Theory in furs: Masochist anthropology

Abstract

Was will die Anthropologie? Freud's analysis of masochism can serve as a lens with which to explore the long-standing anthropological interest in powerless or disenfranchised people. Recent anthropological work can be examined not only in the terms encouraged by its own diegesis as a relation between anthropologist and the powerless but also as elements in a constellation that includes anthropology as a discipline and capitalism. Exploration of the libidinal structute within which our discipline has taken shape - that is to say, the structure that gives not just possibility and meaning but also pleasure to the practice of anthropology - can shed light on the nature of the pleasure that anthropologists derive from identification with the powerless. © 2006 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.