Anthropology and the Expeditionary Imaginary: An Introduction to the Volume

Abstract

Felix Driver opens Geography Militant (2001), his foundational study of exploration and empire, by quoting Claude Lévi-Strauss on the hubris of explorers. For the doyen of structural anthropology, exploration had by the twentieth century degenerated into ‘a trade’ where the object was not to discover unknown facts but to cover as much distance as possible and assemble ‘lantern-slides or motion pictures, preferably in colour, so as to fill a hall with an audience for several days in succession’. 1 Driver observes that for Lévi-Strauss, ‘the calling of the anthropologist was something altogether more noble’ than that of the explorer. The former pursued a course of disciplined observation while the latter disseminated ‘superficial stories’. 2 The scientifically trained Lévi-Strauss felt duty-bound to differentiate himself from these commercial travellers. Show more