Transcending the academic/public divide in the transmission of theory: Raglan, diffusionism, and mid-century anthropology

ABSTRACT

Anthropology is plural, not singular, and only a section of its history is decided within universities. A critical re-examination of the work of Lord Raglan demonstrates that retaining an overly academic conception of anthropology impoverishes our understanding of its pasts and its futures. The last of the gentleman-scholars in British anthropology, Raglan was a prominent polemicist of the mid-century, who persistently kept anthropological approaches to contemporary concerns within the public eye. Though a postwar President of the Royal Anthropological Institute and praised by scholars in neighbouring disciplines, Raglan’s diffusionism was sharply criticized by standard-bearers of structural-functionalism. Adopting a broader perspective, Raglan can be viewed as both a sharp-eyed scholar and a successful public intellectual; re-assessment of his work and its effects leads to a re-consideration of the historiography of mid-century UK anthropology: particular theories, though denigrated by mainstream anthropologists, may continue to flourish in other disciplines or extra-academic arenas.

KEYWORDS:

• Diffusionism
• Lord Raglan

Acknowledgements

My thanks for comments to Nick Allen, Dominique Casajus, Chris McDonaugh, Robert Parkin, and to Geoffrey Somerset for agreeing to be interviewed. The comments by the two anonymous reviewers for History and Anthropology were especially helpful. Sam Smith generously instructed me on diffusionism in archaeology.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See also the Mass Observation Archive website, University of Sussex: http://www.massobs.org.uk/. Accessed November 1, 2017. For the contemporary use of Mass Observation and its methods by anthropologists, see, for example: Stewart 2013; https://www.ucl.ac.uk/anthropology/anthropology-news/mystreet; http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/library/news-training-and-events/news/2014/mass-observation-online/; https://leweshistory.org.uk/2014/03/10/an-anthropology-of-ourselves-exploring-mass-observation-for-creative-projects-march-april-2014/. All accessed November 2, 2016.

2. Raglan made his most noteworthy interventions in the Lords in the years immediately after ascending to the peerage: on the negotiations in Transjordania, the protection of British imperial interests, colonial administration, the passport system, the vocational training of soldiers, and Justices of the Peace.

3. The editor might also pass sly comment on a polemical aside by Raglan, in order to undercut his point (e.g. Man February 1940: 32).

4. His archives include an insulting letter, by “1066”, to his mother, complaining about his “vile insinuations on the Aristocracy of England” (GA).

5. The renowned literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, who also wrote for The New Yorker, was equally generous with his praise (Hyman to Raglan, November 22, 1955, GA).

6. E.g. http://confessionsofadoubtingthomas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/archetypal-hero.html; http://www.rationalskepticism.org/general-faith/lord-raglan-on-mythic-heroes-t2089.html; http://www.rediff.com/news/column/does-heroism-come-with-a-sell-by-date/20130311.htm; http://3rdchimp.blogspot.co.uk/. All accessed March, 30, 2015. His “hero” pattern is also fitted to modern comic-heroes, for example, Son of Goku, http://thedragonballblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/son-goku-and-lord-raglans-hero-pattern.html. Accessed July 20, 2015. Jack Goody states he came to anthropology, while reading English at Cambridge, via F. R. Leavis's references to Raglan (http://www.alanmacfarlane.com/DO/filmshow/goody_fast.htm, min.14. Accessed July 20, 2015).

7. Lévi-Strauss could indulge in the same tactic. In the opening chapter to his Elementary structures of kinship, he dismisses Raglan's historicism but fails to mention the intellectual congruence between Raglan's equation of incest and exogamy and his own (Lévi-Strauss 1969 [1949]: 23). See also MacClancy 2010: 269, 271n.10.

8. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/ethno/about/history. Accessed July 21, 2015.