Paper short abstract:

The paper draws on the life-long experience with practicing of social anthropology in different countries and continents. It shows that social anthropology is a shared venture in which no one is Other or object only

Paper long abstract:

The paper will discuss the experience of a marginal social anthropologist with practicing social anthropology both in countries where the discipline is fully established and countries where it is considered a foreign commodity received with utmost caution or outright rejected. The cross-relations with ethnology and other ethno disciplines as well as with sociology are analyzed on the basis of fieldwork carried out while trying to establish social anthropology in post-communist countries and in Africa. The vicissitudes of de-marginalization and decentralization in social anthropology are illustrated by concrete data from four continents.