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THE "RELEVANCE"OF ANTHROPOLOGY TO COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM Jack Stauder In the aftermath of a large student rebellion at Harvard in the spring of 1969, a graduate student in anthropology raised a criticism of our field which I have often heard: Social anthropology-traditionally a field concerned with explaining and understanding small-scale cultures and societies, especially in the non-Western world-is a field that could make relevant contributions to our understanding of major events and problems of the world: wars of liberation, the effects and causes of racism, economic exploitation, colonialism, imperialism.... [However , departments] ensure that anthropology will remain isolated from and irrelevant to social and political problems.... (Anon., p.71) Many students in anthropology want an anthropology that will provide them with an understanding of "major events and problems of the world." Therefore they demand "relevance," meaning an anthropology relevant to their felt needs. I sympathise with this desire and share it. But the basic issues underlying the complaints in the quoted passage cannot be reached by posing the problem in terms of relevance. By and large, anthropology has always been "relevant." The question to ask is, relevant to whom and for what? Early Development of British Anthropology The institutional origins and early growth of British anthropology in the nineteenth century were closely linked to an interest in the possible practical value of anthropology as an applied science. Members of the early anthropological societies in Britain were especially concerned with questions of race and slavery, great issues which agitated British society throughout the first two-thirds of the century . Anthropological journals of the time were filled with articles making recommendations on these questions. Although it was scarcely to be left to scholars to THE "RELEVANCE" OF ANTHROPOLOGY / 409 decide a question involving profits and power relations, many early anthropologists nevertheless hoped that their resources might be of some utility to the interests involved in the expansion of European power around the globe. The slavery issue died down in the 1870s, as slaves in the Americas became poorly paid "free" plantation labour, and as the slave trade was replaced by other, more "legitimate" forms of exploiting Africa. But the last two decades of the nineteenth century witnessed the acceleration and culmination of British imperialist expansion, particularly in the "scramble" for Africa in which Britain succeeded in'asserting against other European powers her claims to rule or "protect " diverse territories with large native populations. During the same period, anthropology was attaining academic respectability in Britain (in the form of university chairs), and some of its promoters hoped to ally the new science of man not with controversial popular causes, as had been the case in the pro- and anti-slavery debates earlier in the century, but with the science of good government , specifically the administration of colonial peoples. A survey of the twenty-seven preSidential addresses to the Royal Anthropological Institute from 1893 to 1919 shows that in over half the president raised claims regarding the practical uses to which anthropology could be put in serving the Empire. Frequently the complaint was made that, despite anthropology's potential practical value, neither government nor business seemed interested, and little in the way of funds or official recognition seemed forthcoming. These complaints were largely unheeded in the following years: in 1910 British anthropologists were refused even a grant of £500 from the government to set up an "Imperial Bureau of Anthropology" within the Royal Anthropological Institute (Ridgeway, p. 10). Thus, around the turn of the century in Britain, anthropology found itself in a peculiar position. The British Empire was at its zenith, rapidly extending its effective rule over millions of new subjects. The period was marked by Victorian confidence in the application of science to achieve progress and profits. British anthropologists were promoting their new science as a potentially valuable tool to be used in the imperial mission, to aid government and commerce and the advance of "civilisation." Anthropologists were desperately courting government for private recognition and especially financial support for anthropology in its potential uses as they saw them. But government and wealthy benefactors were spuming these advances and seemed little interested. This discrepancy between anthropologists' desire to serve British imperialism and the lack of support for anthropology by the British ruling class is a phenomenon probably explained less by the short-sightedness of the ruling classes than by the shortcomings of anthropology at the time. For despite the assertions of anthropologists, the actual state of British anthropology at the...

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