Interventionism and Applied Science in Anthropology

Abstract

"Interventionism" is not a new thing in the profession of anthropology; it is one of its oldest elements. The account of the first French anthropological society, La société des observateurs de I'homme, as given by one historian,1 indeed confirms the worst fears of some modern sceptics of applied anthropology; we are told that in 1808, three years after its formation, the infant organization "was united with La société philanthropique and lost its scientific identity." The ethnological societies of London and Paris were also abolitionist organizations; the French organization was founded in 1838 under the leadership of a member of the British Society for the Protection of the Aborigines. The anthropological societies of London and Paris were formed after them, partly by the secession of some conservative elements of the two ethnological societies.2 Thus at the outset organized anthropology had two wings—a liberal or radical wing, frankly interventionist, and a conservative wing, proposing to study man "in strictly scientific manner." Although avowedly directed towards "pure science," even the latter organizations were not free from the taint of intervention, although in a direction the reverse of that taken by the earlier, "liberal" organizations; a pamphlet by the head of the London Anthropological Society, James Hart, was published as one of a series of anti-abolition tracts, of frankly propagandistic intent. Even the term "applied anthropology" is not exactly a recent novelty. The term is used by Daniel C. Brinton in a speech of 18953 as retiring president of the AAAS, and for all I know was used before that time.