Prologue – Purpose, Audience, Objectives and Pedagogy

This book takes it’s title from a volume published two decades ago: Excluded Ancestors, Inventible Traditions: Essays Toward a More Inclusive History of Anthropology (Handler, 2000). Excluded Ancestors was published in the History of Anthropology series established  by George Stocking Jr. Stocking was a historian who contributed more than anyone else to the development of the history of anthropology as a lively emphasis in anthropology. Excluded Ancestors marked an institutional and topical shift. Rather than adding ever greater detail to our knowledge of a few dozen canonical thinkers, for two decades research has focused on the study of scholars whose work has been overlooked or marginalized, especially indigenous, minority, and female researchers, as well as individuals and communities that were the objects of study by past anthropologists.

Around the time Excluded Ancestors was published, new work in the same vein was emerging (e.g., Baker, 1998; Harrison and Harrison, 1999) and much additional research has been published in the decades that followed (e.g., Blackhawk and Wilner, 2018; Anderson, 2019). Thus it is now possible to produce more inclusive histories of the field based on synthesizing the secondary literature.

SCOPE AND FOCUS

The contributions to Excluded Ancestors were highly focused and assumed that readers possessed considerable prior knowledge. Later studies that have enriched our understanding of what matters in the history of anthropology also consist largely of highly focused case studies. The goal of this book is different: to provide an introductory synthesis that integrates new more inclusive work with existing disciplinary history. Canonical themes and thinkers are not ignored, but the conversation is broadened.

In all books, much must be left out. For a book as short as this one, each choice is consequential. In making  choices, I have been influenced by the work of Thomas Patterson (Patterson, 1997) and Jacob Pandian (Pandian, 1985), each of whom produced slender introductions that pack a punch. In choosing what to highlight, I have tried to consistently respond to this question: What does the history of anthropology look like when we bring excluded ancestors into the conversation, and pay attention to both the individuals and communities who participated in the history of anthropology not only as objects but often as silent but essential co-authors?

That question cannot be addressed for all thinkers, issues, institutions, and places. Because this is a work of synthesis of existing sources, my decisions have been driven by pragmatism: while I have selected cases for their interest, the topics addressed are limited by the availability of sufficient secondary materials. It has been humbling and inspiring to discover how richly the field has developed in recent decades, but that growth has been uneven. As a result, the discussion has gaps and the synthesis is somewhat patchy. I am confident that will change in years to come as additional studies accumulate.

In terms of geographic coverage, the discussion is heavily weighted to anthropologists who live and work in North America, and particularly studies of Native North America. This reflects my preparation and teaching history. Hopefully, scholars with competencies elsewhere will add their own chapters.

As will become evident to readers, I prefer to bring contrasting modes of thinking into a shared space, and develop their differences. I try to carefully and accurately explain ideas I disagree with, as well as those I favor.  If a reader who completes this book can describe, compare and contrast, and evaluate how scholars who were differently situated produced work that contributed to highly varied anthropological projects, I will consider it to be a success.

Audience

This book is provided as an open educational resource (OER). The intended audience is upper division undergraduate and first year graduate students, as well as general readers with an interest in anthropology or intellectual history. Much excellent work published in recent years addresses readers whose knowledge of social and intellectual history is considerable.  In developing the narrative for this book, I have tried to develop the relevant contexts of time, place, and issues that make them understandable to students with limited preparation. Although greater attention is given to the history of social and cultural anthropology, I have tried to reach an audience more centered in archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology where possible. I hope it finds readers among applied scholars as well.

A Word to instructors

I try to provoke interest in anthropology and its history through selective, focused discussions of key moments and themes in the history of the field.  In deciding what to focus on, I try to respond to challenges facing instructors teaching the history of anthropology. The core challenge is responding to the reasonable concerns that students today bring to their studies of anthropology, concerns that center on ethics. There is impatience with the moral imperfection of anthropology as it has been practiced, especially biases that exclude many voices and ignore important social issues. Students maturing in their knowledge of anthropology are not wrong to conclude that anthropology has largely been developed by scholars hailing from imperial powers who studied subjugated peoples in colonial possessions, nor that their identities have primarily been white and male. They are also correct that the issues anthropologists have considered to be important, and the way questions have been framed, don’t always align with the priorities of the people they worked with.

How do we weigh the value of classic contributions against their potential to offend? To aspire to see the world from “the native’s point of view” as Malinowski (1922) enjoined us, is not the same thing as achieving that vision. And as Malinowski’s writings makes clear, wonderful expressions of tolerance are often found immediately adjacent to offensive phrasings that jar contemporary sensibilities. Consider two quotations from the final page of Malinowski’s classic work, Argonauts of the Western Pacific (Malinowski, 1922: 518) – in the first quotation, I remove a few words, in the second I restore them:

In grasping the essential outlook of others, with … reverence and real understanding … we cannot help widening our own.

In grasping the essential outlook of others, with the reverence and real understanding due even to savages, we cannot help widening our own.

The first, edited sentence is no doubt more congenial to most readers, but the unedited version speaks more authentically to the challenging ethical terrain of the discipline. I have not tried to purify the history of anthropology. Anthropology has been used for many purposes, and I think it is important to understand the full range of those uses. As a result, some of the content may be disturbing. It should be.

Today, the history of anthropology has emerged as a key arena where contemporary debates concerning the future of anthropology play out. I have tried to stress the complexity that inheres in anthropology, and why a tolerance for ambiguity and gray zones has long been considered a mark of virtue and maturity among anthropologists. 

Integrated Pedagogical Devices

To support learning, a number of pedagogical devices have been integrated into the book. Boldface print is used to mark ideas, places, and thinkers that precisely correspond to Wikipedia entries. I am bullish on Wikipedia. It is an underappreciated, open source teaching resource, and it is as good as we want to make it. So if you feel you need more context, Wikipedia can be a place to start, and boldface terms can serve as nudges to explore. Somewhat irregularly, discussion boxes are used to help capture key highlights. Perhaps most importantly, this book maintains a consistent chapter structure. The primary chapters – excluding this introduction and the conclusion- are organized around the components below.

• Chapter Learning Objectives

To provide a high level overview, each chapter opens with chapter level learning objectives.

• VignetteS: MomentS in Time

Following the objectives, a key moment in the history of anthropology is narrated, selected for alignment with the chapter topic to motivate interest.

• HISTORICAL CONTEXTS
  

The core of each chapter will be focused on developing the context needed to understand anthropological theory and methods in a particular time and place, and the issues they sought to address. Celebrated anthropological thinkers are identified alongside their key ideas and why their work mattered at the time, as well as contemporary evaluations of their significance.

• SUMMARY: ON EXCLUDED ANCESTORS
  

Each chapter will conclude with a discussion of the core theme of the volume – What do inclusive histories offer to the chapter theme? To the extent possible, I will try to reach beyond the canon to examine the contributions of excluded ancestors – including field assistants and the residents of the communities under study, as well as marginalized ethnographers.

• additional resources

Additional readings and web resources that are not contained in the references cited, but that are relevant to specific chapters are listed. Emphasis is placed on resources that can be accessed openly via online content.

• ReferenceS CITED