Historical Anthropology in Eurasia “… and the Way Thither”

Datos Bibliográficos

ID17595802
AutoresDittmar Schorkowitz (0000-0002-0137-5483, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen23
Número1
Páginas37-62
Fecha de publicación2012-02-21
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistory and Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0275-7206 • E-ISSN: 1477-2612
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02757206.2011.595004
OpenAlexW2092939079
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas62

This contribution reconsiders various notions and conceptions of historical anthropology as a tool to enhance our knowledge and understanding of social and cultural processes. Different ways of conducting historico-anthropological studies are explored in order to determine which perspectives may be applied to Eurasia. The approaches discussed include ethnohistorical research, studies of transformation and persistence of social organization and cultural identity, interethnic relations, and relations between ethnic minorities and the state. With respect to methodological and theoretical implications inherent in the interdisciplinary relationship between history and anthropology, a concise outline of the new Max Planck Institute focus group's research is given. A framework is thus provided for discussing arguments that focus on the need to establish a new format of (post-)colonial studies adjusted to the peculiarities of this macro-region, entailing a close cooperation with ethnologists from Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, and China, where both disciplines have gained new significance in recent years. Keywords: EurasiaHistorical AnthropologyEthnohistoryColonialism(Post-)colonial Studies Acknowledgements I would like to thank my colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for helpful comments and Sabine Lang for checking and proofreading the manuscript. Notes Widely used today to denote the vast landmass of Europe and Asia, the hybrid term "Eurasia" is undoubtedly catchy, yet at the same time unprecise, and thus causes a vague feeling of discontent. This tag, which is obviously a by-product of the globalization discourse and has possibly been coined to avoid eurocentrism, has become an umbrella term that tends to raise more questions than it answers. Sometimes even confused with Eurasianism, it may denote either the two parts of the double continent or their junction, that is, a region of cultural intersection that shows characteristics of both European and Asian settings. The term also disregards the fact that large stretches of the region under discussion are at the same time part of other spatial concepts (e.g. Pacific Rim Countries, Atlantic States Community, and Circumpolar Cultures) and that parts of still other continents, especially North Africa, are sometimes included in scholarly concepts (e.g. in physical anthropology and genetics). This is why I prefer to specify the macro-regions (Siberia, Chinese Turkestan, Central Asia, etc.) or use a binary form (Europe and Asia and History and Anthropology). However, keeping its workaround character in mind, the term is—with all necessary caution—a convenient tool to address the comprehensiveness of transcontinental developments. On terminological ambiguities, see Golden (Citation2002: 105), and for a concise discussion, see Hann (Citation2006: 243–244). For some (Koppers Citation1952, Citation1954), there was still hardly any difference at all between the two disciplines of anthropology and history. This, of course, represents an extreme view when it comes to the positioning of anthropology within academia. On Lawrence Krader, see Kramer (Citation1991: 145–152) and Schorkowitz (Citation1995); on Walter Dostal, see Gingrich et al. (Citation1993). For an informative debate on anthropology's multiple temporalities, see Hann (Citation2007: 4–5), Kalb (Citation2007: 22–28), Scheffel (Citation2007: 33–36), and Skalník (Citation2007: 36–38). Cf. Graebner (Citation1911) and Kroeber (Citation1935: 539–569). A concise introduction into this chapter of anthropology's history is offered by Müller (Citation1993: 197–253). For a Viennese perspective, see Wernhart and Zips (Citation1998: 13–40). Rossiiskii Gosudarsvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv, St Petersburg, f. 821, op. 133, d. 409, l. 41a (Polozhenie o Lamaiskom Dukhovenstve Vostochnoi Sibiri) (cf. Schorkowitz Citation2001b: 203). "Legal Pluralism is not an explanatory theory but primarily a sensitizing concept. It provides the starting point for developing analytical criteria for distinguishing variations within the empirical complexities of bodies of law and their interrelationships." (Benda-Beckmann & Benda-Beckmann Citation2006: 14). It is interesting to note that Lepenies did have a concrete but limited form of historical anthropology in mind when stressing the importance of "life or anthropological constants and the threat of life" (Citation1975: 338), thus paying less attention to temporalities and socio-cultural transformations. His focus was clearly on humans' competences and their "historical constraints or realisations" (p. 338), such as reproduction, sexuality, family, childhood, birth, food, disease, and death, an approach also developed in Jack Goody's works on kinship, reproduction, and property and by Peter Parkes with regard to fosterage and adoptive kinship (Goody Citation1999; Parkes Citation2005). This positioning of man in nature, analysed from a historical perspective, the view that his developing of culture (including social and political organization, law, religion, and so forth) is an answer to the challenges of his mundane existence, was obviously the common intellectual starting point for this specific branch of historical anthropology. The potentials of this bifurcate alignment for a synthesis and surplus in knowledge might, however, also be expressed as a double-sided research deficit. As for the legal sphere, for example, much is yet to be done with regard to codes and practices of non-dominant groups in Eurasia and their assimilation to the normative orders of the state in Russia or China. Cf. Bernard Cohn's classical essay (1962) An Anthropologist among the Historians, where he portrays the historian as someone from another clan, if not from a different planet (Cohn Citation1987: 1–17). For a discussion on how these tendencies were linked to "Soviet nostalgia" and the reemerging notion of "tribalism", see Gladney (Citation1996: 448). For editorial practices in the People's Republic of China regarding the screening, compilation, and translation of historical sources, see Yang (Citation2001). An instructive outline on these topics is given by Baberowski (Citation1999), Martin (Citation2001), Schorkowitz (Citation2001a), and Khodarkovsky (Citation2002). For example, Krader (Citation1959), Schott (Citation1960), Humphrey (Citation1984), and Skalník (Citation1990). See the excellent treatise by Vermeulen (Citation2008) and his summarizing articles (Citation2009, Citation2010). For detailed information, see: http://www.eth.mpg.de/research/d2/hist-eurasia.html. Referring to Jean-Pierre Vernant and Moses Finley, Sarah Humphreys thus has good reason to advocate "a historical anthropology of the longue durée [...] in ancient Greece" (Citation2009: 101, but see also Austin & Vidal-Naquet Citation1984 and Nippel Citation1990 for a different approach). A historical anthropology of the Bronze Age would, however, concentrate largely on economies with a cross-epochal evidence for world system analysis (Ratnagar Citation2001). On the discussion of "dynasties of conquest" (Mongol Yüan and Manchu Qing), which is closely related to the notion of nomadism either as an evolutionary stage in production technology or as a social typology (see Yang Citation2001: 128–129)

Chiefdom · Eurocentrism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Chinese history and philosophy · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies