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 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 For two decades now the works he left unpublished during his lifetime have been gradually brought out, and the knowledge about him is growing not only in Poland.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.