Can we speak of a Berlin School of Anthropology? During the XXth century the Institut für Ethnologie of the Freien Universität had an intense research activity and a significant plurality of theoretical approaches. Particularly, at the end of the 70’s a wide group of researchers gathered in Berlin around the IfE. These scholars not only focused their attention on specific geographical areas (above all Northeast Africa and Central Asia) but also developed common themes which led to the debate on the methodology and epistemology of Anthropology. Research activities catalysed around charismatic figures of German and European Anthropology and this led to the promotion of the idea of long-term fieldwork and to a particular attention to the critical definition of the qualities of ethnological knowledge. With the development and the application of the notion of imaginäre Ethnografie and with the theorization of the modified states of consciousness, the relationship between der Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale – to recall the title of a book published during those years – could finally be reconsidered in a continuous dialogue with researchers such as Hans Peter Duerr and Paul Feyerabend. This is how what I would like to define as “the Berlin stream of Anthropology” was born; and many scholars who later left the IfE for the wide world may or may not recognize themselves in it.
Die Berliner Schule der Ethnologie. Ethnografie und Selbst-Ethnografie der Jahre 1978-1986
PALMISANO, Antonio Luigi
2012-01-01
Abstract
Can we speak of a Berlin School of Anthropology? During the XXth century the Institut für Ethnologie of the Freien Universität had an intense research activity and a significant plurality of theoretical approaches. Particularly, at the end of the 70’s a wide group of researchers gathered in Berlin around the IfE. These scholars not only focused their attention on specific geographical areas (above all Northeast Africa and Central Asia) but also developed common themes which led to the debate on the methodology and epistemology of Anthropology. Research activities catalysed around charismatic figures of German and European Anthropology and this led to the promotion of the idea of long-term fieldwork and to a particular attention to the critical definition of the qualities of ethnological knowledge. With the development and the application of the notion of imaginäre Ethnografie and with the theorization of the modified states of consciousness, the relationship between der Wissenschaftler und das Irrationale – to recall the title of a book published during those years – could finally be reconsidered in a continuous dialogue with researchers such as Hans Peter Duerr and Paul Feyerabend. This is how what I would like to define as “the Berlin stream of Anthropology” was born; and many scholars who later left the IfE for the wide world may or may not recognize themselves in it.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
