Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Pál Almási Balogh (1794-1867) was a physician who tried to establish the science of anthropology in Hungary. He compiled the first ethnography of the aborigins of Australia (1835), and a survey of the Inuit of Boothia, Canada. His work was a failure, but his legacy provides important lessons.

Paper long abstract:

The Library Voyages of Pál Almási Balogh (1794-1867) and Their Failure in Hungary. Lessons for Historians of Anthropology

Pál Almási Balogh (1794-1867), a member of a Protestant circle of scholars in Buda-Pest, was the physician of Count István Széchenyi and Governor Lajos Kossuth, who tried to establish the science of universal ethnography / anthropology in Hungary. On the one hand, he turned to the Georg Augusta University of Göttingen for a model, and on the other to French and British scholarship. His anthropological-ethnological legacy includes, for example, the first ethnographic monograph written in Hungary about the aborigins of Australia (cca1835), but also a German-language summary of the way of life of the Inuit of the Boothia Peninsula, Canada, both testifying his passionate interest in indigenous peoples outside Europe. Almási Balogh was the primary promoter of Alexander von Humboldt (and seemingly also Charles Darwin) in Hungary. His life's work, however, was ultimately a failure: neither institutionally nor in terms of writings and textbooks did he succeed in realising his scientific ambition. He remained an armchair scholar, but his legacy (cca. 20 archival boxes) contains a huge amount of manuscript notes and letters which are to be taken into consideration in any attempt to write the history of early anthropology in Hungary.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

My paper focuses on the need to change the narrative surrounding Józef Obrębski as a forgotten scholar. I will trace the dynamics of the process of recovering Obrębski and investigate his influence in the field of anthropology, growing over time, as an alternative history of anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

For a long time Obrębski has been described as a forgotten, marginalized scholar. It is time to change this narrative. For two decades now the works he left unpublished during his lifetime have been gradually brought out, and the knowledge about him is growing not only in Poland. Scholars quote his works more and more often, and Polish anthropologists share the conviction that Obrębski was one of the foremost Polish anthropologists of the 20th century.

In my paper I will trace the process of recovering Obrębski and show how our knowledge of him changes. I will analyse the criteria which result in him being situated on the mainstream’s margins and trace his (in)existence in the discourse of Polish anthropology during his lifetime and after his death. I will try to ascertain the extent to which his output interests modern scholars only in the context of the history of anthropology, and that to which it still constitutes an inspiration for individual research. Obrębski’s influence on the field of anthropology intensifies over time, notwithstanding the trajectory of his biography and the linear historical narrative. Analysing his works today, one wonders how the history of anthropology would look like had Obrębski managed to publish all his monographs left in the archives – what influence they might have had on research on peasant communities in Europe and post-slave communities in the Caribbean. Thus, an alternative history of anthropology emerges, together with a question how this new narrative about Obrębski could be taught to students.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

The case of Alicja Iwańska (1918-1996), a Polish born American scholar, is very informative for the alternative history of anthropology, and shows: precarity of career, gender injustice, rigid professional boundaries, emigre status as an obstacle, though in fact it was a great advantage.

Paper long abstract:

I have analyzed the issue of a failure in my anthropological biography of Maria Czaplicka (2020). I have also proposed a concept of an "alternative history of anthropology" that would focus on marginalised and forgotten figures to present a broader concept of our discipline as practice.

The present proposal draws attention to another emigre Polish female scholar - Alicja Iwańska (1918-1996), who escaped to the US in the late 1940s, studied sociology at Columbia, collaborated with Sol Tax at Chicago anthropology. She conducted many research projects. The most important were: in Washington State among farmers in the 1950s, and in Central Mexico among Mazahua Indians in the 1960s. Both resulted in very penetrating ethnographies.

Her position in American academia was marginal for several reasons. First of all she was an emigrant and her writing output was bilingual: she wrote her academic texts in English, but her literary works in Polish (primarily her "ethnographic novel" Translated World). She was a woman-academic in the time when American universities only started to accept women. She had her PhD in sociology, and due to rigidity of American notion of professional qualification, she had to work at sociology departments though she was really an anthropologist.

The case of Iwańska is very informative for the alternative history of anthropology, and shows: precarity of career, gender injustice, rigid professional boundaries, emigre status as an obstacle, but in fact it was a great advantage (what was raised by Sol Tax in his introduction to Iwańska's Mexican monograph).

Send message to Authors

Paper short abstract:

We will examine the trajectories of Helmut Hagar, whose ideas about reforming Estonian ethnology in the 1940s-1950s could not be implemented for political reasons, and Vilve Kalits, a Soviet Estonian ethnologist who has also been omitted from the national disciplinary history for political reasons.

Paper long abstract:

The current rewriting of the history of Estonian ethnology has raised questions about the narrow national paradigm that has prevailed so far. It has been presented as a linear story from the

interwar period to the end of the Soviet period, in which the main emphasis has been on the study of Estonian material peasant culture. The discovery of forgotten scholars may change this perspective. Helmut Hagar (1914–1991) is an obscure name in disciplinary history, possibly because he was not able to pursue

a scholarly career in Estonia, and also failed academically in Sweden, where he fled in 1944. The analysis of Hagar’s correspondence and articles in Estonian refugee journals reveal, however, that Hagar had innovative ideas for reforming Estonian ethnology. During the Soviet period, Estonian ethnology managed

to preserve its pre-war national traditions to a large extent, as it tended to attract people who valued their roots and national identity. Vilve Kalits (1926-1992) was somewhat exceptional, as she was also involved in studies of Soviet modernity that were unpopular among her colleagues because they presupposed an approval of

Soviet policies. In addition, Kalits took part in inventing new Soviet traditions. Therefore, historians of Estonian ethnology have seen her as somewhat alien and excluded her almost entirely. A comparative approach to these two figures may trigger new understandings of the history of ethnological and anthropological sciences in Estonia and beyond.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Arthur Ramos and Rüdiger Bilden were central figures in the construction and consolidation of Afro-Brazilian studies. They were in different positions in the academic field; however, their relationship was fundamental for the constitution of Brazilian anthropology.

Paper long abstract:

Arthur Ramos (1903-1949) and Rüdiger Bilden (1893-1980) were central figures in the construction and consolidation of Afro-Brazilian studies, taking part in a collaborative network that involved several other Brazilian and American researchers, such as Gilberto Freyre (1900- 1987), Edison Carneiro (1912-1972), Melville Herskovits (1895-1963), Donald Pierson (1900-1995) and Ruth Landes (1908-1991). The two researchers were in different positions in the academic field; Arthur Ramos was a professor of anthropology in Brazil, while Bilden encountered many difficulties in obtaining a permanent position in the United States; however, he was close to some of the main names in anthropology, such as Franz Boas (1858-1942). Despite the asymmetry, they developed an important partnership decisive for the debate on Afro-Brazilian studies between the 1930s and 1940s and the constituition of Brazilian anthropology. In this work, I am interested in reconstituting the networks of relationships established between Ramos and Bilden, using the correspondence exchanged between them as a source, available at the Arthur Ramos Archive at the National Library (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil). From this reconstitution, it is possible to understand, on the one hand, the power relations and alliances that were being established in the field of Afro-Brazilian studies, on the other hand, the self-representation that these agents were producing about themselves.

Send message to Author

Paper long abstract:

With Paul Leser and Otto Maenchen-Helfen I would like to introduce two ethnologists who emigrated to the USA during the Nazi regime. They did not return to Europe and have hardly been considered in the historiography of anthropology. Leser, born in Frankfurt, saw himself as the only student of Fritz Graebner. Throughout his life, he endeavoured to understand Graebner's cultural-historical approach as an unprejudiced and in-progress method. It is virtually unknown that Leser submitted a thesis in 1927, at a time when others were developing Graebner's approach in a racist manner, in which Leser decidedly demonstrated why racial theories could not be used as a reliable source for (cultural-historical) studies. Submitted as a habilitation thesis, it was rejected as "non-ethnological".

Otto Maenchen-Helfen, born in Vienna/Austria, is today primarily recognised as an expert of Asia and art historian, although he qualified as a professor of ethnology in Berlin in 1933. As a Socialist and husband of a Jewish woman, he emigrated from Germany, first to Vienna and then to the USA. Maenchen-Helfen was one of the very few (rare even in early socialist circles) who explicitly opposed colonialism and supported cultural self-determination worldwide.

This paper calls for recognizing Paul Leser and Otto Maenchen-Helfen and to end the marginalisation they experienced during their lifetimes. Their writings show us that there were other scholars in our discipline besides Franz Boas who explicitly opposed the inclusion of racial theories and colonialism in the first half of the 20th century.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to present and analyze Dina Dreyfus Lévi-Strauss's ethnographic and literary writings from her initial field research in southeast Brazil (1935). It seeks to illuminate and reflect on the gender dynamics behind its silent appropriation in one of anthropology's most canonical works.

Paper long abstract:

Dina Dreyfus Lévi-Strauss is one of the few female anthropologists to have conducted field research in the Americas before World War Two. Born to a French Jewish father and a Catholic Italian mother, Dina studied with Paul Rivet and Marcel Mauss in Paris before going to Brazil in 1935. Once there, she conducted extensive investigations in physical and cultural anthropology among both urban and native populations. As a result of this work, she published a textbook on the subject in 1936. Despite her significant contributions to the foundation of ethnographic studies in Brazil, her work remains largely unknown. Most of her ethnographic and personal writings from this period were never published. However, as my doctoral research has shown, some of these papers were in fact preserved and used by her first husband, Claude Lévi-Strauss, in his work. This paper seeks to present and analyze some of this documentation in order to shed light on the ethnographic and literary work accomplished by Dina Dreyfus Lévi-Strauss—a work that was incorporated without recognition in one of anthropology’s most canonical works. Apart from its significance for the history of anthropology itself, her writings also offer us a glimpse of another Brazil, a country that she sees as a “photo negative” in terms of the colors of its landscape and people. Finally, her embodied position, expressed in her writings, indicates a more reflexive ethnographic perspective, differently shaped by the racial and late colonial context of the 1930’s Atlantic world.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

I intend to illuminate the forgotten history of the first audio-visual ethnography in Iran, delving into the work of Dr. Nader Afshar Naderi, a trailblazer in the field of Anthropology. Additionally, I will focus on the challenges in accessing archives and the notable absence of archival materials.

Paper long abstract:

Afshar Naderi served as an Anthropology professor at the University of Tehran, specializing in nomads and development. He is credited with initiating modern anthropology, Differing from earlier anthropologists who predominantly focused on folklore and refrained from engaging in fieldwork.

A significant milestone in his career was the production of the first Iranian Ethnographic film, "Balut" (1966), based on a comprehensive research project. It provides a narrative of the Bahmaei tribe's life and underscores the pivotal role of Zagros oak trees in their existence. Furthermore, Naderi's pioneering approach and lasting impact on Visual Anthropology were unparalleled during his time. He endeavored to equip anthropology students with the tools to incorporate audio-visual materials into their fieldwork, guiding them in utilizing film and images to enhance their studies. This was particularly distinctive in an era predating digitalization when 16mm cameras were the norm.

Unfortunately, with the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1978, Naderi and many others were expelled from the university. A few months later, he passed away. After his death, the attention in the Iranian academy shifted away from visual anthropology, overlooking the valuable legacy he had created. There's a noticeable lack of archival information about him and his contributions. This absence reflects a disregard for highlighting his importance in the history of anthropology.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Having in mind the field of Afro-Brazilian religions we question the conventional terms by which the history of the discipline has been fixed. We rescue W. Valente's contribution to the field of Afro-Brazilian religions in order to open space for a new way of relating to our own disciplinary past.

Paper long abstract:

Every area of knowledge when it reaches maturity begins to ponder its production, however they always do so in a peculiar way. This article guides a reflection on the constitution of Brazilian anthropology based on a thematic review of the field of Afro-Brazilian religions. By rescuing the ethnographic work of a marginilized brazilian author, Waldemar Valente, we intend to question the conventional terms by which the history of the discipline has been fixed and present a more inclusive proposal, which takes into account other referents by which we can learn the pluralism dimension of our national anthropology . We rescue Valente's contribution to the field of Afro-Brazilian religions in order to open space for a new way of relating to our own disciplinary past.

Send message to Author

Paper short abstract:

Henrique de Carvalho is an “excluded ancestor” whose ethnographic work (published in Portuguese) reveals an improbable forerunner of the so-called “Malinowskian Revolution”. His fieldwork experience and methodological reflections unsettle the understanding and the teaching of anthropology’s history.

Paper long abstract:

The Portuguese military Henrique de Carvalho (1843-1909), who lived in the kingdom of Lunda between 1884 and 1888, is the author of several monographs that make him an essential reference in specialized studies on this region of Angola. Extracts from his 'Etnografia e história tradicional dos povos da Lunda' (1890) were translated by Victor Turner and appeared in the 'Rhodes-Livingstone Journal' (1955). This part of Carvalho's work is at the heart of the anthropological debate between structuralists and historians of Bantu Africa. What accentuates the singularity of Carvalho's work, however, is that it contradicts all clichés about the interior of Africa that were common in the nineteenth century. Instead of a primitive tribal continent, he described sophisticated courts with complex rules of etiquette, political intrigues, and idiosyncratic values that should not be biasedly judged. If Carvalho was a man of his time, marked by evolutionary ideas and colonial attitudes, his writings and particularly 'Etnografia e história tradicional dos povos da Lunda' may be read as anticipating the ethnographic revolution attributed to Malinowski, namely the need to immerse in a long-term, language-centered fieldwork experience. His work and his experiences in the Lunda empire present a challenge for any dichotomous categorization in the historiography of anthropology, and therefore invite us to unsettle – or “undoing” – the teaching of the discipline’s past.