History of Anthropology

CHOA’s overall objective is to reflect on the complex trajectories of anthropology as a plural discipline encompassing a diversity of professional practices and shifting scholarly boundaries. It aims to uncover both the scholarly legacies—theoretical, methodological, and ethnographic—and the broader biographies of individuals who dedicated themselves to anthropology, as well as the histories of organizations related to anthropological knowledge, such as higher education and research institutions, museums, journals and archives, governmental or professional bodies, etc.

To achieve this goal, the Commission strives to go beyond canonical—often Eurocentric—historical narratives around established authors and classic texts, incorporating neglected regional, national and local traditions. It is attentive to processes of silencing, exclusion, or forgetting based on gender, race, social origin, nationality, or other markers of social differentiation.

The Commission encourages the exchange of experiences among researchers dedicated to the history of anthropology in its multifarious dimensions and settings, across and within theoretical, methodological, organizational and practical paradigms. There is a special focus on connecting practitioners of this subfield, while mapping the constantly growing sources of disciplinary history and overcoming geographic and linguistic barriers.

Chair:

Celso Castro, PhD in Social Anthropology (1995), is Professor and Dean of the School of Social Sciences at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV CPDOC), where he has worked since 1986. He has coordinated the project “Memory of Social Sciences in Brazil” since 2009. He was the editor of the “New Library of Social Sciences” series (Zahar) and is currently the coordinator of the “Além do Cânone” [Beyond the Canon] series at FGV Editora. His extensive research on the military in Brazilian society and politics has resulted in the authorship of several books on the subject.

Deputy Chair:

Frederico Delgado Rosa is a historian of anthropology specializing in the history of ethnography. Among other works, he co-edited, with Han F. Vermeulen, Ethnographers before Malinowski. Pioneers of Anthropological Fieldwork 1870-1922 (Berghahn, 2022). He served as co-convenor of the EASA’s History of Anthropology Network (2018–2022). Since 2016, he has been co-director, with Christine Laurière, of the Bérose encyclopaedia of the histories of anthropologies. He is Assistant Professor at NOVA University (Lisbon) and a researcher at CRIA (Lisbon) and Héritages (Paris).

Intern:

Humbulani Ramudzwagi is a Social Media Intern for the commission on History of Anthropology with a passion for digital storytelling, communication, and audience engagement. With an academic background in the social sciences, she is particularly interested in research on disability, deafness, language acquisition, and social inclusion. Humbulani enjoys using social media as a platform to share knowledge, highlight important conversations, and connect diverse communities.

Interested in joining the committee? Fill out our membership form.

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