Anthropology and Multiculturalism: What Is Anthropology That Multiculturalists Should Be Mindful of It?

Article published in the «Cultural Anthropology» — 1993 — Vol. 8 — No. 4 (Nov.) — pp. 411-429.Anthropologists have been doing a lot of complaining that they are being ignored by the new academic specializations in "culture," such as cultural studies, and by both academic and extra-academic manifestations of "multiculturalism." Few anthropologists, however, appear to have made the effort to comprehend the reasons for that indifference from the standpoint of what multiculturalists are trying to do, and fewer still have taken an active part in the discussions surrounding multiculturalism. Most of us have been sitting around like so many disconsolate intellectual wallflowers, waiting to be asked to impart our higher wisdom, and more than a little resentful that the invitations never come.