Table Of Content# IIS
uSimply magisterial.”— Clifford Geertz,
speaking of the title essay
George Stocking has been widely recognized as the
premier historian of anthropology ever since the pub
lication of his first volume of essays, Race, Culture, and
Evolution, in 1968. As editor of several publications,
including the highly acclaimed History of Anthropology
series, he has led the movement to establish the his
tory of anthropology as a recognized research special
ization. In addition to the study Victorian Anthropol
ogy, his work includes numerous essays covering a wide
range of anthropological topics.
The eight essays collected in The Ethnographer’s
Magic consider the emergence of anthropology since
the late nineteenth century as an academic discipline
grounded in systematic fieldwork. Drawing extensively
on unpublished manuscript materials, the essays focus
primarily on Franz Boas and Bronislaw Malinowski,
the leading figures in the American and the British aca
demic fieldwork traditions. According to George Mar
cus of Rice University, the essays “represent the most
informative and insightful writings on Malinowski and
Boas and their legacies that are yet available.”
Beyond their biographical material, the essays here
touch upon major themes in the history of anthro
pology: its powerfully mythic aspect and persistent
strain of romantic primitivism; the contradictions of
its relationship to the larger sociopolitical sphere; its
problematic integration of a variety of natural scien
tific and humanistic inquiries; and the tension between
its scientific aspirations and its subjectively acquired
data. To provide an overview against which to read the
other essays, Stocking has also included a sketch of
the history of anthropology from the ancient Greeks
to the present.
For this collection, Stocking has written prefatory
commentaries for each of the essays, as well as two
more extended contextualizing pieces. An introduc
tory essay (“Retrospective Prescriptive Reflections”)
places the volume in autobiographical and historio
graphical context; the Afterword (“Postscriptive Pros
pective Reflections”) reconsiders major themes of the
essays in relation to the recent past and present situa
tion of academic anthropology.
The Ethnographer s Magic
The Ethnographer's M agic
and Other Essays in the
H istory of Anthropology
George W. Stocking, Jr.
The University of Wisconsin Press
The University of Wisconsin Press
114 North Murray Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53715
3 Henrietta Street
London WC2E 8LU, England
Copyright © 1992
The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
All rights reserved
5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Stocking, George W., 1928-
The ethnographer's magic and other essays in the history
of anthropology / George W. Stocking, Jr.
448 pp. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-299-13410-5
1. Ethnology— History. 2. Anthropology — History. I. Title.
GN308.S76 1992
305.8-dc20 92-25829
"The Ethnographer's Magic: Fieldwork in British Anthropology from Tylor to Malinowski" was originally published in
Observers Observed: Essays on Ethnographic Fieldwork (History of Anthropology Vol. 1), pp. 70-120. Madison: The Uni
versity of Wisconsin Press, 1983.
"The Boas Plan for the Study of American Indian Languages" was originally published in Studies in the History of Lin
guistics: Traditions and Paradigms, edited by Dell Hymes, pp. 454-84. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1974. Reprinted
by permission of the editor.
"Anthropology as Kulturkampf: Science and Politics in the Career of Franz Boas" was originally published in The Uses
of Anthropology (a special publication of the American Anthropological Association, Number 11), edited by Walter Gold
schmidt, pp. 33-50. Washington, D.C., 1979. Reprinted by permission of the Association.
"Ideas and Institutions in American Anthropology: Thoughts Toward a History of the Interwar Years" was originally
published in Selected Papers from the American Anthropologist, 1921-45, edited by George W. Stocking, Jr., pp. 1-53. Wash
ington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association, 1976.
"Philanthropoids and Vanishing Cultures: Rockefeller Funding and the End of the Museum Era in Anglo-American An
thropology" was originally published in Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture (History of Anthro
pology, Vol. 3), pp. 112-45. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
"Maclay, Kubary, Malinowski: Archetypes from the Dreamtime of Anthropology" was originally published in Colonial
Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge (History of Anthropology, Vol. 7), pp. 9-74. Madi
son: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.
"The Ethnographic Sensibility of the 1920s and the Dualism of the Anthropological Tradition" was originally published
in Romantic Motives: Essays on Anthropological Sensibility (History of Anthropology, Vol. 6), pp. 208-76. Madison: The
University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.
"Paradigmatic Traditions in the History of Anthropology" was originally published in Companion to the History of Mod
ern Science, edited by R. C. Olby, G. N. Cantor, J. R. R. Christie and M. J. S. Hodge, pp. 712-27. London: Routledge, 1990.
Reprinted by permission of the publishers.
For my students and colleagues
Contents
Retrospective Prescriptive Reflections 3
1 The Ethnographer's Magic:
Fieldwork in British Anthropology from Tylor to Malinowski 12
2 The Boas Plan for the Study of American Indian Languages 60
3 Anthropology as Kulturkampf:
Science and Politics in the Career of Franz Boas 92
4 Ideas and Institutions in American Anthropology:
Thoughts Toward a History of the Interwar Years 114
5 Philanthropoids and Vanishing Cultures: Rockefeller Funding
and the End of the Museum Era in Anglo-American Anthropology 178
6 Maclay, Kubary, Malinowski:
Archetypes from the Dreamtime of Anthropology 212
7 The Ethnographic Sensibility of the 1920s and
the Dualism of the Anthropological Tradition 276
8 Paradigmatic Traditions in the History of Anthropology 342
Postscriptive Prospective Reflections 362
References Cited 375
Manuscript Sources 419
Index 421
The Ethnographer s Magic
