Gerardo Reichel, a la luz de su obra. Invención del indigenismo y ecologismo en Colombia

Abstract

This paper examines the work of Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, after recent information about his past related to nacional socialist movements in Germany. This paper focuses in his work, not his life, as a response to the call to re examinate his academic production in light of the new information regarding his past. It is proposed that to describe his work as a product of national socialist does not resist any academic analysis. His work, it is proposed, is more the product of ideas regarding race and cultural in Colombia and the post war World. There is a New World experience, both academic and social that cannot be ignored, and marked Reichel´s work as both complex and contradictory. It is emphasized that Reichel´s personal past cannot be ignored, but neither his academic production. Gerardo Reichel´s work is far from perfect. The rise of Colombian anthropology was influenced by racial and cultural theories that need to be examinated and criticized, and Reichel´s work was part of it.

Keywords

• Nationalsocialism
• Colombian anthropology
• Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
• Anthropology of anthropology (author’s keywords)