Delimitando la antropología: reflexiones históricas acerca de las fronteras de una disciplina sin fronteras

Abstract

This paper explores changes in the boundaries of anthropology from its origins in the originary discourses of the 18th century through its development in the later nineteenth century and its contingent unification by Franz Boas in the early twentieth century as a discipline of manifold historical origins. It goes on to consider the changing methodological values and shifting boundaries of the "classical" period (c.1920-c.1960), the impact of the "crisis of anthropology," and the "reinvention of anthropology" in the post-colonial period. The analysis offers a panoramic view of changes in the external and internal disciplinary boundaries in different national traditions, and of the interdisciplinary relations and subdisciplinary structure of the field. After a review of the very different boundary situation at the end of the century, the essay ends with the suggestion that a recurrent tension between science and humanism may reflect an enduring epistemological dualism in the anthropological tradition.