Histories of Anthropology

“The book offers a fresh analysis of the discipline’s unfolding in different nation states by tracing the historical trajectories of lesser known anthropological traditions in terms of theoretical and methodological practices.” — Soumendra Patnaik, Professor of Anthropology, University of Delhi This edited volume presents, for the first time, a history of anthropology regarding not only the well-known European and American traditions, but also lesser known traditions, extending its scope beyond the Western world. It focuses on the results of these traditions in the present. Taking into account the distinction between empire-building and nation-building anthropology, introduced by G. Stocking and taken up by U. Hannerz, the book investigates different histories of anthropology, especially in ex-colonial and marginal contexts. It highlights how the hegemonic anthropologies have been accepted and assimilated in local contexts, which approaches have been privileged by institutions and academies in different locations, how the anthropological approach has been modelled and adapted according to specific knowledge requirements related to the cultural features of different areas, and which schools emerge as the most consolidated today. Each chapter presents a “cultural history” of one of the historical-cultural and geo-political contexts that influenced and produced the specific disciplinary traditions. The chapters highlight the local contributions to the discipline, the influences that the world centres have on the peripheries, but also the ways in which the peripheries have “learned from the centres” in order to re-elaborate meaningful or otherwise recognisable disciplinary lines. Gabriella D’Agostino is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Palermo University, Department of Cultures and Societies, Italy. She is author of the book Sous le traces. Anthropologie et contemporanéité (Éditions Pétra 2018), and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Archivio Antropologico Mediterraneo. Vincenzo Matera is Full Professor of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Milan, Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Mediations, Italy. He is also a professor at USI (Università della Svizzera Italiana). He is co-editor of Ethnography: A Theoretically Oriented Practice (Palgrave Macmillan 2021).