Anthropology and Racial Politics

Anthropology may loosely be defined as the study of human culture — but throughout the discipline’s history, some cultures have been deemed more worthy of study than others. Who determines which cultures merit the most study — and how, and why?

In a new book, Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture (Duke University Press), Lee Baker explores how anthropological study of American Indians helped to shape academic and popular ideas about race and culture — and how those same concepts informed the discipline’s very different treatment of African American culture in the 20th century. More…