Introduction to Cultural

Anthropology
2. Anthropology and Colonialism
Anthropology’s Legacy
 “…the outcome of a historical process which has made the larger part of
mankind subservient to the other, and during which millions of innocent
human beings have had their resources plundered and their institutions
and beliefs destroyed, whilst they themselves were ruthlessly killed, thrown
into bondage, and contaminated by diseases they were unable to resist.”
 ------ Claude Levi-Strauss

Claude Levi-Strauss working in

exile on the Amazon.
Images of the native as
different reinforced the
‘Otherness’ of the native.
Body modification that
was seen ‘unattractive’
by westerners, were
done for spiritual, clan or
aesthetic reasons.
Looking in From
the Outside
Anthropologists during the
colonial period saw other
cultures from a Eurocentric
viewpoint. They highlighted
different practices and
beliefs of the ‘native” and
re-presented them as forms
of primitivism and
backwardness, in contrast
to the enlightened state of
the west
Anthropologists such
as Chagnon (left) Servant of
portrayed the Colonialism
Yanomamo as violent,
Anthropology may be
while Malinowski
criticised as being the
(below) wrote about
servant/ handmaiden of
the Trobriand
Islanders as colonialism and
superstitious and exploitation. By studying
promiscuous. and portraying people in a
particular way, the
colonisers were able to
justify their colonisation;
they saw themselves as
bringing enlightenment and
knowledge to backward,
primitive people.

A Trobriand girl is
uncomfortable when
Malinowski examines her
necklace; Edward Evans-
Pritchard’s superior status
is indicated by his having
a chair, and terror is
inscribed on faces in PNG
seeing White men for the
first time.
Social
Relationships:
power v. powerless
Colonialism created
relationships between the
colonial and ‘native’ that
stressed their differences.
Europeans occupied
positions of economic,
political, technological,
social, moral and
psychological superiority.
Anthropologists were –
perhaps – unaware of the
role they played in
maintaining this status quo
The Legacy
The shanty towns and
poverty of African cities,
and the race relationships in
modern America are all
legacies of the colonial
encounter and power
relationships.
Cultural Divide and
Exploitation
The cultural differences
highlighted by early
anthropological and colonial
descriptions still find
resonance in contemporary
societies where cultures
come into contact with
each other.

Today more companies are
focusing on fair trade
relationships with source
producers of raw
materials.
Scientific
Colonialism 1
Colonised countries were
routinely used as the
colonial power’s ‘back yard’
to grow lucrative crops and
to strip bare of natural
resources. Those who
gained most financially were
the manufacturers and
companies who processed
and sold them both at
home and back to the
colonised people.

Do pharmaceutical
companies still engage in
‘colonial’ behaviour?
 Scientific
Colonialism 2
The idea underlying this
term is that western
colonial powers were able
to build science and
technology on the back of
colonial exploitation. In so
doing they gained
advantages that enabled
those with power to
further exploit, and to
justify that exploitation by
claiming they were bringing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNib enlightenment and a better
D14 life to the colonised people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i80qaETt
w8

The west assumed ownership of
scientific knowledge by naming
and collecting specimens that
were taken back to Europe for
study, and as a claim of superior
appreciation.
Scientific
Colonialism 3
A lack of language
recognised as ‘scientific’ was
perceived as evidence of
non-scientific thinking. Yet
‘natives’ often read
landscape, animal behaviour
and nature in a way no
European could.
 Geographical
Determinism
Africans have been
described as prisoners of
geography because the
topography, climate, and
land did not allow different
groups of people to
communicate and exchange
ideas and technology.
Unlike much of the rest of
Old World, geography kept Hundreds of separate
people separated and languages also kept people
isolated. separate – only when
colonials introduced French
and English did a common
lingua franca emerge.
The different cultures of Africa
are vastly different from each
other, depending on location.

The forced appropriation of
land for cash cropping serves
as a good example of how the
‘culture of poverty’ is the
result of colonialism.
Cultural
Determinism
Western anthropology put
forward ideas that people
were backward, poor and
incapable to change from
within because their
cultures had conditioned a
particular way of thinking
and doing.
This aspect of cultural
determinism has also
served as a means of
romanticising the ‘purity
and naiveté’ of the
colonised peoples.
 Anthropological
Objectivity
Objectivity may be seen as
dehumanising, making the
‘subjects being studied
inferior and lacking
individuality.

The truly objective anthropologists remains a detached

observer, on the outside looking in and always separated by
a barrier from the ‘real’ people s/he is attempting to
understand. The very status and position they occupy keeps
them from fully understanding the culture. It takes no
account of how the ‘natives’ see the outsider.
Anthropological
Subjectivity
Increasingly anthropologists
are emerging from within
former colonised cultures
and offering their own
perspective on their
culture.
Summary: four main takeaways
 1. The colonial encounter between colonised and coloniser shaped the way that the
discipline of anthropology developed in the first part of the 20th century.
 2. Many of the issues and challenges faced globally in the 21st century are a direct
result of the unequal relationships between the colonised and coloniser:
 E.g. urban poverty and Africa
 BLM
 “Cultures of Poverty”
 3. Anthropology developed as a discipline through the colonial encounter, and was
complicit in the subjugation of the colonised:
 Anthropologists were forced re-evaluate their roles in the Post-colonial period.
 4. The coloniser gained far more from colonisation in terms of benefits:
 Cheap products
 Scientific knowledge
 Technological advancements