Anthropology Beyond Anthropologists: ‘Other’ Actors and Structures in the History of Anthropology

The George W. Stocking, Jr. Symposium has been held annually at the American Anthropological Association (AAA) since 2006. Named after George W. Stocking, Jr. – widely credited with establishing the history of anthropology as a field of historical study and founder of History of Anthropology Review in its earliest form – the symposium provides a forum for historical perspectives on anthropology at the AAA meeting. The 2023 Stocking Symposium was entitled “Transitions, Transmissions, and Transformations in the History of Anthropology.” Here, Julia Rodriguez provides reflections on the second panel of the Symposium.

The idea for the 2023 George Stocking Memorial Symposium took shape first in an email exchange between Nicholas Barron, Adrianna Link, and me. I wrote to Nick, recalling that I had heard him speak on zoom panel organized by the Consortium for History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in which there was a discussion about the backlash to decolonial critiques of anthropology. I mentioned to Nick that he had “made some great points about how the most recent scholarship [in the history of anthropology] is more balanced, recognizing the constructive parts of 20th century anthropology while still being committed to critiquing and moving beyond European and colonial (and patriarchal) perspectives…”

This balancing act is something I have pondered as I write the history of early Americanist anthropology with a focus on Latin America. The late nineteenth century was one of the high-water marks of colonial science, complete with all forms of exploitation and the theft of bodies and objects. And yet, among the scientists whose work I studied, there are thin, clear echoes of what anthropologists would decades later come to call collaboration, reciprocity, and human rights. This is by no means an apologia for colonial anthropological practices. Rather, my study of Americanist anthropology led me to put this history in the larger context of centuries-long human encounters and interactions – the clumsy attempts of peoples to make sense of each other alongside more systematic or structural forms of exploitation. I saw a pattern, one that seemingly repeats with some variation until the present. That is, the vocabulary and references may change, but the basic conflict is the same: how do we regard the Other? Given uneven power relationships, is it always a commodified encounter, based around conquest and inherently exploitative? Or is it sometimes a more curious, openminded, and humble approach to those perceived as Others? Do we sometimes embrace Others’ differences, or necessarily annihilate them? Or is the dynamic often something in between an embrace and extraction?[1]

I wrote to Nick that this could be a productive avenue for further discussion with a group of historians of anthropology and practicing anthropologists. The idea, I proposed, would be to explore whether critical and decolonizing histories of anthropology could recognize the constructive, collaborative, and liberating practices developed by anthropologists in the twentieth century in conjunction with a clear-eyed dissection of skewed power relations in and around the discipline.

Nick brought Adrianna into the conversation and the three of us set about defining the possibilities and limits of an event at the upcoming AAA meeting. For her part, Ada wrote: “I’m interested in better understanding how anthropological materials in these repositories were influenced or shaped by larger conversations about anthropology’s shifting disciplinary identity in the mid-20th c. and how decisions about the construction of these archives continue to impact their use by both scholars and members of Indigenous communities in the present.”

After putting out a call for papers, we realized we had enough submissions for two panels, each with distinct thread: the first would address anthropology’s decolonial politics in the mid-to late-twentieth century; the second would explore moments of interaction between “Others” in anthropology, including human and material actors, and structures. The second of these two panels, “Anthropology Beyond Anthropologists,” approached the concept of the Other head-on. Among the questions we began to explore (but by no means drew any firm conclusions) were:  How and why does the meaning of the Other shift from context to context, and between historical actors? Why do we scholars, and should we, present the “Other” in scare quotes? Is it even a useful term to be employing today? We also hoped the question of the Other(s) would provide entree into a discussion of the larger issue of how to engage anthropology’s past productively and build the field we want to see emerge, a task that requires collaboration between anthropologists, historians of science, and others.

The panel brought together five scholars – historians and anthropologists – to present new work in the history of anthropology that incorporated “other” actors and structures in the process of knowledge production in anthropology. Robert Launay looked at “European writers imagining non-Europeans observing Europeans” in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, suggesting a “paradoxical premise” insofar as the authors believed on some level in the “common humanity” of all peoples. Christopher Heaney’s paper recast the history of Americanist anthropology with Peruvian history and Andean people at the center, in which centuries-long practices around bodies and remains of ancestors formed the basis and model for European science in the late nineteenth century. Amy Cox Hall’s paper posited a form of time travel in which the scholar herself moves into the past through immersion in photographs, in this case those of the Yale Peruvian expedition of 1911.  Cox emphasized the possibility of human connection with our subjects through this methodological intervention. Finally, Charlotte Williams offered a radical rejection of the concept of the Other, using the case of the United Fruit company’s exploitation of land and labor to concretize anthropological heritage sites. She argued that since creation of these sites was impossible without the work of local people on the ground, including Indigenous experts and manual laborers, historians should recognize the sterility and false certainty of such archeological sites, and rather seek out the sources of meaning among the people who actually worked them to produce “braided knowledge.” 

In the discussion, I raised a series of interlocking questions: Is the concept of the Other indeed a paradox, or can we hold universals and differences in our minds simultaneously? How can we create linkages between people, structures, and material conditions and power in our work? The scholar’s own affect is important to recognize, but how can it take us beyond the (often brief) moment of feeling? Are these interventions different for historians than for anthropologists?  And finally, can historians do history without extraction? Arguably, it seems intrinsic to what we do, so where does that leave us?

If doing better history is our goal, what are the promising paths towards that goal? All four papers provided possible ways to think about (or abandon) the concept of the ‘Other’ – and open new possibilities for historians’ processes. Amy Cox eloquently acknowledged the power of and for having insight into our own emotions, values, positionality, and limitations. Perhaps historians can begin to reflect on their positionality as knowledge producers, as many anthropologists have for some time now.

Did we solve the question of the Other? At least within Euromerican cosmologies it appears unsolvable. It is baked into human social relations on micro and macro levels. We can think differently, and intentionally about it, however, and try to move in new diretions. I am inspired by the history of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, who starting in the mid-seventeenth century adopted what was known as “plain speech,” one of the most noticeable aspects of which was the use of thee/thou in all situations, when addressing all people, regardless of the addressee’s rank or relation to the addresser. This use of thee/thou was employed, in part, as a means of expressing the Quaker belief in the equality of all people. There are probably many other theories, practices, values, and spiritual orientations along these lines that we as scholars may draw inspiration from.[2]

Collectively, the four papers and generative discussion of the panel offered some paths forward in thinking through the future possibilities for anthropology and history, and more broadly, to deepen human connections. These paths provide first steps in a conversation that explores fundamental concepts in anthropology more deeply. They emphasize the importance of liminal spaces of knowledge and emotion, as well as relationships between people in the past and ourselves. They underscore self-reflection of scholars and advocate for a presentist approach to the history of anthropology, revealing links between past and present – through time, space, and mediums – including the author or scholar themself. Finally, the panelists encouraged historians of anthropology to center human connections and empathy, which are often found in unlikely places.

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[1] Elsewhere I argued that human encounters are often characterized by ambivalence and instability; see Julia E. Rodriguez, “Skull Hunters on the Pampa: Anthropology as Uncanny Encounter in Argentina’s ‘Last Massacre’,” in Adam Warren, Julia Rodriguez, and Stephen T. Casper, eds., Empire, Colonialism, and the Human Sciences: Troubling Encounters in the Americas and Pacific (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

[2] See Chandani Attiyya Nash, “’You and I’: Grammar and Narrative in Kinship,” Confluence, 9 April 2021; https://confluence.gallatin.nyu.edu/context/interdisciplinary-seminar/you-and-i-grammar-and-narrative-in-kinship, accessed 10 March 2024.