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This paper examines history of anthropology textbooks as a case study in intellectual polarization, tracing how the clash between George Stocking’s historicism and Marvin Harris’s presentism shaped an enduring debate over how the discipline’s past should be written and taught.

Paper long abstract

George W. Stocking’s influential critique of presentism in the historiography of anthropology (1965) famously advocated understanding the past on its own terms, even while acknowledging the inescapable situatedness of historical interpretation. Although later commentators have emphasized Stocking’s acceptance of an “enlightened presentism,” one dimension of his position merits renewed attention: his sustained distrust of textbooks on the history of anthropology written by practicing anthropologists rather than professional historians. For Stocking, such works risked unreflective presentism, weak contextualization, overreliance on canonical texts, and insufficient engagement with archival materials. This paper examines the textbook tradition as a privileged site in which tensions between historicism and presentism have been repeatedly polarized and negotiated since the late 1960s. Beginning with the emblematic confrontation between Stocking and Marvin Harris over the latter’s The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968), I trace how this debate became a reference point for subsequent textbooks in the US and beyond. Drawing on a comparative reading of more than twenty-five history of anthropology textbooks in five languages, the paper analyzes how authors positioned themselves vis-à-vis this historiographical divide. By situating the textbook tradition itself as a case study in polarized anthropology, the paper ultimately argues that these textbooks function less as stable embodiments of one position or the other than as ambivalent expressions within a debate still shaped today by conflicting theoretical, methodological—and political—commitments.

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Paper short abstract

The paper highlights the problems of different values that enter into anthropological research, and highlight some of the consequences of misunderstanding of these values. One of the more famous examples is Said's reading of W. R. Smith, but there are other, more contemporary examples.

Paper long abstract

The paper highlights the problems of different values that enter into anthropological research, and highlight some of the consequences of misunderstanding of these values. One of the more famous examples is Edward Said's reading of William Robertson Smith, but there are also other examples. Furthermore, the paper will provide illustrations of the important shifts in the patterns that privilege certain types of discourses, and then impose them on a global community. Anthropology has played an important role in shaping and formulating of different values, and this can be seen on the examples from the former Yugoslavia, for example (with the construction of nationhood and the role that different scholars, including Cvijić, Županič and Gavazzi, played during the 20th century in Serbia, Slovenia, and Croatia). This is an important reminder about the power and importance of words, for what we write and what we say can have unintended consequences. Finally, some contemporary debates and dealings with the political issues will also be mentioned.

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Grand Narratives are once again in vogue: they seem to have become the preferred method for popularizing social sciences. This communication will present this prolific field of "Grand Narratives", the various debates it encompasses, and situate the contributions of anthropologists to these debates.

Paper long abstract

The disappearance of the East-West ideological polarization after the Cold War, along with the questioning of the narrative of humanity's endless progress, has led to the idea that the "Grand Narratives" of modernity have lived (and with them, the conflicts that shape history, cf Fukuyama). Grand Narratives are once again in vogue: they seem to have become the preferred method for popularizing syntheses of social sciences according to a narrative framework that involves returning to the origin in order to unfold a step-by-step narrative (Diamond, Harari, Pinker being the most visible). Anthropologists initially criticized these brief narratives of humanity, objecting to flawed conceptions—regarding primitive peoples, the innateness of humankind, and the anthropocentrism of the perspectives. Than they have "entered the arena" not (only) to debate, but to establish alternative origin narratives while drawing on the literature produced by the discipline (Scott, Graeber & Wengrow, Stepanoff, Vaissière, etc.).

The aim of this communication will be to present this prolific field of "Grand Narratives", the debates it encompasses (innate / socially constructed; weight of the biological / freedom; security / creativity; focus on the singularity of the species / focus on the cosmological narrative) and to situate the contributions of anthropologists to these debates.

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This contribution addresses the controversy surrounding the renaming of the ‚Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde‘. The debate focused on finding the most appropriate name for the association and, in some cases, for the discipline itself.

Paper long abstract

This contribution addresses the controversy surrounding the renaming of the professional association in Germany. The debate focused on finding the most appropriate name for the association and, in some cases, for the discipline itself.

In autumn 2017, a decision was reached in Berlin to rename the ‚Deutsche Gesellschaft für Völkerkunde‘. A slim majority of attending members voted in favour of the new designation, ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozial- und Kulturanthropologie’. Following the vote, discussions intensified regarding the proposed names and the respective meanings. At times, the debate was extremely controversial and intensely heated.

This paper reviews previous name changes and renaming efforts within the association, analysing the various motivations and arguments presented for and against the different options in 2017 and immediately after the renaming. Divergent viewpoints are revealed, particularly regarding how the approach should be reflected in the association’s name and how to address the discipline’s history: some advocated for renaming as a way to distance the field from its past, others criticized the lack of thorough engagement with the history of anthropology prior to the decision. There were also discrepancies regarding international orientation, its meaning and to what extent it can be expressed in the name.

Finally, the renaming process itself is critically assessed, and a comparison is made with the 2021 renaming of the ‘Deutsche Gesellschaft für Volkskunde’ (German Folklore Society).

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Paper short abstract

19th-century ethnography in the Alps-Adriatic region emerged through a variety of genres and approaches. From the late 18th century, imperial discourses predominated until the mid-century, when Herder's ideas provoked a linguistic shift toward ethnic identification and cultural differentiation.

Paper long abstract

The 19th-century ethnography in the Alps-Adriatic region reveals two main approaches: one was rooted in Göttingen Staatswissenschaft with an imperial agenda, emphasizing observations and universal categories; the other was influenced by Herder's ideas, centered on identification and discovery of one’s own culture. .

Epistemological styles that were common in imperial reports displayed the diversity of the multiethnic empire and permitted fluid identifications and in-between spaces. This imperial, universal approach was also evident in more systematic and fact-based works, such as Karl von Czoernig’s Ethnographie der österreichischen Monarchie (1857). In contrast, identification discourses, that were provoked by linguistic shifts focused on ethnic (national) stories and particular evidence that sometimes erased pluricultural realities.

Both approaches had factual ambiguities: the imperial ones usually documented "THEM" broadly but loosely, while identification discourse ones presented "US" accurately, sometimes using exclusionary identity fictions. Genres amplified tensions, since imperial travelogues pushed universality, while articles can show some biased self-reflection. The result was a clash between imperial practicality and romantic idealism.

 At the end of the 19th century, both discourses merged with the realist-positivistic view, which continued to serve the same imperial or national agenda. In the 20th century, Angelo Vivante introduced transnational perspectives based on class theories; however, his voice was silenced by the impending First World War.

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How did events in the Soviet Union shape anthropological research about Siberia? What can we learn today by examining the polarization that characterized the field at that time? We explore the long-term effects of official policies and ideologies on ethnographic research in Siberia and beyond.

Paper long abstract

Throughout its history, and especially since the 1917 October Revolution, the anthropology of Siberia has known periods of opening and closure in access to field sites and transnational collaboration. In the 1920s, Russia became the main centre of anthropological research in Siberia thanks to the work of scholars who had been exiled to Siberia in the last years of the Czarist era. Under Soviet rule, however, they and their students were soon accused of bourgeois tendencies. In the purges of the 1930s, some of them perished, while others had to fit their ethnographic research into the theoretical straitjacket provided by the state. A transition to new paradigms came in the 1960s. Several émigré scholars and a small number of researchers from Western countries wrote about Siberia, without being able to visit the region. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 came a turbulent time of remarkable openness and transnational intellectual exchange. But Russia’s aggression in Ukraine brought this period to a close – not only internationally but also within Russia’s community of anthropologists. Whether at home or abroad, it became impossible for anthropologists to avoid taking a stand, politically. In this context, the events of the 1920s are widely present in the memory and discourse of anthropologists today. How does the current situation of anthropological scholarship on Siberia connect, ideologically and institutionally, with that of the early 20th century? What can we learn from the events that shaped the discipline one hundred years ago?