the problematic history of anthropology

If you look at the 📔origins of anthropology, you see that it developed at the 📔same time as European colonialism, and the field was inextricably linked with 📔scientific racism which was very popular at the time.

While modern anthropology has taken pains to distance itself [2] from these origins, critics argue that some 📔lingering tendrils of colonialism remain in both society and academia:

• 📔Neo-colonial science

articles critiquing anthropology's historical and current practices

• [1]
• [2]
• The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics (2010), chapter 2: Anthropology, Colonialism, and Eugenics (full text — I searched for 10 minutes, and it appears the full text is unavailable for free on the internet)
• [4]
• [5]

details on the origins of physical anthropology

Fields of study:

• 📔History of anthropology   § The Enlightenment roots of the discipline
• 📔History of anthropometry — the measurement of the human individual
• 📔Behavioural genetics
• 📔History of the race and intelligence controversy   § Early history
• 📔Phrenology

Other:

• 📔Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics, founded in 1927 in Berlin.
  • 📔Eugen Fischer — A German professor of medicine, anthropology, and eugenics, and a member of the Nazi Party. He served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics.
• 📔Göttingen school of history
• 📔Pioneer Fund
• 📔Mankind Quarterly
• 📔The Passing of the Great Race (1916)
  • 📔Madison Grant
• 📔Georges Vacher de Lapouge — French anthropologist and a theoretician of eugenics and scientific racism
• 📔Francis Galton

the modern remnants of scientific racism

• Superior: The Return of Race Science (2019) — it argues that some fields of biology are still influenced by the discredited scientific racism theories of the 19th century
• Decolonizing Methodologies (1999, 2021)

A review by someone else: "If you're looking for a broad overview of how racism impacts Anthropology then I recommend looking at this book. It's a highly influential and very comprehensive discussion on how racism and colonialism continue to affect contemporary academia generally and Anthropology in particular. The fundamental point she makes is that the structure of academia and the directionality of academic research (from the imperial core out) makes a degree of racism and colonialism implicit and inevitable. Despite that, she has several chapters dedicated to practical ways to address these issues, if that's your fancy."

• a great post on Reddit (2024)