Paper short abstract:

Kuper takes on anthropology’s sacred cows. To evoke his controversial themes, I shall explore the dispute that surrounded the book 'I Rigoberta Menchú' in which an ethnographer attacked a sacred cow, but some anthropologists rescued her. Or, did they? Kuper’s themes illuminate this controversy.

Paper long abstract:

From his earliest writings, Adam Kuper has taken on sacred cows (and a few mules) in anthropology, often with a degree of amusement and cynicism but always with intellectual sincerity. Controversy is an important genre if not the stuff of anthropology. Even if many controversies are never resolved, engaging in them clears the brush, raises new issues, creates ideas, and helps us meander forward. To honor this aspect of Kuper's very productive career, I shall reflect - partly in his style - on the controversy that surrounded the book, I Rigoberta Menchú, in which a sacred cow (a Nobel Prize winner) was almost butchered by an ethnographer only to be rescued by a flock of anthropologists. Or did they? Slicing and dicing the controversy suggests that it was peopled by politically correct (and incorrect) animals, was filled with unresolved issues, and revealed many of anthropology's fault lines.