De Gran Jaguar a Padre Simbólico: la biografía ‘oficial’ de Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff

Abstract

This paper reviews the controversy around anthropologist Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff from a particular standpoint. I intend to question how and by which conceptual artifacts Reichel-Dolmatoff was enthroned as the “father-figure” of Colombian Anthropology. Thus, I examine the collective elaboration of a life-history, professor Reichel-Dolmatoff’s life-history, based upon the exegesis of his published biographies and an analysis of his own auto-biographical attempts. My aim is to propose an “Anthropology of Anthropology” in order to better understand the relationship between Reichel-Dolmatoff’s life and work. I conclude with the argument that professor Reichel-Dolmatoff’s figure, contradictory since he arrived in Colombia, was dotted by silences and partial revelations which shaped his academic life. Meanwhile, his followers made of him a father-figure thought in terms of a totemic “Great Jaguar” through a canonic biography that oscillates between plausibility and verifiability.

Keywords

• Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff
• biography
• history of Colombian anthropology
• anthropology of anthropology (authorߣs keywords)