Americanist ethnology in Germany: From Bastian’s legacy to the present situation

Abstract

The objective of this article is to introduce and explain the conceptualization, the rise, and the transformations of the ethnology of Amerindian peoples in a country that has never had overseas colonies in the Americas. In German ethnology, which can be considered a former hegemonic anthropology, the ethnology of Amerindian peoples traditionally appears in the form of various Americanisms with regional differentiations. The main point is that its historical transformations only become intelligible when connected with the more comprehensive context of the discipline in Germany since the end of the 19^th century. During almost 150 years far-reaching changes can be observed in the relations with Latin-American anthropologies: initially a hegemonic position (until the 1930s), then a considerable decline to a relative invisibility, but since the 1970s a growing Latin-American thematic and theoretical influence, which allows us to diagnose an inversion in the traditionally asymmetrical relations between a European and various Latin-American anthropologies.

Keywords
German ethnology; Americanism; History of anthropology