Historical Anthropology

Historical perspectives, both on the location investigated and on the disciplinary tools for doing so, were important for all projects pursued in the department (including Chris Hann’s Advanced Grant from the European Research Council, Realising Eurasia: Civilisation and Moral Economy in the Twenty-First Century ). Theoretical refinement of Jack Goody’s approach to the unity of Eurasia was undertaken by Hann. Collaboration with Johann Arnason led to a significant publication demonstrating the relevance of civilizational analysis to historical anthropology. Empirical projects led by Dittmar Schorkowitz investigated Ethnic Minorities and the State in Eurasia  with particular reference to the continental colonialisms of Russia and China in recent centuries and techniques of minority governance in the latter. Historical demographer Mikołaj Szołtysek explored Patriarchy and Familism in Time and Space.

Further Reading:
Bruce Grant and Lale Yalçın-Heckmann (eds): Caucasus Paradigms: Anthropologies, Histories and the Making of a World Area. Berlin: LIT Verlag (2007).
Mikołaj Szołtysek: Rethinking East-Central Europe: Family Systems and Co-residence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Bern et al: Peter Lang (2015).
Chris Hann: ‘A concept of Eurasia .’ Current Anthropology 57 (1): 1-27 (2016).
Dittmar Schorkowitz and Chia Ning (eds): Managing Frontiers in Qing China: the Lifanyuan and Libu Revisited. Leiden: Brill (2017).
Johann P. Arnason and Chris Hann (eds): Anthropology and Civilizational Analysis: Eurasian Explorations. Albany: SUNY Press (2018).