Editors' Introduction

Histories of Anthropology Annual (HOAA) increasingly has a history of its own. The four volumes published to date carry through themes from our initial vision of a homeplace for unrelated papers in the history of anthropology directed to an anthropological audience. The continued production of sufficient material to fill these volumes reinforces our conviction that many anthropologists who would not describe themselves as historians of anthropology nonetheless do research that falls squarely within the purview of HOAA. As in previous volumes, there is considerable crossing of subdisciplinary boundaries, with race and racism as the most frequent topics in biological anthropology to be approached historically. Museums and expeditions bring some archaeological interest but also draw upon matters of culture. Archaeologists also want to think about their methods historically, and about the institutions necessary to support large-scale investigation. We find ourselves reading papers about the discourses of doing anthropology rather than linguistics in the narrow sense—the technical apparatus of describing non-Indo-European languages.

Perhaps most significantly, many contributors are intrigued by the epistemological and ethical positioning of anthropology and anthropologists relative to the communities studied. There is trenchant critique of the colonial entanglements of the discipline, along with acknowledgment of anthropological contributions that have become resources for community use. These debates cross another kind of (sub-)disciplinary boundary, one that lies between anthropological praxis and the world outside the academy. The questions asked in such papers reflect theoretical explorations as well as factual encounters across cultures. Interestingly, much of this kind of critique is Americanist. It seems to have arisen out of the dialogue between anthropologists and Native North Americans, perhaps because that dialogue emerges in the societies in which Native Americans and anthropologists both live and work. There is no impermeable barrier of time or space, or of subject or object, between the observers and the observed; contemporary research methods aspire to dissolve boundaries of access. Writing, for example, is no longer the exclusive purview of the anthropologist, although writing may be a different kind of resource in a culture based on oral transmission of accumulated knowledge. Coevality seems an achievable goal, although no one would argue that it has yet been achieved.

Professional biography, of both anthropologists and their subjects, remains a way to approach how anthropological knowledge is constructed. Just as life histories help anthropologists in the field comprehend the impact of culture on the individual, the life and work of the anthropologist clarifies and contextualizes ethnographic reports. The histories encompassed by HOAA also move to more macro-analytic frameworks of colonialism and ongoing stereotyping and discrimination. Geographic range is another fascinating variable. Although the majority of papers involve North American research, there are also works from elsewhere—and we continue to seek out papers from other areas, and ones that draw parallels across research areas and national traditions. Disciplinary focuses also range from macro to micro. Historians turn to institutions of political control and surveillance, whereas literary figures shed light on anthropological questions.

We also laud the increasing visibility of history of anthropology within the discipline. Sessions at the meetings of the American Anthropological Association and other scholarly bodies produce interconnected papers and draw substantial audiences. Some of these individual papers may end up in the pages of HOAA, but since we are specifically targeting each volume to range as widely as possible, we are not publishing collections of papers that often come from those sessions. Even so, the more general trend toward historicist consciousness about anthropological practice in itself adds much to this series. We continue our editorial policy that no more than three papers on the same theme will appear in a single issue, and that no author will be published in two consecutive issues. Contributors to date have crossed boundaries of discipline, nationality, gender, professional generation, and institutional base. We believe that our growing readership is equally diverse and we continue to invite contributions reflecting that diversity, especially from authors who feel that their perspective is not represented here—to the best of our abilities we are fighting any tendency toward an "HOAA kind of article," except in the sense that we are open to all approaches. All of these debates and perspectives are part of anthropology and thus of the histories of anthropology. Reflexivity rather than consensus ties them together.