Paper short abstract:

Physical/biological anthropology is perceived by social anthropologists in Serbia as the discipline which contributed to establishing ethnology as “national science” or “science of the Folk” in the first half of 20th century. I explore and present facts about that in order to display the reasons why the two branches of anthropology took divergent paths.

Paper long abstract:

The "anthropologization" of Serbian ethnology, which occurred during late 1970s and 1980s, largely ignored physical/biological anthropology due to its perceived role in constituting what has (and still is considered by some) as a "national science". The term "national science" usually connotes intra- or interdisciplinary studies of national features in culture, society, language, history, heritage etc. in Serbian academia, but in Serbian anthropology those "studies of National" are reviewed with strongly criticism at least since 1980s, due to the awareness of the ramifications of using the results of science explorations alongside the causes dangerously close to nationalism. Serbian anthropology of today is inspired by social constructivism and it foresees phenomena such as "nationality", "ethnicity", "folk" etc. largely as cultural artifacts, whereas Serbian ethnology saw those terms - or better: their contents - as something natural, something that really exists, which is biologically rooted and perpetuated so.

Serbian ethnologists used physical features to explain cultural traits of people they have been studied and vice versa, in an effort to show that there were distinct physical, biological, social, and cultural characteristics which, taken together, could tell one nation/ethnic community from another in the Balkans. Physical/biological anthropology contributed unwillingly to the constitution of ethnology as a "national science" in Serbia, and that is the reason why contemporary social anthropologists in the country are a bit reluctant when it comes to including it into their educational and research programs.