The *theory* classes that I remember (esp. literary theory, cultural theory) tended to lay out theories/ideologies chronologically, in *periods* of development.

And isn’t it funny how, after we’ve elevated these individuals and their ideas and stressed broader historical ties, they actually do start to *seem* representative of time periods, serving as excuses for their own beliefs and actions.

…. When, often during the same time periods, others were making radically different claims, even if not within anthropology / science / theory. That’s another reason why, in my opinion, getting anthropology away from these ridiculous cannons of figureheads would be a huge step forward.

example: While many U.S. social scientists and eugenicists in the late 1800s/early 1900s were building a foundation for compulsory sterilization of certain segments of the population, a lawyer for a woman slated to be sterilized was making an argument to the Supreme Court (Buck v. Bell) not far from Max’s main emphasis on science as knowledge for domination:

He added that the real danger was not from the feebleminded but from the professional doctors … ‘We will,’ he warned, ‘have established in the state the science of medicine and a corresponding system of judicature. A reign of doctors will be inaugurated and in the name of science new classes will be added, even races may be brought within the scope of such a regulation and the worst form of tyranny practiced.’ (Wray 93)

Recently, the same argument has been made by Robert Lawless, concerning Malinowski, in a CounterPunch article critical of Montgomery McFate. He was a “product of his time”.

Yes, so is McFate a product of her time, our time.

I don’t care if Bourdieu bit the heads off of kittens, spanked old ladies on the butt with a newspaper, or even completely made up his fieldwork, the only “Algeria” he had ever gone to was a cafe by that name. None of that is remotely relevant here. The only credibility that is relevant, is the credibility of the argument, not the person. I don’t “trust” the argument, nor do I care for authority — I like the argument because it resonates.

Because cultural evolutionism was okay the first time you really encountered it, which was as Marxism. No instead you waited for it to be incarnated as mod. theo. before finding anything to object about it. Typical.

Are we all slaves now? Perhaps it was meant jokingly as I hope it was, to command loyalty to some deceased fictive ancestor and to speak in terms of a bequeathed trust, a house, and a legacy. Bizarre sense of entitlement there, ascriptive and retroactive. If anthropology has any future at all, it will be entirely thanks to the diminishing number of students who still join our ranks, against better judgment and in the absence of good advice. The discipline’s existence owes them all of the thanks. It’s not the other way around. I can see another reason, however, as to why our numbers fall: if one takes a pompous and arrogant tone toward students about their duties and what they owe, to still their tongues and deaden their minds, with the only reward being a degree in a field that will get them nowhere, then they have every perfect reason to desert.

Please accept my apologies Max, as you know I prefer email, even more now that you have said certain things about anonymity. But I was too disgusted by what I read here not to intervene. If someone has no argument against those of Bourdieu or anyone else, then don’t comment. This is mush, being repeated by two commenters now, about credibility and trustworthiness and expertise. Show us your better argument, and why you know more and know better, or get lost.

Maybe it’s a good sign: raw nerves that you’re finding and playing with.

Boas may have been a “founding” figure in American institutional anthropology — of course, he was not, it’s rather the agents and interests that made the space for him to occupy that founded institutional anthropology — but he is not a founder of anthropology as such. He was neither its beginning nor its end.

I read tons of Marx before I entered anthropology. The anthropologist who most influenced Marx was Lewis Henry Morgan. If there is any indirect influence from an anthropologist — and I have disliked cultural evolutionism since almost the first day I encountered it in the guise of modernization theory — then that recognition belongs to Morgan. The two sets of anthropological work I had read before entering anthropology were those of Michael Taussig and Marshall Sahlins. I don’t actually know if Taussig was trained as an anthropologist, being confused by his position teaching performance studies, but again his work was explicitly in the Marxist tradition. Sahlins began as a cultural evolutionist — there it is again, Boas’ nemesis — and as a neo-Marxist.

I don’t claim Boas’ inheritance. Nor am I dismissing him, otherwise he would not even be mentioned in my essay. You seem to think I owe him something, and I do: I owe him thanks for setting an example for speaking out against anthropologists working as spies, and I thank him for providing me with material to work against, such as “salvage ethnography.” He is also a useful common reference, so his persona becomes an instrumental vehicle for communicating with other anthropologists. However, none of us owe the discipline to him, unless you are a proud American nationalist who thinks of all anthropology as American anthropology, and all American anthropology as institutional anthropology. I think you might want to see me paint myself into some corner over this Boas legacy stuff, and it’s just not going to happen.

The whole point of this post is to get beyond the personalities and the mythical hero stories. Boas did not establish anthropology, simply because he had no such power. He did the right things in begging for attention, and he got it. Thanks?

There is credibility, and then there is sainthood.

There is ‘expertise’ and there is ‘trustworthiness’; these are the two senses of credibility to which I refer.

No, really, I am quite sure Boas had no influence whatsoever on my decision to enter anthropology, regardless of what they say in Puerto Rico.

What they say in Puerto Rico is that regardless of your presentation of self you have an African ancestor. My point is not whether or not knowledge of Boas’ work influenced your choice to enter the discipline but rather that anthropology is a house that Boas helped build and ipso facto a member of the current household is Boas’s legatee. I’m not saying you have to like the guy that left you your trust fund but I do think it’s a little rude to claim the inheritance and disclaim the guy that willed it to you.

I don’t think of practice theory as grounded theory either […]

Unfortunately a lot of people do. It is popular among many archaeologists for precisely the reason that it gives the appearance of being rooted in empirical behavior.