Papers in Honor of Melville J. Herskovits Objectivity in Anthropology

Abstract

Is THE science of man and his works a real science? We anthropologists like to think of ourselves as scientists, and we understand social scientists as being not merely students of phenomena but specialists dedicated to the building of a scientific of culture and society. Is this view -supported by our productions: our books and our articles? The problem is not new but has not been satisfactorily solved. To contribute modestly to its elucidation, it may be useful to consider in the light of the epistemology of a new situation in which some anthropologists find themselves directly confronted with this old irritating problem.' The anthropologists directly concerned are those whose research area is tropical Africa. During the last decade, this area has seen the emergence of independent states. Africanists had usually been considered very liberal-minded by colonial administrations; they had prevented traditional cultures from falling into oblivion and had stressed the value of ways of life alien to the West. Anthropologists expected that their discipline would be well received in the newly independent nations, particularly by the university trained Africans who usually constitute the political and administrative elite. The very term and its French counterpart, ethnologie (more common in Frenchspeaking Africa than anthropologie sociale), are frowned on in many quarters; they are suspected of being tinged with colonialism. New research projects are not always encouraged, and some African authorities manifest more distrust than enthusiasm when asked to support or facilitate anthropological field work. Some African intellectuals feel that earlier anthropological studies were biased in favor of the colonial regime, and they fear that new studies would also have an undesirable orientation. One answer to these criticisms is to point out that scientific studies, precisely because they are objective, are not likely to please everybody (and particularly every government, colonial or independent); it is natural enough that African authorities feel suspicious about everything of European origin, particularly as researches are usually carried on by citizens of the former dominant power. Another reaction to these criticisms is to consider them as an interesting phenomenon likely to shed light upon the epistemology of our discipline. This view amounts to the affirmation that in Africa has been influenced by the colonial situation, and not only by its object of study, as is usually expected in a scientific discipline. Thus an unforeseen consequence of the decolonization process is to throw doubt upon the scientific character of anthropology. We shall start from a hypothesis set forth by the sociologists of knowledge. The existential situation of a group within a larger society is a factor which conditions the acquired and used by the group. JACQUES J. MAQUET is Directeur d'etudes at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (Sixieme section: Sciences economiques et sociales) of the University of Paris. He also teaches at the University of Brussels. Born in Belgium in 1919, he was educated at the Universities of Louvain (Docteur en droit 1946; Docteur en philosophie 1948) and London (Ph. D. 1952). He also studied at Harvard University (194648). For several years, he carried out field research among the Tutsi and Hutu of Rwanda and, for shorter periods, among the Yeke and the Itombwe tribes of Congo; he also made surveys on migrant labor and urban populations in Central Africa. He was Head of the Research Center of the Institut pour la Recherche Scierntifique en Afrique Centrale (I.R.S.A.C.) for Rwanda-Burundi (1951-57) and Professor of Anthropology at the Universite Officielle du Congo at Elisabethville (195760). Under the auspices of Melville Herskovits' Program of African Studies, he was Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University (1956). Maquet's main interests are political of traditional societies (The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda, 1961; Elections en socie'te fe'odale-as coauthor-, 1959), of (The Sociology of Knowledge, 1951) and the study of African cultures (Aide-memoire d'ethnologie Afficaine, 1954; Afrique, les civilisations noires, 1962). On these matters, he has also contributed numerous articles to periodicals and collective works. Jacques J. Maquet's paper is the sixth in a series, edited by Francis L. K. Hsu and Alan P. Merriam specially prepared to honor Melville J. Herskovits. The entire series, when completed, will constitute a new type of Festschrift (CA 4:92). I Epistemology of anthropology is understood here as the critical assessment of the cognitive value of whereas sociology of anthropological knowledge refers to the study of the or existential conditioning of anthropology. The influence of the existential situation on has obviously a bearing on the cognitive value of our discipline but it seems useful to keep distinct the viewpoints of epistemology and of of (Maquet 1951:75-78).