Paper long abstract:

The author will question the scope and limits of social anthropology in the times of global crisis. It seems that anthropology does not address issues important for other social sciences and general public. The only answer one can hear from anthropologists is »more ethnography«. With concepts of suppression, displacement, and repetition the author will assess the current state of the discipline.

As a scholar educated in "small tradition", the author will discuss social anthropology as (post)colonial science. During socialism social anthropology was considered as a decadent bourgeois scholarship in the service of international capital and western powers. After the fall of the real-socialism social anthropology was a sign of liberalisation from the ideological umbrella of socialism. That is why anthropology's colonial past was mostly not an issue in its uncritical reception.

The author will criticise predominant nominalism in anthropology as ideological blindness and will discuss anthropologists' servitude under liberal capitalism.