LIBERALISM IN IMPERIAL ANTHROPOLOGY: NOTES ON AN IMPLICIT PARADIGM IN CONTINENTAL EUROPEAN ANTHROPOLOGY BEFORE WORLD WAR I

The terms "liberal" and "liberalism" have many different meanings. Consider, for example, the two terms' social usage in everyday colloquial parlance, and in different temporal contexts, languages, and situations. When we shift our attention away from colloquial parlance and concentrate instead on the relation between liberalism and the history of anthropology, particularly from the late 19(th) to the early 20(th) century in continental Europe, then our usage of the two terms is informed by concepts that were shaped by academic research, most notably in history and the history of science. This is what contributors to the present section of Ab Imperio are attempting to elaborate: 1 Was there a liberal paradigm in the history of anthropology in continental Europe just before and after the start of the 20th century? If so, what were its manifestations, and who its protagonists? What were its qualities and its limits within the realm of academic research? What, too, were its relations to society and culture at large during the late stages of the three entities that are discussed here - that is, the Russian, Austro-Hungarian, and German empires before the end of World War I? And if such a liberal paradigm did exist - at least to an extent, and for some period of time - what were the forces in society and in academia that contributed to its collapse? Once we frame a set of research questions about liberalism within this explorative project of academic inquiry, the term's meaning itself is dissociated from its present colloquial connotations and becomes reformulated in its proper historical and cultural context.