Professional Documents
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Lewis - in Defense of Anthropology - 2014 PDF
Lewis - in Defense of Anthropology - 2014 PDF
of
An Investigation of the
Critique of Anthropology
Herbert S. Lewis
•
Transaction Publishers
New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)
4
Was Anthropology the Child,
the Tool, or the Handmaiden
of Colonialism?
73
In Defense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
the contrary, usually been trivial" (Asad 1991: 314). If Asad is correct, As we shall see in the next chapter, there is a genre of critical literature
how is it possible that anthropology should not have played the impor- that explicitly aims to find anthropologists guilty of the sins of their
tant role imagined for it, and why is it so widely believed that it did? pre-modern predecessors. Writers with this approach delight in dwell-
While Asad did not mean to exonerate British social anthropology ing on the evil origins of anthropology, its "heart of darkness" (Apter
from other forms of political and intellectual derivation from and 1999) and the horror and crimes at the discipline's birth (Dirks 1999
implication in colonialism, ,his clear, and repeated, declaration that [See the next chapter.]). Thus the whole discipline is under the clou,d
anthropologists did not contribute in a substantial way to "maintain- of both descent from and complicity with colonialism.
ing structures of imperial domination" sounds so definite that it seems
remarkable that it has been generally unnoticed or ignored. Asad's The Relation of American Anthropology to Colonialism
other points are too complex and debatable to deal with here, but in The origins of American anthropology as a professional discipline can
this chapter I want to focus on the question of anthropology's role in be dated to the years after 1896, when Fl'anz Boas founded a one-man
colonial rule. I hope the historical background presented here will add department at Columbia University and began turning out students
some reality to a discourse that is usually carried on as a gloss on the with PhDs. 3 Before Franz Boas established this new field, with its credos
writings of famous postmodern and postcolonial thinkers. 1 and credentials, there was a very small group of devoted and variously
"Colonialism" is not just any misrule, inequality, domination, but talented amateurs, educated in other fidds, who recorded American
generally refers to the conquest and acquisition of foreign territory by Indian languages and cultures (Bieder 1986; Darnell: 1998, 2001;
a state and the subsequent rule over that land and its peoples to the Hinsley 1981; Patterson 2001), but it was Boas's methods, approaches,
advantage of the population of the controlling country. Above all the theoretical perspectives, and ethical precepts that rapidly won scholarly
label is applied to the overseas imperial adventures of Spain, Portugal, acceptance among those interested in this field (Darnell 1998; and
the Netherlands, France, Britain, and, rather late in the day, Belgium, chapter 7). The numbers of cultural anthropologists with doctoral
Germany, and Italy. European rule over the peoples of Asia, Africa, degrees in the United States grew slowlv; there were about a dozen by
and the Pacific from the eighteenth century until the ending of colonial 1915, almost all from Columbia or otherwise directly influenced by
rule in the mid-to-late twentieth century has been the focus of much Boas. His students, in turn, spread anthropology across the land as far
Marxist, postcolonial, and similar theorizing. Of course imperial west as Berkeley, but there were only about fifty cultural anthropolo-
ventures in the New World began with the overseas adventures of gists with doctorates in the United States by 1932.
the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch, to be followed Until the eve of World War II the gn·at majority of the research by
by colonizations from those countries that have left the indigenous American anthropologists was carried out in the United States, mostly
population, in most cases, as a very small minority. But, to reiterate a among American Indians. The list of doctoral dissertations (Yearbook
general point of this book: the association of colonialism and anthro- ofAnthropology, 1955) and of the articles in American Anthropologist
pology, as with most critique of anthropology is directed primarily at demonstrates the overwhelming focus on native American culture
Anglophone anthropology. Because these are the preferred targets of and society. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, some anthro-
the grand critiques, we will concentrate our counter-argument on the pologists eked out livings by doing research in American farming
American and British traditions. 2 communities, in cities, and among European immigrant populations
It is important to note that the literature and the general under- in the United States (see chapter 1). rlhus whatever else American
standing do not distinguish between the Bad Old Days when there anthropologists may have done wrong, they can be exculpated of the
were no professional anthropologists but only amateur enthusiasts crime of complicity with colonial rule in European overseas colonies,
and observers (missionaries, government officials, adventurers, folk- at least until after World War II, shortly before those colonies gained
lore collectors, and pioneer scientific observers and speculators) and their independence.
a later professional period that might have been quite different. The The few American anthropologists who carried out research abroad
point of the trope is to implicate the modern or modernist discipline. included Ralph Linton, Margaret Mead, and Reo Fortune, who did
74 75
In Defense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
fieldwork in Polynesia and Melanesia, and four others who carried out of anthropological research ... would help to surmount the barriers of
research in the Philippines. The Philippines were an American colony ignorance and prejudice, those unnatural impediments to progress, that
at that time but William Jones, Laura Benedict, Fay-Cooper Cole, and separated America's native race from the rest of America's citizenry"
Roy Barton were not working for the US government. The research of (Moses 1984: 223).
the first three was largely directed to museum and basic ethnographic While the funds came from the government, the researchers were
survey work, and Barton, an independent spirit, was intensely devoted not engaged to take any part in governing or even to advise directly-
to the study oflfugao and Kalinga cultural and social systems (Kroeber only to do research. None of the ethnographers had been trained in
1949; Stanyukovic 2004).4 anthropology; there.was nowhere they could have been, in America at
Several Americans did research in Africa in the last years before least, but these students of Indian languages and cultures were deeply
World War II: Melville Herskovits, William Bascom, Joseph Greenberg, dedicated to their missions-"impassioned by their commitment to
Horace Miner, and Jack Sargent Harris. Only Harris, then a confirmed truth" (Moses 1984: 223). They worked for years with no career lad-
Marxist, was in the employ of a colonial power; he did studies of the der to climb. And, as Moses points out, encouraged by Powell's notion
agricultural cycle for the Nigerian colonial government (see chapter 8). that people of talent and commitment had to be free to follow her
And a few Americans worked in other countries that were not under or his genius, "each of the ethnologists pursued his particular muse"
colonial rule: Japan, Irish Free State, Sicily, Mexico, Brazil, and Guate- (1984: 223). James Mooney, an American-born Irish nationalist with
mala. Considering how few they were, the timing of their appearance sympathies for the downtrodden everywhere, produced an extensive
on the scene, and the nature of their research, it is difficult to see how and remarkable body of material on the Cherokees, Kiowas, and other
American anthropologists could have played a role in overseas colo- tribes, invaluable for the people themselves today, for study and cultural
nialism. But what about colonialism in the United States? revival. His book, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of
The current states of the New World originated in colonialism and 1890, is a powerful contemporary account of a major cultural develop-
colonization. The case has been made that the American Indians are ment and historical occurrence. It features heartbreaking descriptions
still victims of colonial domination, or "internal colonialism:' What of the "broken promises and starvation" that led to the "outbreak" and
has the role of anthropologists been with respect to colonial rule over of the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Native Americans? Alice C. Fletcher, with the aid ofF rancis La Flesche, a member of the
Before the professionalization of anthropology and its move to Omaha nation, produced one of the best ethnographies, The Omaha
the universities, the Bureau of American Ethnology supported most Tribe. 5 Frank Cushing distinguished himself by living at Zuni pueblo
of the ethnographic and archeological research in the United States. from 1879 to 1884, engaging with the people and culture as deeply
The BAE was established by an act of Congress in 1879 as a result of as possible, providing an early example of a participant-observer;
the vision and lobbying of Colonel John Wesley Powell ("Powell of the his insights into Zuni culture were distinctive (Mark 1980). Matilda
Colorado"), a dynamic geologist and explorer who was very popular Stevenson, Washington Matthews, Frances Densmore (our library
and influential after the Civil War (Hinsley 1981: 147). Powell's ambi- catalogue lists sixty-nine entries for Densmore!), and J. N. B. Hewitt
tious plans were to carry out a survey of all the Indian languages and (a member of the Iroquois Nation [Tuscarora]) were others who stand
study the cultures of all of the Indian groups for historical purposes out for their devotion to the cause of recording Indian languages and
and to record rapidly disappearing customs and culture. He also hoped cultures "before it is too late"-the constant theme of those days, as
that the linguists and ethnographers who worked for the bureau would it would be for the early Boasians as well. They were witnessing rapid
contribute to an understanding of Indian ways in order to be able to changes-losses oflanguages and cui tural practices-decade by decade.
promote plans for the betterment of Indian conditions-indeed, as he Robert Bieder writes,
saw it, for their very survival. This was a period when most of those
who cared about the native peoples believed that their choice was Nearly all of the ethnologists h('re examined couched the importance
either to adapt to white "civilization" or die out. "Powell's organization of their work in terms of its value to government Indian policy or to
76 77
In Defense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
the 'civilization' of Indians in general ... [and] several sought funds exchange, technology and arts, marriage, the family, and larger social
from the government to further their research goals. The contributions organizations, child rearing, warfare, ritual and belief, etc. Most of
of ethnographic research to government Indian policy were, however,
their efforts were spent trying to understand the many Indian cultures
indirect and minimal. Most probably both government and church
policy would have remained the same in the absence of a science of and their dynamics and, frequently, to reconstruct the history of the
ethnology. (1986: 249; my emphasis) peoples and the development and spread of their cultures. There has
been much superficial and unjust criticism of the attempt to recon-
The ethnographic accounts-of Zuni's esoteric fraternities, ethno- struct "the ethnographic present;' but "salvage anthropology" was in the
botany, and bread making; of the Omaha buffalo hunt organization service of a deeper knowledge of humankind and its ways, for a com-
(by then no longer functioning); of myths of the Cherokee; the music parative study of human behavior and cultural dynamics. As with the
of the Cheyenne and Arapaho-and the material on Indian languages, devoted amateurs who preceded them (and in some cases overlapped
were hardly useful for government purposes, as important as these with them) their work was conducted in order to add these peoples to
may be for Indians and anthropologists. These works were usually the roster of the world's cultures and languages before all was lost in
published in the Bureau's bulletins (two hundred of them) and annual the face of oppression, poverty, and th~ onrush of acculturation. The
reports (eighty-one), found only on the shelves oflarge libraries where researchers could not have realized thl' extent and the ways in which
they would normally languish in obscurity. Except in the most trivial the descendants of their informants might use this information today. 6
sense these are not the products of colonialism but careful accounts of It would be a mistake, however, to leave the impression that the
the lives of fellow human beings whose ways, different from those early professional anthropologists wert' only interested in description,
of the ethnographers, deserve recording, both for their own sake and in ethnographic and linguistic salvage Cor their own sake. Franz Boas,
for the study of the ways, thoughts, and history of humankind. A. L. Kroeber, Robert H. Lowie, Edward Sapir, Alexander Goldenweiser,
Fittingly, today the Native American Library is reprinting material Paul Radin, leading anthropologists of the first decades, were widely
from the Bureau of American Ethnology publications and making them read in science, philosophy, and the humanities. Their general works,
accessible to Indian tribes. According to Herman J. Viola, then direc- texts, and theoretical pieces were aimed at the understanding of human
tor of the National Anthropological Archives, "In this way, we hope behavior, of the dynamics of society and culture, and the workings of the
to assist in the wider dissemination to and by Indians of information human mind. Their concerns, both theoretical and ethnological, were
on their heritage, which is also a significant part of the heritage of all · directed to very different ends than control over subject populations.
other Americans" (Viola 2009: xv). Ironically, their lack of concern for political matters in their research
When the students of Boas arrived on the scene at the turn of the and theory became one of the charges against them in the critique.
century, several were funded by the BAE for ethnographic and (mostly) In the late 1920s and 1930s American anthropologists turned to
linguistic research. For the most part, however, the pitiful pittances questions of change, acculturation, and the economic and social prob-
professional anthropologists received for their research during Boas's lems of American Indians. This work was not in the service of govern-
years came from whatever he was able to scrape together for them, ment or "keeping the natives down:' On the contrary, anthropologists
sometimes from museums, sometimes from private foundations, and often explicitly opposed the policies of government administrators
sometimes from his wealthy friend and sociologist-anthropologist- and told them so, exemplified by Franz Boas's opposition to the ban-
folklorist colleague, Elsie Clews Parsons. The new anthropologists .ning of the potlatch by the Canadian g( wernment and his objection to
were not working for any government but for their new science, and the refusal to teach Indian languages and cultures in the government
the government wouldn't have been interested in any case. boarding schools (see chapter 6).
Perusal of the American Anthropo~logist and library bookshelves It was during the Great Depression and the period of the New
will show that until at least the mid -1920s these modern scholars were Deal, in the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that some
concerned with describing American Indian languages and whatever anthropologists became involved in l ndian political and economic
they could still find out about "the old ways" -ways of subsistence and affairs, especially with respect to education, economic development
78 79
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
and land use, and to the "Indian Reorganization Act:' Congress passed my advice-which would, of course, have been in opposition to almost
the Wheeler-Howard Act of 1934 with the aim of slowing further loss everything that African regime was doing with respect to its Others.
of Indian land and the erosion of their local political situation "in ways The point is, neither in location, timing, opportunity, intellectual
consistent with their indigenous organization" (Trencher 2002). Of interests, values, nor in the substance of their work did professional
course these projects were far less successful than hoped for as a result American anthropologists fit the profile of tools of colonialism.
of multiple conflicting interests, widely varying understandings, many Furthermore, the ideas that guided American anthropologists were not
different Indian factions and existential situations, political and legal those that are usually cited as products of, or facilitating, colonialism.
manipulations by congress, courts, and local white interests (Kennard A central element in the Boas ian revolution was the overthrow of the
and Macgregor 1953: 832-833). Nevertheless these programs did have hegemony of cultural evolutionary theory and scientific racism. Boas
some beneficial results, especially for tribes that were in a position and his followers were the great opponents of these prevailing concepts
to organize themselves politically, like the Wisconsin Oneidas who and the source of the overthrow of these two grand narratives that
benefitted from both the tribal reorganization and the grants of land, dominated American, British, and European thinking about others until
funds, and materials for building homes (Hauptman 1981: 84-85). that time. Socialists and Marxists were at least as convinced of Morgan's
Other anthropologists were engaged by the Department of Agricul- evolutionary narrative of cultural development, as were the boosters
ture to work with farmers and rural people of all backgrounds, especially of free enterprise and Social Darwinism (Pittenger 1993). American
in the American South and Southwest, on problems of soil conserva- anthropologists after Boas did more to discredit these doctrines than
tion and community development during the Dust Bowl years. Applied any other contemporary scholars. 8
anthropology under the New Deal was intended for the improvement The Boasians promulgated a modified doctrine of cultural relativ-
of economic and living conditions-not colonial rule. ism that-while not denying their own liberal values-was dedicated
During the Second World War perhaps half of the small but growing to the proposition that all cultures were of value and should be treated
community of American anthropologists signed up to use their knowl- with respect and that all human beings should be considered to be
edge in the war against the forces of fascism, Nazism, and Japanese of equal potential. If today's American anthropologists feel that they
imperialism (Price 2008). A number of experts on the cultures of the bear the ignominy of colonial complicity it can only be due to the
Pacific served as administrators on "trust territory" islands that were unexamined acceptance of a trope found everywhere since the 1960s.
newly liberated from Japanese control (Kennard & Macgregor 1953).7 They have been gravely misled. They may be troubled by relations of
By the time American anthropologists were let loose in larger unequal power between ethnographl'r and "subject;' or by "the crisis
numbers upon the rest of the world after the Second World War, the of representation;' but the burden of "tools of colonialism" should be
decolonization process had begun. It started with India, Pakistan, lifted from their shoulders. But what about the British?
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Malaya, Indonesia, and the Sudan, from 1945 to
British Anthropology and Colonialism
1957, and it continued until most African nations had become indepen-
dent between 1958 and 1963. It was almost too late for the Americans The relationship of British anthropology to colonialism is more com-
to guide the imperialists in their misrule. plicated than that of American anthropology. At the beginning of the
The Empire of Ethiopia, where I did research in 1958-1960 and twentieth century Great Britain had the most far-flung empire, in every
1965-66, had remained independent except for the uneasy and short- part of the world, controlling territories as vast as the Indian subcon-
lived rule of Italy between 1935 and 1940. However, the people I tinent and the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and as teeny as the Maldives
worked with in Ethiopia, the Oromo, were under the domination of and the British Virgin Islands. The empire ruled over many millions of
their African neighbors from the North of the empire-domination people of the most diverse cultures and societies. It is undeniable that
considered tb be colonial by the Oromos (Lewis 1996). Those who professional British-trained anthropologists carried out research in
ruled the Oromos, as well as many other peoples, had no desire for these colonial possessions, primarily in Africa and Oceania. However,
there were no professional anthropologists in Britain before about 1930,
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In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the ChUd, the Tool, or the } landmaiden of Colonialism?
and when they did come upon the scene they were not supported by the developments in the 1920s. Bronislaw Malinowski, who already
grants from colonial treasuries, nor, with rare exceptions, were they had a degree in physics from Poland, was granted a DSci in 1916 by
employed by colonial governments. the LSE for his library dissertation, The Family Among the Australian
British colonialism is very old, but British anthropology is very Aborigines. Malinowski was under the patronage of Seligman, while
young. As a profession, with training, standards, and guiding visions Radcliffe-Brown studied at Cambridge under the tutelage of Rivers
and perspectives, it was not established until the 1920s, with the first and Haddon (Langham 1981).
PhD degree in England granted in 1927-three decades later than in The only anthropological organization at that time in Great Britain,
the United States. The British Empire had been lording it over the the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland (RAI),
"natives" of their many possessions for centuries by this time. Could was firmly in the hands of amateurs representing physical anthropol-
two dozen anthropologists have contributed much to such far-flung ogy, archeology, and ethnography, well into the 1940s. Records of the
colonial rule at this late date? meetings of the RAI in the late 1920s reveal that Haddon, Seligman,
This topic is one of the most popular in the literature of the past four and Mrs. Brenda Seligman were much in evidence at their meetings,
decades, and this chapter cannot begin to do justice to the variety, vol- as was Dr. G. Elliot Smith, the anatomist who became the leading
ume, and variations of the literature. (For histories of this era see Goody proponent of an extreme version of diffusionist thinking, deriving all
1995; Kuper 1996; Stocking 1995. For a compact and useful summary cultural advances from Egypt. (Dr. Rivers, who contributed to diffusion-
of the literature on anthropology and colonialism see Vermeulen 1999: ism as well as to the study of kinship, psychological anthropology, and
14-17.) What we can do is state, in the boldest terms, what seem to be ethnography, died in 1922 [See Langham 1981].) On the membership
some fundamental facts about British anthropology and its ambiguous rolls of the RIA were a number of men, some bearing military titles,
relation to colonialism. Perhaps these will lead some readers to begin who were apparently either retirees from, or on active service in, the
to doubt the received wisdom. colonies. Their numbers included Douglas Newbold, of the Sudan
Political Service, and Captain R. S. Rattray, a colonial official and early
Ihe Birth and Growth ofAnthropology in Great Britain
anthropologist in the Gold Coast. There were "corresponding mem-
There were stirrings of academic anthropology in England at the turn bers" who lived in the colonies, some of them administrators, but also
of the twentieth century at the universities of London, Oxford, and some "natives" of those countries. By 1930 there were also a number
Cambridge. The towering figures of Victorian evolutionism, Sir Edward of American anthropologists on the rolls.
B. Tylor and Sir James G. Frazer, were still on the scene but no longer It wasn't until Bronislaw Malinowski published Argonauts ofthe West-
very effective, when several self-taught converts to anthropology ern Pacific in 1922 and became dominant in anthropology at the LSE
determined to develop their pursuit as an organized discipline based (he was named professor in 1927), and Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown
on fieldwork. These included two physicians (Charles G. Seligman and published The Andaman Islanders, also in 1922, and took his brand
W. H. R. Rivers) and a biologist (A. C. Haddon), who had taken part of "comparative sociology" on the road to Cape Town (1921-1926)
in the important Torres Straits Expedition (Stocking 1995; Herle and and then Sydney (1926-1931), that British social anthropology began
Rouse 1998). Haddon and Rivers won positions at Cambridge Uni- to take shape as a profession. Radcliffe-Bmwn and Malinowski had dif-
versity, and Seligman was hired at the University of London's London ferent visions of their new science: the former called for a "science of
School of Economics (LSE). R. R. Marett, a popular teacher and late society" through structural-functionalism, while Malinowski's sCience
evolutionist armchair theorist, was much in evidence at Oxford, while focused more on culture and the functional requisites for the main-
the Fipnish scholar Edward Westermarck also taught anthropology tenance of individuals and systems ("pure functionalism"). However
at the LSE. A. M. Hocart, who did fieldwork in Fiji and elsewhere much they disagreed with each other theoretically and personally,
and wrote ethnography and comparative works, was among several however, they and their students believed they were together creat-
other figures who contributed to the growing sense that anthropol- ing a new discipline with definite principles, theories, methods, data,
ogy could be a discipline. Their ideas and teaching set the stage for standards, and credentials.
82 83
In Defense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or tlte Handmaiden of Colonialism?
Audrey I. Richards, a member of Malinowski's first cohort of students society as part of one 'total contact situation; to use Malinowski's
(PhD 1930), summarized three developments that marked the establish- phrase. (Richards 1944: 291)
ment of the modern discipline of British social anthropology (Richards
1944: 290). First, they broke free-emphatically-from the reigning After he spent some time in Africa in the 1930s, Malinowski's
RAI view of anthropology by declaring their utter lack of concern for writings increasingly focused on the total colonial situation and the
physical anthropology, archaeology, folklore, the study of technology, exploitation of native peoples by settlers and the colonial government
etc., to focus only on living cultures and societies. They would turn (Malinowski 1945; James 1973). Max Cluckman, coming from South
their collective backs on attempts to speculate on the historical devel- Africa with a left-wing political approach, aimed "to study the total
opment of cultures, whether through the conjectural reconstructions social situation, so that he deliberately included Whites as part of that
of evolutionary thinking or the efforts to trace the history and growth totality;' and he took that perspective when he became the director
of cultures through diffusion. 9 of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in 1938 (Goody 1995: 106-107).
Secondly, following Malinowski's teaching and the example of his There were many examples of British-trained anthropologists criticiz-
"heroic" fieldwork and remarkable ethnography of the Trobriand ing colonialism, contradicting the claim that they were complicit by
Islanders, his students went to do their research with greatly improved their silence about change and the realities of colonial rule.
field techniques (Stocking 1983). They did moreintensive research The first modern PhD in anthropology in the British realm was
during longer stays in the field, had new standards of observation and granted at the LSE in 1927 to Raymond Firth (a New Zealander, trained
new methods that called for more direct involvement with the lives in economics). Malinowski and Firth would soon be joined by Meyer
of the people they were studying than had been the case with earlier Fortes, a South African Jew with a degree in psychology-a convert
ethnographers. "They are thus able to tackle the study of modern social to anthropology-and several other new LSE doctoral students:
and economic problems in Africa in a way which would have been E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Hortense Powdermaker, Isaac Schapera, and
impossible with the field-techniques of twenty years ago" (Richards Audrey I. Richards (Yearbook: 744-7 45). Their names and lectures begin
1944: 290). to appear in the records of the meetings of the Royal Anthropological
And finally, according to Richards, "there has been an almost Institute in the late 1920s. Between 1927 and 1938 Malinowski's
revolutionary change in the focus of the anthropologist's interests" . program had granted twenty-one PhDs.
since 1928. "In those days Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown had to Radcliffe-Brown influenced young anthropologists during his
defend, with some violence, their right to study societies as actually tenures in Cape Town (1920-26), Sydney (1926-31) and Chicago
functioning at the present day" (Richards 1944: 291). They attacked (1931-37) (see Barth 2005: 27), and his theoretical writings had greater
the "antiquarianism" of influence on British social anthropology in the late 1940s and 1950s
than Malinowski's, but he did not produce doctoral students the way
the student of earlier days [who] had felt it his duty to visit primitive the latter· did. It wasn't until his years at Oxford (1937-1946) that he
communities which were rapidly becoming extinct under modern had his own coterie of doctoral students. The first two were awarded
conditions. Most of Malinowski's pupils, however, worked among their degrees in social anthropology in 1947; they were M. N. Srinivas,
the larger African tribes of the greatest political importance and from India (later "the doyen oflndian anthropology"), and K. A. Busia,
where European contact had often been at its maximum. In fact ...
many of them were specifically engaged on the study of changing an Ashanti from the Gold Coast who would become prime minister of
African societies.... Articles were published on particular effects Ghana in 1969. (According to the Yearbook [1955], Cambridge didn't
of the impact of Europeanism em primitive peasant communities. officially grant its first doctoral degree in social anthropology until
Anthropologists became students of colonial administration-but 1948-to Kathleen Gough-but see the case of Monica Hunter, below.)
from a particular point of view, that of its disintegrating effect on The reader may have noticed that many of these first professional
certain African societies under investigation. They began to study
the behaviour and view-points of the European members of the anthropologists weren't from Britain, and some weren't men. Malinowski's
community as well as of the African, and to look at white and black first five PhDs and his converted psychologist follower consisted of a
84 85
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
New Zealander, an American, two South African Jews; two of the six Cambridge PhD in 1934. The dissertation became her important book
were women, three were Jews, and Malinowski himself was a Polish about change-especially amongwo1nen-Reaction to Conquest: Effects
Catholic. Evans-Pritchard was the lone British male. Not only did ofContact with Europeans on the PoJido ofSouth Africa (1936). Accord-
Malinowski continue to attract such "outsiders" -more women (Phyllis ing to SAHo (South African History Online), "Wilson is regarded as
Kaberry, Margaret Read, Camilla Wedgwood, and Edith Clarke from one of the heroines of South Africa's intellectual history. Her name
Jamaica); Ian Hogbin and Reo Fortune from New Zealand; Go~don appears in the African National Congress's list of 100 foremost heroes/
Brown from Canada; A. Aiyappan from India; Fei Hsiao-Tung and heroines of the Eastern Cape alongside legendary figures such as Nelson
Francis L. K. Hsu from China; Siegfried F. Nadel and Paul Kirchhoff, Mandela, Steve Biko, Oliver Tambo, and Govan Mbeki:' She was also
Jews from Vienna and Germany; John Peristiany from Cyprus-but a mentor and colleague of Archie Mafeje (1976).
he welcomed to his seminars short-term sojourners in Britain. These In July 1946 the social anthropol< >gical community of Great Britain
included Zachariah Keodirelang (Z. K.) Matthews of South Africa and the Commonwealth asserted itself and established the Associa-
(a Sotho, he was a defendant in the 1956 Treason Trial in South Africa, tion of Social Anthropologists (ASA) as a body independent of the
along with Nelson Mandela and 154 others), Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya Royal Anthropological Institute (Ardener and Ardener 1965; Mills
(see Berman and Lonsdale 2007), Ralph Bunche, and Paul Robeson 2008). At first numbering fewer than twenty, by 1949 they had grown
and his wife, Eslanda (Essie). to thirty-six-at least half of them trained in the 1940s! Is it likely that
One might think that Radcliffe-Brown's clientele at Oxford would be this happy few, this band of brothers and sisters, could have supplied
purer English than those at the LSE, but the photo of him surrounded the tools or the rationale for colonial control for the venerable and
by his eight research students in 1946 shows only two who might be far-flung British empire-an empire already in dissolution?
British, while the others hail from India, Jamaica, the Gold Coast, and
Anthropology in the Service ofthe British Empire before 1930
Greece. (Max Gluckman, yet another Jew from South Africa, received
a DPhil at Oxford in the mid-1930s with Marett and Evans-Pritchard.) According to Helen Tilley, "Anthropologists were rarely direct employ-
H. S. Morris comments that "In 1945 the only unambiguously native ees of colonial states: fewer than ten unthropologists had been appointed
(sic) professional anthropologists were Radcliffe-Brown, Audrey in British tropical Africa between 1900 and 1940, and their studies only
Richards, and Margaret Read" (1973: 66)-and Evans-Pritchard. occasionally had a direct impact on policy making" (2011: 282, my
According to Jack Goody, those from abroad "were attracted to anthro- emphasis). Out of the thousands of British colonial administrators and
pology partly because of their concern for native peoples, and that in officers c:;mly a few took courses in ~mthropology, although at certain
itself was seen as a threat by some colonial authorities" (1995: 155). In times and places (e.g., the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ca. 1910, Northern
any case the prevailing political attitudes at the LSE in the 1930s were Nigeria ca. 1914-18) they were encouraged to do so (Jones 1974;
left wing, Marx and Freud were "dominant figures;' and a number of Kirk-Greene 1982; Johnson 2007: 314). In fact, in those days there
anthropologists "contributed to radical journals such as the Fabian wasn't a great deal of anthropology to take, and the historian Douglas
bulletin on colonial affairs" (p. 155). Johnson indicates that the programs for trainees were desultory and
One of those non-English students-a "colonial" in fact-was Monica not very successful (p. 314).
Hunter (later Wilson). From South Africa and the daughter of a mission- At Oxford in 1908 instruction was given largely by an Egyptologist,
ary, she went to Cambridge at the end of the 1920s. Arriving at Girton who lectured on the ethnology of the Sudan; by Henry Balfour, the
College as a "deeply committed Christian liberal" (Bank 2009: 43), museum curator, who gave eight lectures on comparative technology;
she befriended a "rabid nationalist" from British-ruled Egypt, joined and by Marett, who lectured on "primitive social institutions:' The next
a Labour Study Circle led by a South African communist friend, and year, instruction was at Cambridge, directed by Haddon, and was "far
discovered anthropology as taught by two former colonial adminis- less ambitious:' ("One year, probationers ceased to attend [Haddon's]
trators, Jack Driberg and T. C. Hodson. She received a grant from the lectures when they found he had mislaid his Sudan notes and lectured
university, carried out research in South Africa, and was awarded a exclusively on New Guinea instead" IJohnson 2007: 314].) This training .
86 87
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
program in anthropology petered out over the next few years, though government grant myself and do not remember that any of us ever
apparently others sprung up here and there. But here is the response of considered an application to the Colonial Office as one of our pos-
a colonial official in London declining to have anthropology included sibilities in this early period. (Richards 1977: 34, my italics)
in training programs as proposed by Haddon, Marett, and Balfour:
Given the great numbers of administrators throughout the empire,
"They had no interest in 'having our officers delivered to be prey of wild
it is significant how few actually contributed to the ethnographic litera-
enthusiasts ... [Y]ou could not make every man, or one in a hundred,
ture. Many officials did surveys, took censuses, and wrote intelligence
into an enthusiastic ethnologist.... As far as we are concerned ethnol-
reports, but with no anthropological pretense, nor were these reports
ogy is a side issue"' (Tilley 2011: 265).
normally published. There were, however, a few pre-professional eth-
Although the administration of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan showed
nographers in the colonial service who wrote for an audience of fellow
a greater interest in anthropology than most, and a relatively large
devotees of anthropology at least as much as for their government
number of officials in that country wrote books and articles about the
employers (Kuklick 1991: 203).
peoples they governed (e.g., Harold MacMichael1912; L. F. Nalder;
The pioneer in West African government anthropology was
J. H. Driberg-later of Cambridge), very little of the administration
Northcote Whitridge Thomas, a prolific writer of ethnography and
of the Sudan was actually influenced by anthropology (Johnson 2007;
linguistics of Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Thomas was a follower of
Kirk-Greene 1982). According to Kirk-Greene (1982: 38), "In general
Andrew Lang, a folklorist, Victorian armchair anthropologist, and a
terms, it may be said that the Sudan made anthropologists and not the
prodigious author with a fashionable interest in psychical research
other way round" because two members of the Sudan colonial service,
(Stocking 1995: 50-61). Under the influence of Lang, Thomas wrote
A. B. Lewis and P. P. Howell, returned to university to get degrees in the
Crystal Gazing: Its History and Practice, with a Discussion on the
subject. Janice Boddy writes (following Kirk-Greene 1982), "Despite
Evidence for Telepathic Scrying, and he was responsible for editing
the alleged utility of anthropology, few SPS [Sudan Political Service]
Essays Presented to Edward Burnett Tylor (1907). (Lang wrote the
officials read the subject at university, only six in the entire cohort of
appreciation of Tylor, and the whole volume is a wonderful repre-
393 men over fifty-odd years of rule" (Boddy 2008). Apparently sports
sentation of the people and the subjects of interest to the field at that
and athletic prowess were much more important to the Sudan Political
·time.) Unfortunately for the immediate future of anthropology in
Service than anthropology (Kirk-Greene 1982).
government service, the Cambridge-educated Thomas threw himself
Until Malinowski and his students appeared on the scene there were
into his work too enthusiastically and not at all the way a gentle-
no trained and credentialed anthropologists in Britain even if there were
man would, and therefore his fellow colonial civil servants thought
government officers who had an intellectual interest in the customs,
he was a nutter, not a team player, and an all-around bad influence
institutions, and beliefs of peoples whom they were ruling. They were
(Kuklick 1991: 201). He insisted on doing ethnographic and linguistic
"amateurs" in the original sense of the word, lovers of the endeavor, and
research that was considered of no value for administration and was
several had taken courses (even diplomas) in anthropology at Oxford
sent home in 1915 after one tour of duty. "In the clubby atmosphere
and Cambridge. According to Audrey Richards,
of colonial bureaucracy, the experience of Thomas as 'government
There was an occasional appointment of a government anthro- anthropologist' reverberated for the next decade, confirming a pre-
pologist, generally owing to the individual wish of a governor of the vailing prejudice in favor of'practical' rather than 'scientific' men .. :'
moment or the appearance of a district officer specially interested in (Stocking 1995: 178).
ethnographical studies .... These were committed and knowledge- The colonial administrator turned anthropologist with the highest
able officers but without training in modern fieldwork methods. They
reputation among anthropologists (and probably among the people
produced valuable background material but not often direct answers
to government enquiries. ... But these government anthropologists he wrote about) is Captain Robert Sutherland Rattray (1881-1938),
were a mere handful of men, appointed quite intermittently. There M.B.E. (Of the Gold Coast Political Service; of Gray's Inn, Barrister-at-
was never a British colonial anthropological service .... I had no Law. Diplome in Anthropology [Oxon.]; Palmes d'Officier d'Academie
88 89
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, Of the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
[France]). Captain Rattray was in a most unusual if not unique position is not the stuff that the "practical men" of the administration needed
in Africa during the 1920s because the Gold Coast administration cre- to hear. But the importance of his work to later anthropologists and
ated for him the Anthropological Department in Ashanti-ofwhich he historians-outsider and African (Ashanti, especially) has been very
was the only member. In 1909 Rattray had taken leave from his gov- great (Goody 1995: 205). Laue writes that "the folklorist bulk of his
ernment service to study for the diploma in anthropology at Oxford, work has even served as a persistent resource for Ashanti nationalism
where he studied with R. R. Marett and was helped and advised by and, in a larger sense, of African- and even black-nationalism" (1976:
the Seligmans. ("Mrs. Seligman first inspired me with enthusiasm for 54). Laue also claims that "He thereby provided an ideological and, to
the Classificatory System and its vital importance in the elucidation a more dubious extent, an anthropological justification for the resto-
of the problems of social anthropology" ([Rattray 1923: 13]). Since his ration of the Ashanti Confederacy in 1935, the high point of Indirect
superiors apparently didn't think much of him as an administrator (Laue Rule on the Gold Coast" (1976: 52). After his retirement to England,
1976: 35), they made the best of a bad job by creating the new position Rattray remained very active in the RAI and African studies; he was
for him-which didn't do much for administration in the Gold Coast fifty-seven when he was killed in a glider accident. 10
but did quite a lot for anthropology and the Ashanti. Charles Kingsley Meek (1885-1965) took the Oxford course with
Rattray begins his Preface to Ashanti (1923) with the proto- Marett in 1913 and served in the Nigerian Administrative Service from
anthropologist's mantra: "It must be remembered that the creation of 1912 to 1933, and was appointed government anthropologist. His con-
Departments of Anthropology in Colonies and Protectorates where tributions to practical rule may have been greater than Rattray's, but
governments are dealing with peoples who are classed as 'backward' his early publications were directed to his peers in the anthropological
or 'primitive' has been advocated long and earnestly by scientists. world. His earliest, The Northern Tribes ofNigeria (1925), "was cast in
They have not ceased to press for the application of Anthropology to terms of'survivals' of'totemism' and the change from 'mother-right' to
the work of practical administration among the 'native' races" (1923: 5 patrilineal institutions" (Stocking 199S: 388), and more, right from the
[his single quotation marks]). But the colonial officials did not listen playbook of the Victorian evolutionists. A Sudanese Kingdom (1931)
to these constant pleas, and a glance at Rattrays's corpus suggests why combines evolutionism, especially the concern for the "divine king" so
that might be. As Laue points out, Rattray was in the romantic tradi- beloved of Frazer and others, with diffusionism. Meek stressed what he
tion of the folklorists, the Herderian lovers of diversity, "the intellectual believed were striking similarities between the rites and practices of the
oppositions of the anti-rationalists, the romantics, the critics of western · Ancient Egyptians and the Jukun of Northern Nigeria. This must have
civilization .. :· (Laue 1976: 42; see Berlin 1976). Before he published pleased Grafton Elliot Smith and William Perry, the leading exponents
his great work, Ashanti Law and Constitution (1929), he had published of the "heliocentric theory" deriving all civilization from Egypt and
three volumes of Chinyanja, Hausa, and Ashanti folklore, songs, stories, should please Afrocentrists today, the followers of Cheikh Anta Diop
and proverbs; Religion and Art in Ashanti (1927); and Ashanti (1923), (1962), and devotees of Martin Bernal (1987, 1991).
which consists of a grab-bag of pieces mostly describing in detail vari- Following extensive riots by Ibo women in Southeastern Nigeria in
ous religious rituals, with a short piece on the "Ashanti Classificatory 1929, the government "embark[ed] on an intensive campaign of inquiry
System;' one on "Land Tenure and Alienation;' and two short pieces into the indigenous social and political organization of the peoples of
dealing with the important Ashanti golden and silver stools. Southeastern Nigeria, with a view to setting up Native Administrations
Rattray was deeply involved with and committed to the Ashanti he which would be more in accordance with the institutions and wishes of
worked among for so many years, and he had romantic and philosophi- the people than the bureaucratic system which had so signally failed"
cal ideas about the proper ways for Ashanti (and other Africans) to (Meek 1937: xi). Meek was transferred from the north of Nigeria to
develop in the modern world and in relation to the West and Chris- "deal with the Intelligence reports from the point of view of applied
tianity. He called himself a "seeker after truths" and was concerned anthropology, and at the same time con duct inquiries of my own among
to understand and present Ashanti religion as complex, objecting to the lbo of Onitsha and Owerri Provinces" (p. xi). He worked intensively
the term "fetishism" being applied to it (Rattray 1929: viii-ix). This on the inquiries "on lines which appear to meet the needs and wishes
90 91
In Defense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
of the people" (xii), until he was forced by illness to retire in 1932. The and government, the attempts at setting up various anthropological
resulting Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe, not published until institutions and the development-of the teaching of anthropology to
1937, concentrates on social structure, law, and authority, and by this Colonial Office staff:' But his lecture was all about the utter failure of
time Meek cited Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Durkheim as well the RAI to convince the government of the usefulness of anthropology,
as Rattray and Rivers. After his retirement Meek lived long enough to detailing attempts that went as far back as 1896. And Sir John's 1944
be able to lecture on anthropology in Oxford. Law and Authority in a address to the Royal Anthropological Institute, with the title "A Century
Nigerian Tribe had a late colonial and postcolonial life as an invaluable of Our Work;' reports that they were still begging! The Institute was
source for the Igbo peoples-as Rattray's is for the Ashanti (see van still making "representations" to the Colonial Office about the need for
den Bersselaar 1998). ethnological training for civil servants. "More recently a Standing Com-
Frank H. Melland, another colonial officer and member of the RAI, mittee on Applied Anthropology has suggested and supported propos-
published In Witch-Bound Africa in 1923. Despite its scary title it is a als for more intensive study of native culture, especially in Africa, and
sympathetic account of what he learned of the society and culture of for more systematic training and opportunities for research for Colonial
the Kaonde of (what was) Northern Rhodesia during the eleven years officials" (Myres 1944: 6). If after a half-century of constant attempts
he served among them. "Meant to be a serious study of the ethnography they still had not succeeded, it hardly seems like the government of
of the Bakaonde ... viewed in the light of comparative religion and Imperial Britain saw anthropology as its indispensable handmaiden. 11
social science" (Melland 1923: 7), his central concern was with religion,
Colonialism and Anthropology after Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown
of which witches and witchcraft play a major role, but he set it in a
rounded description of the life cycle and aspects of social relations. In 1908 the British government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan commis-
The author filled the book with asides-moral lessons and suggestions sioned those transitional figures of British anthropology, Charles G.
for his white readers, including the idea of trying to understand "the Seligman and his wife, Brenda, to carry out an expedition to the Upper
native's point of view:' In fact, in the 1930s he became an important Nile provinces to collect anthropological information from the peoples
figure in the significant debate about what should be done about the there. The Seligmans made a number of surveys until the early 1920s,
prevalence and importance of witches and witch doctors in Africa, collecting material for a massive volume of old-style physical and cul-
calling for an understanding from the "African's point of view;' a debate tural anthropology, much of it through questionnaires responded to by
that eventually led to the licensing of healers in parts of Africa (see administrators and missionaries. Pag1zn Tribes ofthe Nilotic Sudan was
Tilley 2011: 263-309 passim). Critics of ethnography would consider not published until1932-quite a long time after the work had been
the study of witchcraft and spirit possession to be exoticizing; those commissioned-and was neither timely nor particularly useful. When
with experience among many peoples of the world know the profound they could no longer go to the Sudan themselves, the Seligmans recom-
importance these practices may have even today. mended that E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who was studying with Seligman
Whatever other service the government anthropologists may have and Malinowski at the LSE, be engaged to carry out more research in
performed, the theoretical concerns and the debates of their time, as the Southern provinces.
well as their appreciation of the people they wrote about, stimulated The government agreed to support Evans-Pritchard's research
much of their anthropological writing. Few of their publications were although they had no particular pian or need for him, and he went
directed to applied anthropology or the sociology of colonial rule. The out on his own, found the Azande, and from 1926 to 1930 (on and
Colonial Office and other relevant British governmental sectors clearly off) did the research that resulted in Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic
understood this gap between anthropological ambitions and colonial Among the Azande (1937). (This greatly honored work in the canon
imperatives. of British social anthropology offers a direct relativist rebuke to smug
Helen Lackner (1973: 140) was impressed that Professor John Christian and colonial ethnocentrism [see, e.g., James 1973].) While
Myres's 1929 presidential address to the RAI, "The Science of Man in he was still working with the Azancle the authorities requested that
the Service of the State;' spoke of "the relationship of anthropology he turn his attention to the Nuer, who were rebellious and difficult for
92 93
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
. ----·---------------------
the government to deal with-as anyone who reads "Int:wductory" in the establishment of the International Institute of African Languages
The Nuer knows. He began research with the Nuer in 1930-but his and Cultures (IIALC) in London, and to include researchers from
books on the Nuer didn't appear until1940, 1951, and 1956. As he did France, Germany, and other European countries as well. The IIALC
his research Evans-Pritchard encountered many problems with govern- (later called the International African Institute [IAI]) supported much
ment officials (with one in particular) and developed principled argu- of the research done by British anthropologists in Africa and Oceania
ments regarding anthropologists working with colonial governments and elsewhere for the most important years at the very beginning of
(Evans-Pritchard 1946; Johnson 1982). Despite the general notion professional social anthropology in Britain and its extensions. Other
that £vans-Pritchard had a hand in the ruling of the Nuer, even had anthropologists (Monica Hunter, Isaac Schapera, John Middleton)
he wanted to, the results of his work as an anthropologist were much reached the field through fellowships from universities and colleges, and
too scholarly ("scientific"), theoretical, irrelevant, and far too belated from foundations such as the Leverhulme (Evans-Pritchard), Fulbright
to be of any use for governing (James 1973; Johnson 1982, 2007). In a (Lloyd Fallers), Carnegie (Max Gluckman), SSRC (Paul Bohannan). It
famous passage Evans-Pritchard claimed that neither he nor Professor was not the British government but funding from private sources that
Seligman had ever been asked for advice on anything by anyone in the sponsored new anthropological research.
Sudan government (Evans-Pritchard 1946: 97). More than that, Evans- Although the impetus for the founding and operations of the SSRC
Pritchard rendered very harsh judgments on those whom he considered was conceived and directed by academic social scientists who wanted
to be doing government work rather than real anthropology-probably to have an influence in solving real-world social, economic, and health
very unjustly (see Goody 1995: 72-74). problems, it was inevitable that after 1968 foundations like those of
From the late 1920s, Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown did their best Rockefeller and Ford would be considered just as colonial-in the inter-
to extract funds from the government to send their students to the field est of the United States, the West, capitalism, hegemony, domination.
for research-just as their predecessors in the Royal Anthropological The verdict on these accusations thus far must be unproven, mixed,
Institute had. In their desire to advance the new science of which they and varying over time, place, and case. (See Feuchtwang 1973; Fisher
were the prophets, and in their desperate need for funds to support 1986; Stocking 1985: 133-138; Goody 1995: 9-7-13; D. Mills 2002; and
their students, they tried to convince the colonial bffice of the impera- chapter 8.)
tive to employ anthropologists, of the practical value of anthropology With these funding sources, British and some other anthropologists
for the proper understanding of the native for the good of both the were able to carry out research in Africa, and the first one from the
government and the natives. Malinowski's article "Practical Anthropol- LSE to do so was Audrey I. Richards (1899-1984). Before going to the
ogy" (1929) is the key document in this struggle, but the government field, Richards had completed her doctorate with a library dissertation
officials were too smart for him; they knew better and never fell for the (1930), but she was then able to go to Northern Rhodesia to work on a
arguments. Sir Philip Mitchell, later colonial governor of Uganda, Fiji, similar problem. Her PhD thesis was built on the basics of Malinowski's
and Kenya, responded to Malinowski's claims with great skepticism, new functionalist science of culture, examining the ways in which the
emphatically expressing a preference for the "practical man" rather fundamental animal need for food, for nutrition, is set into complex
.than the scientist (1930). webs of behavior in humans. Malinowski had focused on how the bio-
At just the right moment, in 1926, support for early professional logical drive for reproduction-sex-in the Trobriands was regulated
anthropology in Britain came from the United States, from the Rockefeller by kinship, status, norms of etiquette, ideas of morality, emotions,
Foundation and its Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. The directors sentiments, magic, customs, and taboos (Sexual Life ofSavages 1929,
of these funds were social scientists influenced by the "Progressive" era Sex and Repression in Savage Society 1927). Richards took a similar
in America and they were looking for worthy projects to support in approach to food and the many social and culture aspects surrounding
order to advance both social science and human well-being throughout this vital aspect of life, basing it on available ethnographic literature
the world. As part of a consortium that established the Social Science (Richards 1932). To this end she attempted a thorough account of every
Research Council (SSRC) in the United States, they decided to fund aspect that feeds into nutrition, as Malinowski had with sex. Although
94 95
In D~fense of Anthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the I Iandmaiden of Colonialism?
the ethnographic information was based on people under colonialism Aside from the attempt to promote anthropology, Richards's work
in Africa, the topic itself was a general theoretical one that could have was directed to the real-world needs of human beings, especially
been written about any human society. of women as the heads of families. Her study of food and work in
Her second book, based on fieldwork among the Bemba of Northern Central Africa, informed by the new "science" of functionalism, is
Rhodesia (now Zambia), was directed to further problems of health different in intent and style from most of the ethnographic work that
and nutrition. Though her first book shows no hint of a concern for was produced before the functionalist revolution. Only those who
practical (applied) problems, this one grew directly out of the situa- believe that amelioration of human misery merely postpones the
tion of deteriorating diets in Africa. In 1935 the International African inevitable revolution of the masses could consider it a contribution
Institute established "a Diet Committee composed of anthropologists to colonial rule.
and experts in nutrition ... :· The Colonial Economic Advisory Com- The late 1930s was the time when a veritable swarm of British
mittee set up such a committee in 1937 "to consider food problems anthropologists-fewer than twenty, actually-was let loose on Africa
in all British colonial territories;' as there was growing awareness of with funds from the IAI. Among those were Monica Hunter Wilson,
serious health issues resulting from poor nutrition. Based on discus- Hilda Beemer Kuper, Margaret Read, and Meyer Fortes. Although
sions in these committees, Richards undertook research "intended to they may have had various connections with colonial officials while
show what anthropologists could contribute to the study of nutrition in the field, they spent most of their time on research for the good of
in African society, by an analysis of the social and economic factors their science and their careers. Audrey Richards (she was everywhere)
affecting the intake of food in a particular tribe .. :· (Richards 1939: published a leading statement in Africa in 1944, "Practical Anthropol-
vii; my emphasis). ogy in the Lifetime of the International African Jnstitute:' After giv-
The result of her research, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern ing four examples of specific studies that were requested by colonial
Rhodesia (1939), is a detailed study that shows the many ways that governments, those by Isaac Schapera in Bechuanaland, Siegfried
diet, appetite, and nutrition are influenced by the culturally directed Nadel in Northern Nigeria, Meyer Fortes in northern Gold Coast,
patterns of producing, preparing, and dividing food. Her book details, and Margaret Read in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Audrey
among other things, kinship and domestic groups: land tenure; culti- Richards continues,
vation and production of other edibles; food preparation, eating, and
feeding; attitudes, customs, and beliefs relating to food, exchange, diet, In spite of these hopeful beginnings it must however be admitted that
budgeting, sharing, etc., very much on the pattern laid down in her the Institute's first objective 'to provide a closer association of scien-
tific knowledge and research with practical affairs' has achieved only
library thesis but now demonstrated on an actual case. Packed with
a very moderate success. Field-workl'rS have been used incidentally,
rich ethnographic and economic data, the book is oriented toward the as indicated above, but they have newr been steadily or consistently
practical problem of understanding the causes for nutritional deficien- employed, and African Governments have rarely financed their
cies, some of them apparently cultural and social. And among the many work. At the outbreak of war only the Governments of the Anglo-
problems, one in particular stands out for Richards: the effects on food Egyptian Sudan, the Gold Coast, and the Union of South Africa were
production of the absence of men from their communities. Richards employing 'Government anthropologists: There were none in the
other territories. Nor were any employed as advisers or appointed to
cannot be accused of ignoring the colonial situation and the fact that the staffs of centres of higher education. Once their research grants
men worked for wages in distant mines and cities. She concludes her came to an end it was in fact impossible for any but a small number
book with the familiar plea for recognition of the value of an anthro- to make a living, and University departments regularly discouraged
pological approach. Her work "has shown in every chapter the extent students without private means from taking up the subject as a
to which a particular diet can be determined by purely culturaJ factors. post-graduate course, so that the number of trained investigators
is now dangerously small. It looks as though the anthropologist had
... [I]t is a study of these cultural determinants offood and feeding
been advertising his goods, often rat/zer clamorously, in a market in
that can and should be included in a nutritional survey at the present which there was little demand for 1hem. (Richards 1944: 293; my
time" (Richards 1939: 404)_12 emphasis)l3
96 97
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
Note that from the vast British Empire, if there was any interest at the three research institutes, and the projects that were funded by
at all in the potential use of academic anthropology, it came almost the CSSRC-some of which involved cooperation with colonial
exclusively from the colonies in Africa. Apparently the government of administration-were aimed at postcolonial development of economy,
India and other authorities in Asia cared even less for the wisdom of agriculture, education, etc. Here is the testimony of one who worked
the anthropological scientists. as an applied anthropologist. Philip Gulliver writes,
Eventually, in 1944, not much more than a decade before the first
African colonies gained their independence (four years before India, However, at least it has been gl'nerally acknowledged that many of us
Pakistan, and Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and Burma achieved theirs), the British in social anthropology then wE're critical of colonial regimes, both for
what they represented-an arm ofWestern metropolitan exploitation
government agreed to create a council to plan and carry out research and paternalism, tinged with racialism-and for their inequities and
for the improvement of social conditions, welfare, and development inefficiencies and the downright oppression by particular regimes
in the colonies. The new CSSRC (Colonial Social Science Research in particular contexts. With such a critical attitude, it neverthe-
Council) was directed by social scientists that decided on priorities less seemed to me in 1952, wl1en I applied for the appointment in
for research into social and economic problems. With their firsthand Tanganyika, that colonialism was the going regime and it seemed
reasonable and attractive to try to work within it, to contribute
experience in Africa and other colonies, Audrey Richards (as usual),
towards amelioration and improvement and, even just a little, to
Raymond Firth, Isaac Schapera, and a new boy, Edmund Leach, carried hasten its end. (Gulliver 1985)
considerable weight on the councils and were able to greatly enhance
the numbers and the prestige of social anthropology in Britain. (See Although the major sources for funding anthropologists in the field
Notes and News, AA, 1949 (51): 167-169; Mills 2002, 2006.) came from the International African Institute and later the CSSRC,
The CSSRC supported the establishment of three research insti- there were times and circumstances when it seemed appropriate for
tutes, one in Jamaica, one in Nigeria at the University College of anthropologists to work with particular local governments. And in any
Ibadan, and the third in Uganda at Makerere College. The ubiquitous case the anthropologist in the field would have to deal with officials,
Audrey Richards was the first director of the East African Institute of missionaries, traders, and perhaps settlers. There is a considerable lit-
Social Research at Makerere-from which a great deal of significant erature that demonstrates that these were not usually very successful
research and scholarship emerged over the next two decades. The or happy relations.
first center for the social science study of a region of Africa was the
Anthropologists and Administrators
Rhodes-Livingstone Institute in Northern Rhodesia, established with
funds from a variety of sources, including some mining companies- The testimonies on this issue are quite clear. As much as Malinowski
against their better judgment. Established in 1938, under its directors, and his predecessors insisted that their profession could be of service to
Godfrey Wilson, Max Gluckman, and Elizabeth Colson, a large number administrators, above all by teaching the rulers about the needs, wishes,
of critical studies were conducted, investigating social issues arising ways, feelings, etc., of the ruled, with rare exceptions the practical men
from industrial and wage labor, labor migration, urbanization, detrib- were not interested. Even when anthropologists were hired by an agency
alization, and ethnic identity and relations. The work emanating from of government, the results were usually uninspiring if not dispiriting.
this institute was frequently very critical of colonialism, exploitative There is overwhelming evidence that the administrators were simply
capitalism, labor policies, etc. (See R. Brown 1973; Epstein 1992; not interested in what the anthropologists had to say. Evans-Pritchard's
Schumaker 2001; review of Schumaker in chapter 5.) statement that neither he nor Seligman was asked even once for any
When, in the 1950s, greater numbers of British anthropologists went advice "on sociological problems" in the areas of the Sudan in which
to Africa or other colonies for research, there was the expectation that they worked (Evans-Pritchard 1946: 97) can be multiplied many times.
independence was only a few years away. Anthropologists by this time Peter Lloyd reports, from a later date, "During these two tours of field-
assumed that their efforts might be directed toward aiding peoples as work among the Yoruba I was free to study whatever I wanted; neither
the colonial yoke was removed. This was clearly the understanding university nor government suggested topics for research nor did they
98 99
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
prevent me from carrying out my plans" (Lloyd 1973: 218, 225), and fur- live in a native village and not in the nearest European settlement.
thermore "that the colonial administration not only placed no restraints They must share in the work and play of the people and attend their
upon my work but appeared very little interested in it" (p. 225). ceremonies. It would be difficult Jor Europeans occupying positions
of high authority, or closely idenLified with a particular Church, to
Moreover-as a social scientist should suspect-the relations attend beer drinks or magic ceremonies with the same freedom as
between government officials and the anthropologists were often quite the anthropologist does .... For Lhis reason it is inevitable that the
negative. Again we have a case of over determination, and from the anthropologist should quickly acquire the reputation of a 'wild man
beginning of professional anthropology in Britain observers and crit- of the woods~ .. There can be few who have not been described at
ics were quick to point this out. (For a summary see Kuper 1973; also one time or another as "dancing round a tom-tom in a loin cloth:'
(Richards 1944: 293-294)
Mitchell1929; Richards 1944; Hailey 1944, 1957; Goody 1995; Burton
1992; Epstein 1992; papers in Loizos 1977.)
The interests, the sentiments, and the aims of the two parties were
From the point of view of the colonial official, it is natural that he entirely different. The anthropologists considered themselves academ-
(and it would always be a he) would feel that the presence of a scientist, ics and scientists, propagating the new science of mankind. They were
an expert, perhaps a "do-gooder" (who might be a woman) looking
intellectuals, their reference group was fellow intellectuals, and their
over his shoulder would not be pleasant. For one thing, an administra-
success depended on bringing back excellent ethnographic work with
tor who had been among a people of a district for years (as they often
a convincing theoretical component. The colonial administrator was
were) would have to feel that he knew a hell of a lot more about "his
not their natural companion or ally, although there would have been
people" than the outsider could know in a year or two. Furthermore,
individual exceptions, of course.
the scientist might be seen as a muddle-head full of theory that was
This antagonism would be aggravated when the anthropologist was
irrelevant to the practical man. From the administrative point of view,
clearly anticolonial-and as we have seen many anthropologists were
the reports of the anthropologist were usually too late, too long, and
quite leftist in their politics. Even worse-perhaps the anthropologist
too anthropological for the administrator to use.
was a "Red:' For example, Peter Lloyd writes, "I left for Nigeria in 1949
And then there was the widespread notion that the anthropologist
a Marxist and, in spirit, a communist" (1977: 79). According to Jack
was a romantic, dead set against change for fear of destroying the
Goody, Meyer Fortes "was very much part of the pre-war group of
precious culture and traditions of "the native:' This was probably not
left-wing intellectuals associated with the Fabian Society who influ-
generally true, but anthropologists with a cultural relativist perspec- ·
enced the movement towards coloniaL independence that took place
tive were likely to counsel respect for feelings and traditions and the
in Britain in the decade and a half following the Second World War,
avoidance of unnecessary measures that set in motion unpredictable
affecting on the one hand the actions of politicians in the metropolis
changes with possible negative ramifications throughout the system.
and on the other giving some support to the growing pressure from
(Boas's warnings to the Canadian government of the possible rami-
the subject populations" (Goody 1995: 54, "Making it to the field as a
fications of outlawing the potlatch are a good example of this, as are
Jew and a Red"). Adam Kuper presents an important account of the
Evans-Pritchard's cautions to administrators and missionaries about
politics of anthropologists in South Africa through the years (Kuper
magic and sorcery [Evans-Pritchard 1931: 22].)
1999: 145-170), as does Jack Goody of his own intellectual and political
At the very least the anthropologist would probably stir up trouble
history (1995: 118-122).
by simply being there and doing what anthropologists must: have direct
Even without being anticolonial, the anthropologist would nor-
and personal involvement with the native-the basic element of the
mally be on the side of the people he or she worked with and not
whole enterprise. Noting that the behavior of Europeans in Africa "is
infrequently oppose policies of the g< >Vernment that they might see
very closely defined;' Audrey Richard writes,
both as destructive as well as stupid. Fredrik Barth writes, "It is ironic
yet anthropologists participate much more closely than do other cat- that the Polish freethinker Malinowski and his ragtag band of radical,
egories of Europeans living in the community. They must, for instance, largely nonestablishment, even foreign disciples should be faulted for
100 101
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
serving and aligning with the empire. Since doing so would have been Critique of anthropology was in the air, and there were a number of
counterproductive for their fieldwork efforts, it is not credible that this other contemporary articles that made the claim with greater speci-
would have been their general practice" (Barth 2005: 52). ficity (see Diane Lewis 1973; Bernard Magubane 1971, 1972; Jacques
From the heights of postcolonial and critical theory such ground- Maquet 1964), to be topped off by the volume edited by Tala! Asad
level differences and conflicts probably don't matter. But for the history (1973); see summary in Vermeulen (1999). These works set the tone
of anthropology these interpersonal human and political dimensions and supplied the license for writers of many sorts to jump in and pile
must be recognized as fundamental to the relationship between anthro- on. More than four decades have passed, however, and it is time for a
pology and colonialism. reconsideration of this cliche.
The idea of the culpability of anthropology in the project of colo-
Conclusions Regarding British Anthropology and Colonialism
nialism has served its function and its time. A discourse conceived in
Thus, the evidence is overwhelming. Tala! Asad was right. The role rage and the political needs and passions of the late 1960s in America
of British anthropology in maintaining colonialism has been trivial at should not be carried on indefinitely by inertia. It is time to move on.
best. The same is even truer for American anthropology. Anthropology Helen Tilley, in her recent volume about the sciences in colonial
as a discipline came into being too late to be of much use for the rule Africa (1870-1950), concludes the chapter on anthropology as
of natives under colonialism-a process that began several thousand follows:
years before Boas, Malinowski, and Radcliffe-Brown. (Even the Roman
Empire was a latecomer to the game.) And when anthropologists did Perhaps more significant, these projects [in the 1940s and 1950s]
appear, presumed experts on those natives, the administrators were increasingly drew attention to the effects of colonial rule. Develop-
not interested in what they had to say-especially about being nice. So ment funds were being used not just to grease the wheel of empire
but also to slowly erode its foundations. Anthropologists, who had
why is it so widely believed that anthropology played a significant role worked for so long to stake out a claim to be included among the
in consolidating and maintaining colonial domination? For the answer empire's experts, used their tools to chip away at it once on the inside.
to this rarely posed question we must once again look to 1968-in this (Tilley 2011: 311)
case more literally than metaphorically.
The trope of anthropology as the child of colonialism sounded great Maybe Asad was wrong after all. Maybe the role of anthropology in
in 1968. It fit the zeitgeist perfectly. With the war in Vietnam, the con-. British colonialism wasn't so trivial!
tinuing colonial wars in Portuguese Africa and Rhodesia, Fidel Castro Let the final words come from the lirst student to be awarded the
in Cuba and Che Guevara executed in Bolivia, the excitement of Mao PhD from Malinowski's school: "anthropology is not the bastard of colo-
Zedong's "cultural revolution" in China, the constant Cold War and nialism but the legitimate offspring of the Enlightenment" (Raymond
the growing popularity of Marxist approaches and slogans, this was a Firth 1972). 15
perfect fit for young and old anthropologists who were really upset with Notes
the world and their stodgy profession ("Is Anthropology Alive?" asked 1. In 1973 Asad claimed, among other things, that colonialism and Western
Gerald Berreman [1968]). Suddenly there was Kathleen Gough's article domination distorted the relations bdween the anthropologist and the
in the Marxist Monthly Review, "Anthropology and Imperialism" (1968: peoples they were studying; that the knowledge generated by anthropologists
12-27), heralded on the cover of the journal as "Anthropology: Child "gives the West access to cultural and historical information about the societ-
of Imperialism:' It could not have been timelier or better presented ies it has progressively dominated, and thus not only generates a certain kind
of universal understanding, but also reinforces the inequalities in capacity
with that simple title and cover. No need to even read it. It doesn't between the European and the non-European worlds" (Asad 1973: 16). "We
matter that Kathleen Gough made no effort to support or document then need to ask ourselves how this rdationship has affected the practical
her celebrated title, devoting only one short and one long paragraph pre-conditions of social anthropology; the uses to which its knowledge was
to it. The actual aim of her paper was to appeal for anthropologists to put; the theoretical treatment of particular topics; the mode of perceiving
and objectifying alien societies; and t/1e anthropologist's claim of political
stu<iy communist societies and revolutions! 14 neutrality" (Asad 1973: 17, emphasis added). The evidence suggests that
102 103
In Defense ofAnthropology Was Anthropology the Child, the Tool, or the Handmaiden of Colonialism?
"the anthropologist" (sic) did not always claim political neutrality (also see possible because of the richness and high quality of the original pioneering
chapter 6 on Franz Boas). work (Moore and Vaughan 1996).
2. Asad and his collaborators wrote only about British social anthropology, but 13. Schapera worked on land tenure and nat1 ve law in Bechuanaland while Nadel
the critique was seized upon gleefully and extended to American anthropol- lo~ked into the possibility of establishing "pagan" courts in Nupe alongside
ogy as well. the Muslim ones. Read studied the effects of migratory labor on village life
3. From time to time Boas had the assistance of other teachers in the depart- in Nyasaland, and Fortes made a study of Tallensi marriage law and worked
ment, but such aid was very irregular at first, and his department was never on a new constitution for the native administration (Richards 1944: 292).
large. The history of the earliest anthropology doctorates in the United States See also Hailey 1944: 14. James Faris ( 1973) published a denunciation of
is only slightly more complicated than this brief presentation and the details S. F. Nadel's work with the Nuba for the government of the Sudan. H. A.
do not alter the general picture. (The first doctorates awarded in linguistics Taatgen more recently (1982) contributed a strong defense of Nadel's work
and ethnology at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania went to men with both the Nuba and the Nupe.
who had also studied with Boas.) See Bernstein (2002) and Jacknis (2002) 14. In revisiting her paper twenty-five years later, Gough (1993) didn't even
for detailed accounts. mention the claim she made in those tw<) paragraphs-words that launched
4. An economist with a PhD from the University of Wisconsin (1896), Albert the powerful slogan and trope. She conc,mtrated exclusively on the problem
E. Jenks, carried out ethnographic surveys on behalf of the US Department of of anthropologists studying revolutions, from a Marxian perspective.
Interior from 1902-1905. He later turned to anthropology with pre-Boasian 15. For the Enlightenment origins of anthropology (ethnography and ethnology)
racial biases. see Vermeulen 1995, 1996, 2006, 2008. 13ased on his studies of eighteenth-
5. Fletcher did not work for the BAE but had funds from a private source (Lurie century European expeditions and early ethnography, Vermeulen writes,
1966). "My thesis is that anthropology was not horn out of imperialism or colonial-
6. Here is an example I am personally acqdainted with. In 1937 Morris Swadesh ism ... but developed within its contexts. As far as I can see, anthropology
developed a plan to hire bilingual and literate Wisconsin Oneidas to record has had a symbiotic relation with colonialism but did not stem from it"
their language both for linguistic analysis and-explicitly-so that the (1999: 18). And in a forthcoming book, confirming Firth's point about the
Oneidas would have this material for teaching and preserving their language. Enlightenment origins of anthropology Vermeulen concludes, "The colonial
For the last seventy years the Oneidas have been using this material for this context was conducive to the birth of ethnography because the authori-
purpose (Lewis 2005: xxxii-xxxiii). ties sought inventories of the peoples in the Russian Empire, but the main
7. To its shame, during World War II the government of the United States research questions derived from a schof,zrly agenda set by Leibniz, Lafitau,
carried out a policy of "removal" of Japanese-Americans to "relocation" and (later) Linnaeus" (forthcoming). Similarly, Lewis Henry Morgan-the
camps. Quite a few anthropologists participated in efforts to make the pre-Boasian father of American anthropology-built Ancient Society from
process and life in the camps as painless as possible. For two different views the foundation of Sketches of the History of Man (1778) by Henry Home,
see Leighton 1945 and Starn 1986. Lord Kames, a prominent figure of the Scottish Enlightenment.
8. Thus Boas was the great demon for the promoters of a revived cultural evo-
lutionism, especially Leslie White, and later, Marvin Harris (see chapter 7).
9. The reader will be encountering Audrey Richards repeatedly in this chapter.
For more about her see '~udrey Richards: A Career in Anthropology" in
Kuper 1999; Jo Gladstone, '~udrey I. Richards (1899-1984): Africanist and
Humanist" (1992); and David Mills, "How Not to Be a 'Government House
Pet': Audrey Richards and the East African Institute for Social Research"
(2006).
10. Rattray published a novel, The Leopard Princess (1934), and dedicated it to
"Paul Robeson, athlete, singer, genius, who is proud to claim Africa as his
motherland and whom Africa is proud and very happy to welcome as a son"
(Laue 1976: 42). As well as a great singer and famous actor, Paul Robeson
was, of course, well known for his radical left and African nationalist senti-
ments. On Rattray's work in northern Ghana, see Lentz 1999, 2000.
11. Stocking discusses these abortive attempts in detail (1995: 375ff.). See also
Hailey 1944: 10; Stauder 1980:317ff.
12. In 1986 a British anthropologist, Henrietta Moore, and a historian, Megan
Vaughan, carried out an extensive restudy of Richards's work, going over
the same terrain and topics more than fifty years later. Their study was only
104 105