Is it still worth talking about a British anthropology?
Keywords:
Social anthropology, United Kingdom, institutional history, academic politics, theoretical paradigms, ethnography, cosmopolitanism, nationalism.Abstract
In the view of Adam Kuper, it is only possible to talk about a British school of anthropology recognized as “a distinct intellectual movement at the international level” during the fifty years between 1920 and the beginning of the 1970s. This article discusses the history of social anthropology in the United Kingdom during and after these “golden years” not only in intellectual terms but also in sociological, cultural and institutional terms, analysing the British experience as a professionalization project that sought to construct an academic discipline able to gain respect within elite universities. Reviewing some of the divergences and contradictions that emerged within the discipline even during its supposed golden years, the essay examines both the
academic and extra-academic conditions that led to the demise of the “modern British school” of social anthropology, emphasizing various paradoxical aspects of its history in relation to the work of various key figures. Nevertheless, the analysis also seeks to identify some of the positive
and lasting contributions that anthropologists working in the United Kingdom have made to our collective patrimony of ideas, methods, shared knowledge and ethical principles, defending their relevance to the contemporary world. Although the greater degree of cosmopolitanism achieved by
British anthropology from the 1970s onwards may now seem to be threatened by the resurgence of xenophobic nationalisms, not only is there much to celebrate in the more open posture of the discipline in the United Kingdom in recent decades, but there are also reasons for thinking that
our critical work could be more relevant than ever in our present world in crisis.
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