TRANSATLANTIC PARALLAXES Toward Reciprocal Anthropology

Cultural Anthropology, 2013

This paper offers a study of French anthropological tradition in a comparative perspective. It focuses on French anthropologists' writing practices and, in particular, on a strikingly recurrent phenomenon: that French ethnographers, in addition to their scholarly work, often write a "second book," a literary account of their experience in the field. The study of the divide between these two books allows for a comparison with other national anthropological traditions, particularly the American one. It sheds light on some difficulties in cultural and intellectual translation between national traditions in social sciences.

In 2010, the University of Wisconsin Press published what was presented as the "twelfth and final" volume of the influential "History of Anthropology" series: the autobiography of its founder, George Stocking. Through this curious gesture, both reflexive and conclusive, a moment of anthropology (and of historiography) was officially declared closed. It was as if one could claim that the history of the discipline had now been "covered," at least for a while, following the appearance of several volumes on the British, American, and German anthropological traditions. It is obvious, however, that many national traditions are missing from this picture. Among those absences, one seems particularly striking: that of French anthropology. This is not to say that French anthropology deserves more respect or attention than, say, Japanese or Russian anthropology. But given the rich and more than century-long history of dialogue and exchange between English-and French-speaking social scientists, it is surprising that no extensive study was ever devoted, as such, to a tradition that produced thinkers as influential as Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss, Claude Lévi-Strauss, or Pierre Bourdieu.

Social Anthropology, 2007

Ethnohistory

Small Axe

It has long been a cornerstone of Western philosophical thought that humans are unique because they can be both the subject and object of knowledge. A knowing subject can treat the world as her object, but she can also treat herself as an object to be known. Immanuel Kant called this the faculty of understanding and distinguished it from other faculties in that its main function was to allow for self-awareness, a capacity that he said "raises [humans] infinitely above all other living beings on earth." 1 That is to say, for Kant human beings are special because they think themselves. This self-consciousness develops first through self-observation-thinking about our own thought-and then through observation of the external world and of other human beings-thinking about others.

The years between 1930 and the early 1940s were especially important for the development of anthropology in the United States. This was a time of intdlectual fervor and, in relation to the previous decades, unparalleled growth. During this period, the subject matter and methods of anthropology in the United States were reoriented and the discipline was revitalized as a profession. The intellectual outlines of post-World War II anthropology in the United States formed in the concerns and experiences of anthropologists working during this time. Eggan (1968:134) characterizes this as the start of the "modern period" of anthropology in the United States. To some degree, today's anthropological discussions still reflect these developments.

French Politics, Culture & Society, 2019

Cultural anthropology in France continues to bear the influence of a colonial-era distinction between "modern" societies with a high degree of social differentiation (and marked by rapid social change) and ostensibly socially homogeneous and change-resistant "traditional" ones. The history of key institutions (museums and research institutes) bears witness to this, as does recent scholarship centered on "the contemporary" that reworks earlier models and concepts and applies them to a world increasingly marked by transnational circulation and globalization. Anthropology at the Crossroads describes the evolution of a national tradition of scholarship, changes to its institutional status, and the models, concepts, and critical perspectives of anthropologists currently revisiting and reworking the foundations of the discipline in France.

To forge an anthropology that speaks to the full range of human experiences, especially our domains of commonality, we need to critically examine the historical and locational positioning of the anthropological project. In this essay, I argue that is best to understand anthropology in terms of a history of transnational schools of anthropology, rather than in terms of national or continental divisions. When the history of anthropology is examined in terms of its generative networks, the discipline emerges as a transnational endeavour built by networks of individuals, scholarly organizations, universities, foundations, and national government institutions including colonial offices.

This review unravels different facets of la Francophonie, both as an international institution dedicated to the defense of French and as a group of people who speak or are united by French. Having been highly ideological since its beginnings and its association with France's colonial history, the very idea of la Francophonie has aroused passionate debates both within and without. Although it was officially launched as a cultural community seeking to develop economic partnership, it has evolved into a political organization promoting human rights and democracy and defending cultural diversity against Anglo-American hegemony. From a linguistic point of view, la Francophonie is approached in light of the centuries-long ideology of French as a universal language whose vitality is threatened by other languages. This review also shows that the political discourse of the institutional Francophonie has not always been in tune with that of its main agents, the Francophones.

ANUAC-Rivista della società italiana di antropologia culturale 8, 2019

Why is European anthropology still a controversial concept? In this commentary, I propose to locate European anthropology in its epistemology, by which is primarily meant the discipline's reflexivity, and in its transnational setting which requires not only communication across national borders but also equality in exchanges among European anthropologists. Also, I argue that European anthropology is to be found in the common horizon of meaning that is shared by European anthropologists. Along these lines, I conclude that dealing with the "controversy" of European anthropology entails engaging with further controversies.