Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists

Abstract

In response to postcolonial, feminist and subaltern critiques of anthropology, this article seeks to answer the question, ‘For whom should research be conducted, and by whom should it be used?’ by examining the lives and works of four female dance anthropologists. Franziska Boas, Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus used anthropology not only to inspire their choreography but also to promote social justice and racial equality. Their means – which included practice as research and experimental forms of ethnographic writing long before such unorthodox methodology gained popularity – anticipated the post‐modern turn towards reflexivity. Nonetheless, these four women have been virtually ignored by the anthropological canon. An overview of the development of anthropology in the United Kingdom and the United States and an analysis of the critiques sustained by anthropology in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s reveal why Boas, Hurston, Dunham and Primus were marginalized and how their work functions as an example for post‐modern, postcolonial dance anthropology.