Admiration, Antipathy and Anthropological Ancestors

Abstract

Many anthropologists draw upon the field notes, manuscripts and publications of earlier ethnographers by way of conceptualizing socio-cultural change and continuity, creolization, etc. In doing so we typically consider the cultural and political placement of those earlier anthropologists who are so important to our own work. Much analysis of these anthropological "ancestors" is highly critical, focusing on matters of representation and colonial or imperial emplacement. This is highly important, but it also tends to be presentist and moralistic, almost as if we are trying to distance ourselves from critiques of the discipline: by “othering” those who have preceded us in our fieldsites, we can implicitly present ourselves as not colonial or imperial. This paper asks how we can represent earlier fieldworkers without recuperating old progressivist histories of the discipline. I critically reconsider my earlier treatment of Hocart and Rivers in light of these questions. My paper is primarily concerned with developing questions rather than suggesting answers at this point. Such questions go beyond earlier fieldworkers to include those, such as missionaries, who are “awkward” subjects of historical anthropological analysis when our goal is to understand them as cultural beings without losing sight of their political placement and activity.