On History for the Present: Revisiting George Stocking's Influential Rejection of “Presentism”

There's more to anthropology's past than most of us know

“…All concepts of race are backwards-looking, constructing present identities by reference to an unalterable past, and this past can be dredged up by an oppressor even where the racialized individuals orient to future mobility and seek to leave it behind (Lewis 2012, 7, 12). 5 On Stocking's admonition to history writers to balance their present-day perspective on past issues ("presentism") with respect for the different frames of reference of historical subjects who lived in past worlds ("historicism"), see Bashkow (2019).…”

“…55On Stocking's admonition to history writers to balance their present‐day perspective on past issues (“presentism”) with respect for the different frames of reference of historical subjects who lived in past worlds (“historicism”), see Bashkow (2019). …”

Renegades or liberals? Recent reflections on the Boasian legacies in American anthropology

“…Prior debates in the history of anthropology have on occasion been chalked up to differential methodological commitments (for instance, the classic distinction between 'presentism' and 'historicism' [Bashkow, 2019;Darnell, 1977;Stocking, 1965]). 3 King and Anderson, however, are divided not so much by different approaches to writing history as by differing understandings of the historical terrain itself -that is, the United States and its entanglement with entwined forces of liberalism and racism.…”

“…The distinction between 'historicism' and 'presentism' in the history of anthropology has always been more of a heuristic than a reality, as even the primary scholar associated with the dichotomy's introduction into the history of anthropology, George Stocking (1965), admitted. As Ira Bashkow (2019) has recently argued, Stocking's own embrace of methodological historicism was itself a response to a self-congratulatory and instrumentalist use of the history of science during the 1960s.…”

The shop floor conditions of anthropology's past and present

“…Thus, as much as we can learn from speculative histories of what could have been , we can also learn from what was —but this requires a broader and more varied view of anthropology's many pasts. Such a historical lens makes possible Ira Bashkow's (2019, 717) suggestion that we approach “anthropological work done in the past with a measure of generosity” as many of our disciplinary ancestors “did indeed arrive at insights, engage in activism, or create knowledge in ways that have the potential to guide and inspire us in the present.” Gupta and Stoolman insist that we “cannot decolonize the discipline today without reinterpreting and rethinking the past.” While a speculative historical lens can be one way to facilitate this most necessary reinterpreting and rethinking, so too can a generous historical lens. Perhaps the two are not mutually exclusive.…”