Fifty Years in Anthropology

The title of this essay seemed appropriate when it was first suggested in 1980. The year was the fiftieth anniversary both of receipt of my doctorate and my first field trip to Mexico, the scene of much of my career. Upon further reflection, I am less satisfied with the title. More than 50 years have elapsed since those events; besides, my contact with anthropology actually began in 1922, 60 years before the date of this publication. Increasingly, too, I realize how much I owe my intellectual inheritance to many predecessors in anthropology and to the idiosyncracies of my early background. Hence this essay is not a formal history of the discipline but rather a partially autobiographical account of how anthropology has appeared to me at various times in my professional life. I will comment on the past, examine the present, and guess at the future.