Editors' Introduction

As we write these words, the first volume of Histories of Anthropology Annual is wending its way from page proofs to print, in time for sales at the American Anthropological Association meetings in November/December. Between that volume and this one lies considerable enrichment of our own understanding of the state of the art in history of anthropology in North America, a process that we expect to be ongoing. We have assembled volume 2 with the aid of a distinguished and enthusiastic international editorial board. Even without the exposure of extant published volumes there has been sufficient critical mass to fill two volumes on an annual basis, and we have a modest backlog toward volume 3. Each volume can certainly stand alone, but we are optimistic that the presence of this regular publication outlet geared to the history of anthropology will contribute to a florescence in this area of specialization. Our task for the coming year will be to further widen the scope of papers presented and to establish a subscription base.

As is appropriate for a journal-like agglomerate of current research in a subdiscipline, there is no single thrust to the papers included here. But several clusters of concerns permeate the papers. First, several anthropologists have contributed historical papers arising from the areas where they have done their ethnographic work. These disciplinary historians combine the methods of archival history with those of ethnographic interpretation and documentation. Their history of anthropology is treated as an anthropological problem. Second, historical research in anthropology often plays around the role of significant figures in the discipline. Professional biography stands alongside the life-history methodology of ethnographers in the field. Third, there is a concern with documenting the particular as well as contrastive features of national traditions; Argentine, U.S., British, Canadian, Swedish, and Russian traditions are explored in this volume. Fourth, there is a belief that institutional infrastructures for anthropological practice provide context for lives and works in the past, with implications for present and future. Finally, interpretative traditions and practices within subdisciplines of anthropology are salient for contributors in very different ways.

These heuristic categories intersect and crosscut, with most papers falling across several. This is, in part, the claim we stake with the title "Histories of Anthropology." There is a plurality to what we separate out for historicist examination as well as a multiplicity among the audience(s) to which we direct these examinations. Many of the papers are open ended in the sense that their histories raise questions of some urgency for the practice of our discipline.

We encourage all interested parties to participate in these exchanges as readers and writers, and we welcome submissions on any dimension of our discipline's histories.