The Contribution of Anthropology to African Studies

Abstract

The African Studies Association (ASA) was born in a blaze of anthropological glory with Melville Herskovits, the celebrated anthropologist and “universally recognized dean of American Africanists in the United States” (Greenberg, 1963: 3) as its Founder President in 1957. In all, six ASA presidents have been anthropologists, a number exceeded only by political science. Of the forty-eight founding Fellows, ten were anthropologists, eight were political scientists, and four were geographers, while history, economics, and sociology had three each. This numerical predominance of anthropological membership continued until 1963 when political science equalized and then drew ahead. Other possible indicators, such as membership of the Executive Board, winners of the Herskovits prize, recipients of travel awards, and numbers of Ph.D. dissertations, are in conformity with this general picture of early anthropological prominence and later eclipse. When the ASA commissioned a comprehensive survey of African research (The African World, published in 1965), the editor (Lystad) was an anthropologist and over one-third of the chapters were by anthropologists. It was the most ambitious single publication ever produced by the ASA. Such quantitative indicators are crude, and we must ask what lies behind them. There are some problems in the fact that the disciplines are not clear cut. This paper includes public administration with political science and archaeology with anthropology. Some linguists and ethnomusicologists, especially in the early period, definitely identified themselves as anthropologists, whereas at the present time most would not. Some anthropologists have acquired the identity of sociologists for circumstantial reasons. Generally speaking, social anthropologists who have taught in African universities from the 1950s until now have had to do so in departments of sociology and frequently as heads of such departments.

A institucionalização dos estudos Africanos nos Estados Unidos: advento, consolidação e transformações

“…Despite the important contributions of linguists and archeology, the principal influence undeniably came from anthropology -which was already a discipline with a long, though disputable, relationship with Africa. 33 According to Miller, "the first generation of professional Africanist historians was based on non-historic disciplines established in Africa, principally anthropology." 34 The dialogue with anthropology created a contrast with Europe, where the 'colonialist past' of anthropology would not be ignored, which made the dialogue with African History unfeasible.…”

Retroversion, Introversion, Extraversion: Three Aspects of African Anthropology

“…Over its long history of engagement with the discipline Africa has arguably contributed more than any other region to the anthropological study of familiar topics such as witchcraft, ritual symbolism, descent theory, and the politics and law in 'small-scale' societies (163). But we may ask, with others, whether this regional significance is still justified (Southall 1983;Guyer 2004).…”

“…Over its long history of engagement with the discipline Africa has arguably contributed more than any other region to the anthropological study of familiar topics such as witchcraft, ritual symbolism, descent theory, and the politics and law in 'small-scale' societies (163). But we may ask, with others, whether this regional significance is still justified (Southall 1983;Guyer 2004).Given developments within African Studies and anthropology itself over the past quarter century, along with the articulation of a range of critical voices directed at Africanist anthropology, does Africa retain its important place within anthropology? How well has the field escaped the dilemma that Africa presents 'classic' ethnographic examples in both the exemplary and timeless senses of the term?…”