People and Ideas from Elsewhere: Notes on Social Anthropology in the UK

The chapter explores how, from its inception, British anthropology has succeeded in collecting and synthesising theoretical contributions from various “elsewhere”. The British Empire and, subsequently, the United Kingdom have often operated as a point of encounter among anthropologists, forging connections between their various biographical trajectories and theoretical approaches in a way that transcends the boundaries of the British national tradition to foster long-term dialogues with disciplinary currents in both the former colonies and the rest of Europe. For most of the discipline’s relatively short history, it has often been anthropologists working in the UK to launch the debates that went on to involve scholars from around the world, contributing to identifying both original objects of analysis and innovative methodologies.