… completely unfinished thoughts—anyway, here we go: When the concept of ‘structure’ suddenly burst into anthropology and replaced ‘pattern’, ↑Alfred Kroeber (1876-1960) derogatory commented that this was merely an interchanging of words—old wine in new bottles. He was wrong, because it meant more. Namely a change of perspectives in anthropology. Same is true for ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnicity’ replacing ‘tribe’ and ‘culture’ in the mid-1970s. (↵Cohen 1978: 379-380, 384-385) In other words: This vocabulary is a portal to the understanding of the history, or even the culture of anthropology itself. In 1994 anthropologist ↑Arturo Escobar stigmatised words like ‘cyberspace’ as misnomers—he … Continue reading →