Honour and Shame: A sketch of an alternative history of Serbian ethnology

Abstract

This text draws a pa­ral­lel bet­we­en a "gu­ilt com­plex" in post­co­lo­nial and post­mo­dern anthro­po­logy, and cer­tain si­mi­lar ten­den­ci­es in analyses of the hi­story of Ser­bian eth­no­logy. Sin­ce et­hno­logy and anthro­po­logy in Ser­bia ha­ve de­ve­lo­ped in dif­fe­rent cir­cum­stan­ces and ha­ve exer­ted a de­ci­dedly les­ser in­flu­en­ce on ge­ne­ral po­licy than Ame­ri­can or Bri­tish anthro­po­logy, I cla­im the­re is no ob­jec­ti­ve re­a­son for Ser­bian eth­no­lo­gists to con­ti­nue uti­li­zing the ele­ment of "gu­ilt" in the­ir texts. Fi­nally, I con­si­der whet­her re­le­a­se from this nar­ra­ti­ve co­uld br­in­g po­si­ti­­ve con­­se­­q­u­en­ces to t­he ­i­ma­ge­ and ­st­a­tus of e­t­h­no­­logy a­nd anthro­po­lo­gy in Ser­­bia.

Keywords

• history of Serbian ethnology
• politics of anthropology