SASA Institute of Ethnography Forum would like to invite you to attend the lecture “Invented Histories: Why do you say `Colonial` when you mean `Anthropology`?” by Aleksandar Bošković, PhD, (Institute of Archaeology Belgrade, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, UFRN, Natal, Brazil). The lecture will be held in the SASA building (Knez Mihailova 36, 1st floor) on Wednesday, November 20, 2024 starting at 12:00.

The lecture aims to highlight the implications of recent debates concerning colonialism and anthropology, as well as the discussions regarding the relationship of science and the expression of different values.  As Max Weber wrote, when scientific research and personal political preferences are entangled, it is always science that suffers. In contemporary anthropology, these discussions are intensified by the antagonism expressed by some authors toward this scientific discipline - the antagonism often accompanied by a lack of any real knowledge on the subject being discussed (the Dunning-Kruger effect). For instance, the often repeated phrase about the connection of anthropology and colonialism is meaningless, which is evident from a frequently cited book edited by Talal Asad in 1973 (which, dealt only with British anthropology).Unfortunately, as in many similar examples, authors who are eager to criticize often only read the book`s title. The lecture will particularly focus on concrete examples from the history of anthropology (Morgan, Boas, Kroeber, Tillion), including cases such as Edward Said`s invention of “Orientalism” in the work of W.R. Smith, as well as certain controversies that followed the presidential statement at the 2021 Annual Conference of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) (Gupta & Stoolman). Interestingly, both female and male authors who research the history of anthropology rejected the claims made by Gupta and Stoolman – although their response was censored in the AAA`s official publication. The lecture will also mention the responsibility of both female and male anthropologists for the lack of understanding for the discipline, as they often fail to challenge the obvious falsehoods, or uncritically accept and perpetuate stereotypes about the relationship of anthropology to women (while completely ignoring the development in the USA in the late 19th and the early 20th century, or the emergence of anthropology in South Africa) or the relationship to `others` (in terms of ethnicity or race).

Aleksandar Bošković is a scientific advisor at the Institute of Archaeology in Belgrade, visiting professor of Social Anthropology at the UFPN in Natal (Brazil) and ULAM Fellow at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (Poland). He is the member (Overseas Fellow) of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), and, since 2018, he has been the editor of the series Anthropology's Ancestors published by Berghahn Books. He is the editor of the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures (AJEC). He earned his MA in Anthropology from Tulane University (New Orleans, USA) in 1993, and completed his PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK) in 1996. He conducted his postdoctoral studies at the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg, South Africa) in 2003. Together with Han Vermeulen, Bošković founded the History of Anthropology Network (HOAN) within the EASA in 2016. He was the Vice President of the Commission on Theoretical Anthropology of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) from 2013 to 2018. He has received several fellowships and awards (DAAD, Institut d’études avancées Lyon, Civil Society Scholar Award, NAWA). He was also a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Halle (Germany), as well as at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland). He is the member of the Prehistoric Society, as well as of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Comparative Mythology (IACM). He is the author or editor of twenty books including William Robertson Smith (New York, 2021), Anthropology –from the Stone Age to the Computer (Belgrade, 2021), Mesoamerican Religions and Archaeology (Oxford, 2017) and African Political Systems Revisited (edited with Gunter Schlee; Oxford - New York, 2022). He has published several hundred academic papers in journals such as American Anthropologist, Anthropos, Anthropology Today, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, Cultural Dynamics, and Ethnos.