Peripheral Anthropologies "Versus" Central Anthropologies

Abstract

This article examines the relations between anthropologies developed at the "center1" of the world system and peripheral anthropologies by focusing on the epistemological dimensions and their implications for enriching anthropology. While I depart from an earlier emphasis on political and economic dependency, I emphasize the capacity of Latin American countries to critically incorporate different anthropological traditions. This cushions them from being monopolized by any one of the traditions of the "metropole." Taking the Brazilian case as its vantage point, the article organizes the paradigms embedded in the "central anthropologies" within the multidimensional space of the disciplinary matrix. This reveals how much anthropology can maintain its singularity or its own style, molded to the specific conditions of the peripheral countries, without losing its universalistic vocation. This singularity can be identified by studying the disciplinary "style.

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