, in this case – to illuminate transnational processes. I argue that anthropologists actually share with human rights advocates and European officials these ways of thinking about the scales of the moral and the political dimensions of migration, and I offer an alternative understanding of the scales of action, responsibility, and sovereignty as well as a clue about how regions come to life.     

N.W. Thomas and colonial anthropology in British West Africa: reappraising a cautionary tale

As the first government anthropologist to be appointed by the British Colonial Office, Northcote Whitridge Thomas (1868‐1936) has earned a place in the footnotes of anthropological history. Historians of the discipline have discussed his career in West Africa in their wider explorations of the relationship between anthropology and colonial administration in the early twentieth century. Through this work, an orthodox account of Thomas has emerged as an eccentric dilettante who damaged the reputation of the discipline, setting back its adoption as a practical science of value to colonial governance by a generation or more. Adopting a micro‐historical approach, closer scrutiny of the archival evidence challenges this orthodoxy, and places Thomas more centrally within the professional networks and practices of British anthropology in the period 1900 to 1915. As well as correcting the record concerning Thomas's professional reputation, a more complex picture emerges regarding the colonial authorities’ attitudes towards anthropology and the reason why this early experiment in colonial anthropology failed.     

Social Identity and Culture Change on the Southern Northwest Coast

Driven by the participation of Native American people in the contemporary political, cultural, and academic landscape of North America, public and academic discussions have considered the nature of contemporary American Indian identity and the persistence, survival, and (to some) reinvention of Native American cultures and traditions. I use a case study—the historical anthropology of the Native American people of the Oregon coast—to examine the persistence of many American Indian people through the colonial period and the subsequent revitalization of "traditional" cultural practices. Drawing on archaeological data, ethnohistorical accounts, and oral traditions, I offer a reading of how, set against and through an ancestral landscape, traditional social identities and relationships of gender and authority were constructed and contested. I then consider how American Indian people negotiated the new sets of social relationships dictated by the dominant society.     

Landscape, Violence and Social Bodies: Ritualized Architecture in a Solomon Islands Society

This article considers the interplay between the bodily experience of landscape and the formation of sociality. We investigate the social experiences of landscape in nineteenth-century Roviana Lagoon in the Solomon Islands, dealing specifically with the ritualized architecture of a fortification on Nusa Roviana Island. Drawing on oral tradition and archaeological and historical data, we argue that the architectural remains reflect a powerful mode of shaping social experience and notions of personhood in the manipulation of ideology. The Roviana landscape creates a world in which genealogical lines are sedimented to place, and practices of ritual violence and head-hunting are made to appear necessary and natural. Paying attention to both oral and material history allows a greater understanding of the ways in which such social structures are reproduced, and adds to the construction of a rich historical anthropology.     

Views from the periphery: discourses of race and place in French military medicine

Numerous authors have interpreted the history of anthropological and medical conceptions of race in nineteenth century France as following a path mapped out by phrenology, anthropometry, and Paul Broca's version of physical anthropology. On balance, this has resulted in an historical narrative centered on Parisian intellectual life and one leaving the impression that by the 1890s anthropological theories had moved away from ethnological and cultural explanations toward more biological views of race. This article, by contrast, examines the world beyond Paris and the literatures of naval and army medicine from about 1830 to 1920. It describes the contours of a medical and anthropological pluralism in matters of race and ethnicity and argues that cultural and ethnological perspectives remained important to theorists of race through World War I.     

Globalisation and the Genesis of Values

This talk was delivered as an Inaugural Lecture in Anthropology at the University of Sydney on the evening of August 22, 2001. It was sponsored by the Arts Association of the University of Sydney. In it I present an overview of my career, noting the consistencies between my work in philosophy and in anthropology, and between what may appear as two quite disparate field sites, urban Jamaica and central Australia. A method that involves a sociology of value, and an historical anthropology, brings these research areas into interesting relations, as does a growing concern with women's roles in the course of change.     

‘New Life’: Pentecostalism as Social Critique in Vanuatu

This paper argues that the new Pentecostal churches proliferating in the southwest Pacific nation, Vanuatu, must be understood in relation to the colonial history, the history of the churches, and the way the nation achieved its independence. The dominating frames of understanding Pentecostal churches in anthropology today, what I call the sociological perspective and the economic perspective, are insufficient in this context. Through an analysis of specific church groups breaking away from the mainline churches, and their Pentecostal-oriented rhetoric, I argue that the focus on change and on the break with the past becomes meaningful in relation to a general political development. The independent, new churches thus become powerful social movements working for social change. This change is specifically connected to the failures of the state; their failure to secure and protect, for instance, land rights against foreign investment.     

The history of linguistic anthropology as a device for a new integrated perspective

The history of the emergence of linguistic anthropology helps us not only to reflect on the path-dependency of our own scientific categories, but also to enlarge our own perspective beyond these categories. The following paper tries to develop on the basis of Latour's network theory a new integrated perspective that reflects our own historical position in the network of constructing scientific facts, in the context of political problems, of social claims of objects that we are using in order to constitute our scientific field.