Social and Cultural Anthropology in Postsocialist Europe Three Decades Later: A Lost War for Social and Cultural Anthropology in Postsocialism?
Keywords:
social and cultural anthropology, postsocialistic countries, anthropologization of ethnology, anthropo-ethnology, de-professionalization, history of anthropology, social capital, political chameleonismAbstract
This paper is intended as an analysis of the post-socialist war over social and cultural anthropology. It presents the four most important groups which participated in this war: the group of the “Volkskunde” people; the group of the “Völkerkunde” people; the group of native anthropologists; and the group of the western-educated socio-cultural anthropologists. It isolates the most important logic of this war, i.e., the logic of ‘money and power’, as well as other important, ultimately decisive factors in the outcome of the post-socialist changes and development in the field of social and cultural anthropology, such as the role of social capital and the role of (political) chameleonism. Additionally, some of basic results of the post-socialist war over social and cultural anthropology – redefining ethnology and social and cultural anthropology, the invention of anthropo-ethnology and de-professionalization – are all presented and analysed.
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