anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists

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This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries] On: 21 November 2014, At: 21:58 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Research in Dance Education Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crid20 Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists Katrina Richter a a Independent Researcher , Philadelphia, USA Published online: 15 Nov 2010. To cite this article: Katrina Richter (2010) Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists, Research in Dance Education, 11:3, 223-237, DOI: 10.1080/14647893.2010.528597 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2010.528597 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists

This article was downloaded by: [Temple University Libraries]On: 21 November 2014, At: 21:58Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Research in Dance EducationPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crid20

Anthropology with an agenda: fourforgotten dance anthropologistsKatrina Richter aa Independent Researcher , Philadelphia, USAPublished online: 15 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Katrina Richter (2010) Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten danceanthropologists, Research in Dance Education, 11:3, 223-237, DOI: 10.1080/14647893.2010.528597

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2010.528597

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists

Research in Dance EducationVol. 11, No. 3, November 2010, 223–237

ISSN 1464-7893 print/ISSN 1470-1111 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14647893.2010.528597http://www.informaworld.com

DANCELINES

Anthropology with an agenda: four forgotten dance anthropologists

Katrina Richter*

Independent Researcher, Philadelphia, USATaylor and FrancisCRID_A_528597.sgm10.1080/14647893.2010.528597Research in Dance Education1464-7893 (print)/1470-1111 (online)Dancelines2010Taylor & Francis00000000002010Miss [email protected]

In response to postcolonial, feminist and subaltern critiques of anthropology, thisarticle seeks to answer the question, ‘For whom should research be conducted, andby whom should it be used?’ by examining the lives and works of four femaledance anthropologists. Franziska Boas, Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunhamand Pearl Primus used anthropology not only to inspire their choreography butalso to promote social justice and racial equality. Their means – which includedpractice as research and experimental forms of ethnographic writing long beforesuch unorthodox methodology gained popularity – anticipated the post-modernturn towards reflexivity. Nonetheless, these four women have been virtuallyignored by the anthropological canon. An overview of the development ofanthropology in the United Kingdom and the United States and an analysis of thecritiques sustained by anthropology in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s reveal whyBoas, Hurston, Dunham and Primus were marginalized and how their workfunctions as an example for post-modern, postcolonial dance anthropology.

Keywords: anthropology; African dance; postcolonialism; ethnography

I. Introduction

As recently as 2006, the Central Intelligence Agency turned its recruitment efforts tomembers of the American Anthropological Association. This was hardly the firsttime; in 1969 and again in 1982 the AAA passed resolutions to prevent such efforts.1

But in 2005, the AAA’s Committee on Ethics decided to revisit the ‘issues related tothe engagement of anthropology with the US national security/intelligence communi-ties’ in the hopes of establishing a new ‘Commission on Anthropology and USNational Security’ (AAA Annual Report 2005 [online]). The complexity and continu-ity of this debate reveal two questions fundamental to the history of anthropology. Forwhom should research be conducted, and by whom should it be used?

Since the dawn of anthropology in the nineteenth century, anthropologists haveresponded to these questions in very different ways, oftentimes invoking anthropologyin support of causes that history would later judge. By the time of the Vietnam War,against a backdrop of decolonization, Third World political struggles and a growingcritique of imperialism and neo-imperialism, the role of anthropology in the modernworld came under severe scrutiny (Clifford and Marcus 1986, 10; Vincent 1996b, 432).

At best, according to its critics, anthropology represented ‘social work andcommunity development effort for non-white peoples’ (Gough 1968, 403). At itsworst, the discipline functioned as ‘an instrument of domination’ (Hymes, 1972, 6-7).Rejecting these two extremes for fields of ethnographic inquiry that would come to be

*Email: [email protected]

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known as dance anthropology were four forgotten anthropologists: Franziska Boas,Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus.

Invoking the humanitarian concerns of nineteenth-century anthropology, thesefour American women used anthropology as a tool to challenge racism before theAmerican Civil Rights movement had even begun. Their aims – to promote socialjustice and racial equality – provided an alternative to the imperialistic anthropologyimplicated by the postcolonial critique. Their means – which included practice asresearch and experimental forms of ethnographic writing long before such unorthodoxmethodology gained popularity – anticipated the postmodern turn towards reflexivity.

Nonetheless, these four women have been virtually ignored by the anthropologicalcanon. An overview of the development of anthropology in the United Kingdom andthe United States and an analysis of the critiques sustained by anthropology in the1960s, 1970s and 1980s reveal why Boas, Hurston, Dunham and Primus were margin-alized and how their work functions as an example for postmodern, postcolonialanthropology and the related field of dance ethnography.2

II. Anthropology with an agenda

Anthropology did not begin as the handmaiden of empire. Indeed, it was with quiteanother aim that Quaker physician Thomas Hodgkin, one of the discipline’s forerun-ners, founded the British and Foreign Aborigines Protection Society in 1837.Although the historical development of anthropology remains open to debate,Hodgkin and his contemporaries established a tradition of humanitarianism that wouldlater be reflected, however unknowingly, in the work of Boas, Primus, Hurston andDunham. Reporting to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Aboriginal Tribes,British Settlement, Hodgkin wrote:

By diffusing correct information concerning the character and condition of the Aborigines,by appealing to the government or to Parliament when appeal is needed, and by bringingpopular opinion to exert its proper influence in advancing the cause of justice … muchmay be done towards the diminution of these gigantic evils, the continuance of whichreflects such deep dishonor on the British name. (William Ball in Rainger 1980, 708)

Physician and naturalist Richard King urged Hodgkin to cultivate science for the sakeof science, not humanitarianism (Rainger 1980, 711). The Ethnological Society ofLondon, founded in part by King, Hodgkin and the British Association, served to insti-tutionalize the separation of scientific and philanthropic aims (Rainger 1980, 713).Furthermore, the Société Ethnologique de Paris, founded in part by Hodgkin, focusedon science, not philanthropy; this may be because the French were experiencing lesscolonial anxiety than the British (Rainger 1980, 712).

In 1842, the aims of the Aborigines Protection Society shifted from ‘protecting thedefenseless’ to recording their history. The Society passed a resolution which essen-tially asserted that the best way to help aborigines was to study them (Stocking 1971,371). The newly formed Ethnological Society of London, which comprised mainlyQuaker-Evangelical humanitarians and retained the Aborigines Protection Society’smotto of ‘ab uno sanguine’, relied on the ethnological tradition of ‘physical linguistic,archaeological and cultural’ data to solve the ‘essentially historical problem of relatingall human groups to a single original root’ (Stocking 1971, 372 and 384).

By contrast, the Anthropological Society of London, founded by James Hunt,concerned itself with the ‘basic nature of the study of man’. According to George

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W. Stocking, the Society comprised ‘radically racialist and in most cases margin-ally scientific “anthropologists”’ concerned with ‘defining human races in thecontext of a pre-Darwinian tradition of comparative anatomy’ (Stocking 1971, 376and 384).

On the one hand were the monogenists, many of whom where abolitionists andmaintained ‘all races derived from a single creation’ (Barnard and Spencer 1996, 76).On the other hand were the polygenists, supporters of slavery who believed ‘diversephysical types of humankind were distinct species’ (Barnard and Spencer 1996, 76).The creation of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1871,which combined the Ethnological and Anthropological Societies, signaled the triumphof monogenism (Barnard and Spencer 1996, 76).3

III. The case in America

As shown by the development of anthropology in Britain, the discipline has a longhistory of connections with philanthropy and social justice. The case was similar inAmerica; the period from 1850 to 1889 saw the rise of evolutionary-based ‘salvaging’of Native American ‘culture’ as exemplified by the work of the Bureau of AmericanEthnology (Vincent 1996a, 25). By the end of the nineteenth century, the work ofFranz Boas had served to professionalize the discipline, which continued to emphasizeNative American societies and the diffusion of cultural traits through material cultureand language (Vincent 1996a, 26). As a result of the friendship between Boas andW.E.B. DuBois, many of Boas’s students, including such luminaries as RuthBenedict, Melville Herskovits and Margaret Mead, inherited a tradition of antiracism(Aschenbrenner 2002, 33).

American anthropology of the 1930s–50s functioned as a ‘spokesman for theindigenous inhabitants of colonized societies’ and saw an increase in urban anthro-pology (Forster 1973, 34; Vincent 1996a, 26). It was during this ‘anti-colonialist’period that Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960),4 Franziska Boas (1902–1988),Katherine Dunham (1909–2006) and Pearl Primus (1919–1994) arrived on thescene. At the time, black institutions were not granting PhDs in anthropology andAfrican-Americans were denied teaching positions at white schools (Drake 1978,86).5 Whereas many scholars viewed anthropology as a way to ‘contribute toblack liberation’, only three of the nine African-American anthropologists work-ing before the Second World War gained teaching positions in their field (Drake1978, 102–03).6

Another challenge faced by Primus, Hurston and Dunham and addressed by Boaswas the issue of funding. In many ways, Hurston was limited by the expectations ofher white patron, Mrs Rufus Osgood Mason. Also a patron of Langston Hughes,Mason instructed all of her beneficiaries to call her ‘Godmother’, and claimedHurston’s fieldwork and ethnographic material placed ‘racist expectations’ on theyoung researcher to represent a certain version of the rural African-American(LaMothe in Wall 2000, 168; see also Walker 1979). While Hurston also receivedfunding from the Julius Rosenwald Foundation, so did Dunham and Primus.7 ThoughPrimus did not receive funding until 1948, Hurston and Dunham received theirs in1934 and 1935 respectively.8 Dunham’s biographer Joyce Aschenbrenner hassuggested that this exacerbated the rivalry between Hurston and Dunham as eachsought to establish herself as the authority on West Indian society (Aschenbrenner2002, 53–55).9

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IV. The postcolonial critique of anthropology

Having provided the historical context to the work of Boas, Hurston, Dunham andPrimus, it is important to understand the critiques of anthropology that have, in manyways, brought their work out of obscurity. By the end of the First World War, Europehad colonized 85% of the world (Said 2003/1978, 123). Anthropology had played animportant role in this process but as empires began to crumble, its role in colonialadministration came under severe scrutiny (Forster 1973, 27). The exposure of CIA-sponsored anthropology and the passing of a resolution against the Vietnam War bythe American Anthropological Association coincided with critiques from postmodern-ism, postcolonialism and feminism (Forster 1973, 24).

This ‘identity crisis’ posed both opportunities and challenges to researchersengaged in dance ethnography. It exposed anthropology’s tainted history but it alsoallowed scholars such as Joanne Kealiinohomoku to address ethnocentricity andevolutionary-based hierarchies in the performing arts. The following analysis willexplore the main critiques of anthropology and how three important dance scholarshave responded to these critiques.

The most severe criticism resulted from anthropology’s implication of colonial-ism. While it would be unfair to indict all anthropologists as agents of empire, theaverage fieldworker was ‘dependent upon colonial authorities for permission to carryout his studies, and sometimes for material support; and … open political dissent wasscarcely possible within colonial society’ (James 1973, 42).

As argued by Talal Asad in Anthropology and the Colonial Encounter (1973):

Anthropology is also rooted in an unequal power encounter between the West and theThird World. It is this encounter that gives the West access to cultural and historicalinformation about the societies it has progressively dominated, and thus not only gener-ates a certain kind of universal understanding but also reinforces the inequalities incapacity between European and non-European worlds. (Asad 1973, 16)

Asad highlights several important issues that resonate in present-day anthropologyand dance scholarship. More recent critiques of ethnography include that of GayatriSpivak, who draws into question the ‘perspective of the native informant’ as the‘denial of access to autobiography as recognized by the Euroteleological tradition;“autobiographies” mediated by dominant investigators or field workers, used as“objective evidence” for the “sciences” of anthropology and ethnolinguistics;followed by the curious “objectified” subject-positioning of this other in “oral history”politicized by exceptionalized “testimony”’ (Spivak 2003/1999, 153). Additionally,Ania Loomba argues that ‘[t]hrough the objectivity of observation, European penetra-tion into other lands is legitimized’ and that ‘dominant scientific ideologies about raceand gender have historically propped up each other’ (Loomba 2005/1998, 57–58).

Although native informants can deceive the researcher or deny information, powerrests ultimately with the anthropologist. Furthermore, the generation of ‘universalunderstanding’ subjects the Third World to what Said would call the Orientalistdiscourse. Put simply, Orientalism is a ‘modern political-intellectual culture’ havingless to do with the Orient than with ‘our’ world (Said 2003/1978, 12). Said conceivedof Orientalism as a ‘distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic, scholarly,economic, sociological, historical, and philological texts’ that facilitated the mainte-nance of colonial power (Said 2003/1978, 12).

While numerous scholars of Indian Classical Dance have invoked postcolonialism,Orientalism and Subaltern Studies, these themes have implications for the entire field

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of dance anthropology. According to Said, Orientalism shares with ‘its counterparts insimilar knowledges constructed for native Americans and Africans, a chronictendency to deny, suppress or distort the cultural context … to maintain the fiction ofits scholarly disinterest’ (Said 2003/1978, 347). As such, Orientalism provides auseful theoretical framework for scholars studying Native American dance and dancesof the African Diaspora in addition to ballet and other forms of Western theatre dance.

Written just a few years prior to the critiques of Asad, Clifford and Marcus, Saidand Hymes, Joanne Kealiinohomoku’s perennial article, ‘An Anthropologist Looks atBallet as a Form of Ethnic Dance’ (1983/1970) anticipates many of the issues thatwould be raised. Kealiinohomoku takes issue with the ‘evolutionary continuum’ towhich ‘the rest of the world’ is relegated in conventional dance scholarship and states,‘[a]pparently it satisfies our own ethnocentric needs to believe in the uniqueness ofour dance forms’ (Kealiinohomoku 1983/1970, 536). Her argument preceded Said’sby eight years but, in rejecting a Eurocentric view of dance, Kealiinohomokuaddressed what Said would come to call a ‘relationship of power, of domination, ofvarying degrees of a complex hegemony’ (Said 2003/1978, 3).

Two equally groundbreaking articles are Jane Desmond’s ‘Dancing Out theDifference: Cultural Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis’ Radha of 1906’ (1993) andBrenda Dixon Gottschild’s ‘Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence inAmerican Concert Dance’ (2001). Desmond’s article, which utilizes both poststruc-turalist and feminist theories, invokes Said and Clifford to demonstrate how Rhadafunctions as ‘a portrayal of Western desires and ambivalences displaced onto anorientalized, gendered body’ (Desmond 2001/1993, 262). In doing so, she appliespostcolonial theory to one of the founders of American modern dance, thereby demon-strating the implications of ‘cultural imperialism’ (Desmond 2001/1993, 267) in theworld of performance.

In ‘Stripping the Emperor’, Gottschild rejects such ‘voluntary taking of Eastern-isms’ and demonstrates how the ‘Africanist legacy … infuses our daily existence’(Gottschild 2001, 332). I argue that her attempt to codify the Africanist presence intoa homogenous and easily identified aesthetic serves, through a process of oversimpli-fication, to perpetuate a form of neo-Orientalism.10 In my MA dissertation andelsewhere, I propose that structural and historical modes of analysis are necessary totranscend the white/black, high art/low art, Africanist/Europeanist divides that oftenstymie dance scholarship (Richter 2010, 28). Nevertheless, I acknowledge thatGottschild’s work gives voice to a subaltern group by identifying its influence onWestern theatre dance, thereby including postcolonial concepts of hegemony andindividual agency in dance scholarship.

V. Postmodernism and the problems of representation

Another significant critique of anthropology came from postmodernism. As summa-rized in the Encyclopedia of Social and Cultural Anthropology (1996), this critiqueresulted from a ‘paradigm shift in American anthropology towards hermeneutics (insymbolic or interpretive anthropology) and history’ (Vincent 1996a, 26). As a result,the discipline was forced to consider its position as a ‘representative genre rather thana clearly bounded scientific domain’ and to incorporate minority and subaltern voicesinto its representation (Nugent 1996, 442; Vincent 1996a, 26).

Postmodernism exposed the shortcomings of functionalism and ahistorical ethno-graphic writing. Furthermore, the reflexive critique of anthropology exposed social

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theory as ‘a literary excursion disguised as scientific reportage’ (Nugent 1996, 442).Previously, functionalism ignored the effects of colonization except through inade-quate explanations of ‘acculturation’ and ‘cultural change’ (Thomas 1996, 112). Latetwentieth-century power shifts led to an increase in nationalism and the recovery ofindigenous history; as a result, the functionalist anthropological stance was rejectedbecause it privileged written records and relegated local history to myth or non-truth(Asad 1973, 13).

Anticipating the postmodern critique of representation, Hurston utilized oraltraditions in her work. While Hurston’s novel has become required reading for manyAmerican high school students, it has only recently been saved from condemnation asanthropological fiction.11 During the 1970s and 1980s, the ethnographic genre wasimplicated for sharing a motif of romantic discovery with travel writing and accusedof playing on nostalgia and the preservation of cultural ‘others’ found in NorthAmerica (Wall 2000, 124).

As regards the actual process of writing ethnographies, as noted by James Cliffordand George E. Marcus, ‘[t]he fact that it has not until recently been portrayed or seri-ously discussed reflects the persistence of an ideology claiming transparency of repre-sentation and immediacy of experience’ (Clifford and Marcus 1986, 2). Continuing inthis vein, they argued that there could be no such thing as a ‘literary’ approach to anthro-pology; anthropology was inherently a literary endeavor (Clifford and Marcus 1986, 4).

As early as 1960, ethnographic fiction such as Conrad Richter’s A Light in theForest (1953) was heralded as providing an alternative to the fallacy of the ethnohis-torical method and allowing for a form of representation that was simultaneouslyobjective and sympathetic (Schmaier 1960, 327 and 329). Hurston was grappling withthese issues long before the analysis of Clifford and Marcus brought them to light andit is for this reason that her work has enjoyed an increased popularity as a result, inpart, of postmodernism.

While Hurston was ‘concerned to establish authenticity in the representation ofpopular forms of folk culture and to expose the disregard for that culture through inap-propriate forms of representation’, the ‘process of defining and representing a subalterngroup is always a contentious issue’ (Wall 2000, 119–20). According to Clifford andMarcus ‘[e]thnographers have often been called novelists manqué (especially thosewho write a little too well)’ (Clifford and Marcus 1986, 4). Anthropologists EdwardSapir and Ruth Benedict hid their poetry from Franz Boas (Clifford and Marcus 1986,4) and present-day critiques of experimental forms of writing reveal that there is a fineline between critical reflexivity and self-indulgent confessional anthropology.

VI. The feminist critique

The third major critique of anthropology came from the feminist movement. In someways, this critique was related to postcolonialism; as argued by Said, ‘the associationbetween the Orient and sex is remarkably persistent. The Middle East is resistant, asany virgin would be, but the male scholar wins the prize by bursting open, penetratingthrough the Gordian knot’ (Said 2003/1978, 309). Metaphorically, women representedjust another subaltern voice; historically, they were limited to armchair anthropologyof the Lily Grove variety, as espoused in Grove’s 1985 monograph, Dancing.12

In their introduction to Writing Culture: The Politics and Poetics of Ethnography(1986), Clifford and Marcus excused their exclusion of feminist ethnographies byexplaining that ‘their authors did not seem conversant with the rhetorical and textual

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theory that we wanted to bring to bear on ethnography’ (Clifford and Marcus 1986,20). Furthermore, they argued, feminist ethnography ‘has not produced either uncon-ventional forms of writing or a developed reflection on ethnographic textuality assuch’ (Clifford and Marcus 1986, 21). Clearly they were unfamiliar with the works ofwomen such as Hurston and Dunham, both of whom St Clair Drake regarded as‘highly gifted individuals who used their anthropological training to enrich the arts’ interms of both performance and literature (Drake 1978, 103).13

VII. The forgotten female anthropologists

Linked by their practical dance experience, Boas, Primus, Hurston and Dunham usedanthropology as a form of advocacy for racial equality. While it has been argued that‘the anthropologist committed to left-wing ideology must also consider the implica-tions of politically laudable ulterior motives for the development of the discipline’(Forster 1973, 31) the four women in question provide a positive example for theconstruction and utilization of anthropological knowledge. Their work pushed beyondthe accepted boundaries of anthropology and in many ways; that which made thempioneers in the field of dance anthropology also caused their exclusion from theanthropological canon.

Franziska Boas, daughter of the pioneering American anthropologist Franz Boas,perpetuated some of the now outdated concepts of culture when writing, ‘[o]nly ahomogenous group can develop an art which is understood by all’ (Boas 1972/1944,1). Her 1942 seminar, therefore, which led to the publication of The Function of Dancein Society, focused on ‘primitive and exotic cultures’ (Boas, 1972/1944, 1). While itwould be easy to dismiss her work as subject to an evolutionary notion of progress,the contributors to her book included, in addition to her father, an ‘author,’ a ‘collec-tor’ and a ‘researcher’. Such an odd and seemingly unorthodox range of contributorsmay reflect the lack of dance anthropologists at the time but we might also interpretthe seminar as an early example of an interdisciplinary approach to dance scholarship.

Throughout her life, Boas remained a staunch advocate of racial equality andfounded the Boas School of Dance as an interracial institution in 1933. She utilizedanthropology as a tool for challenging discrimination and advocating for scholarshipsand education for African-American dancers. In 1949, she published ‘The Negro andthe Dance as Art’ in Phylon, a journal founded by W.E.B. DuBois. Boas critiqued theeconomic and pedagogical challenges that forced ‘the Negro dancer’ into ‘Broadway-ism’, folk dance and a reliance on ‘the primitive’ (Boas 1949, 41–42); that Dunhamenjoyed an extensive career on Broadway and that she, Hurston and Primus all invokedthe ‘primitive’ aesthetic in their work is worth noting.

Challenging the long-held belief that Africans have ‘natural’ rhythm, Boas wrote:

If the Negro people want a great dance art, they must break with the whites’ neglectfultradition and give financial support to those dancers who are willing to spend financiallyunprofitable time in study…. This support must be given even if they do not wish to goto Africa or the West Indies to study. (Boas 1949, 42)

Did Boas mean to implicate women such as Dunham and Hurston, who conductedfieldwork in the West Indies, or Primus, who travelled to Africa? As a proponent ofmodern dance and dance therapy, Boas might have found their work antithetical to herversion of dance scholarship and racial equality, especially given their reliance uponthe ‘primitive’ aesthetic.

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Dunham, Hurston and Primus all enjoyed extensive careers as professional danc-ers and choreographers. While Dunham’s was perhaps the most successful, each of thethree women had to address the ‘primitive’ tradition that audiences had come toexpect, due in part to the work of Josephine Baker. Dance scholar Anthea Krautargues that Hurston’s 1932 production, The Great Day, offered a ‘corrective tocontemporaneous presentations of African American culture on Broadway’ (Kraut2003, 440). Five years later in 1937, Dunham began her lifelong mission to establish‘Negro Dance’ as a serious art form in a concert designed to educate audiences on the‘roots of dancing in America today’ (Kraut 2003, 446).

Both Hurston and Dunham based their choreography on fieldwork; Kraut thereforeinterprets their work as a shift from representations of primitivism to representationsof the African diaspora (Kraut 2003, 434). Primus, who was initially noted for herhigh, airborne leaps, eventually developed a performance style that had more in keep-ing with the lecture demonstration than with the perpetuation of primitive stereotypes(Dance Research Journal, 1995, 80–81). Nevertheless, the commercial successenjoyed by Hurston, Dunham and Primus undermined their more ‘scholarly’ contribu-tions to anthropology.

The issue of anthropological choreography is a complicated one; can such a thingexist? Certainly anthropologically inspired choreography has been utilized by numer-ous choreographers, some with greater sensitivity and success than others, but onemust question the accuracy of ethnographic performances when infused with Westernproduction values. Dunham herself referred to her choreography for Cabin in the Sky(1940), for which she collaborated with George Balanchine, as ‘escapism based onscientific fact’ (Hill 2000, 241).

Ethical concerns aside, successful performance careers left little time for anythingelse. In social anthropology, Dunham saw ‘the best possible solution’ for her ‘wish tobe an anthropologist’ and ‘the great physical desire to be a dancer’ (Dunham 2000/1942, 508–09). The popular press emphasized what John Martin called ‘Dunhamschizophrenia’ with headlines such as ‘Schoolmarm Turned Siren or Vice Versa?’(Martin 2000, 297). Dunham herself published an article entitled ‘Thesis TurnedBroadway’ for California Arts and Architecture in 1941. She wrote:

I find myself referred to, and on the very same day, both as ‘the hottest thing onBroadway’ and ‘an intelligent, sensitive young woman … an anthropologist of note’.Personally, I do not think of myself as either one of these extreme phenomena. But eagerreporters, confronted by the simultaneous presence of two such diverse elements, haveoften failed to grasp the synthesis between them. (Dunham 1941, 214)

Their failure reflects two important themes with significant repercussions in dancescholarship in general and dance anthropology in particular.14 The first is that of thealleged dichotomy between art and science, or between research and performance.When asked for advice, one of Dunham’s professors, Robert Redfield, replied, ‘[w]hycan’t you just do both? Why are you so worried about which is which? If you’re sincerein both, you’ll never stop being one or the other anyway, so just go right ahead…. Youcan always do anthropology whenever you want to’ (Clark 2000, 228).

Given the physical demands of a professional performance career, many would-bedance scholars (or would-be professional dancers) feel forced to make a choicebetween two seemingly mutually exclusive career paths. The resulting divide perpet-uates the stereotypes of the inarticulate dancer and the frustrated academic who couldnot ‘make it’ as a professional dancer.

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Participant observation and practice-as-research offer two ways to bridge thisdivide and both were utilized extensively by Dunham. While she was conducting field-work amongst the Haitian Vodoun community, Melville Herskovits advised her not toparticipate in the Haitian canzo ceremony for fear that she would sustain bodily injury(Fabre and O’Meally 1994, 320). She ignored his advice, thereby earning herself thereputation of a postmodern pioneer in anthropology. Her ‘emic-participatoryapproach’ endowed Dunham with the ability to develop the ‘thick description’ of Clif-ford Geertz; furthermore, her privileging of the native voice and utilization of oralhistories before they became fashionable demonstrates her groundbreaking approachto fieldwork (Osumare 2000, 618 and 620).

In light of such pioneering methodology, and despite the practical and ethicaldifficulties of combining anthropology with a successful performance career, we areleft to speculate about the reasons why Primus, Hurston and Dunham were essentiallyforgotten by the anthropological canon. Asad’s postcolonial critique of anthropologyoffers one possible explanation.

According to Asad, ‘[i]t is because the powerful who support research expect thekind of understanding which will ultimately confirm them in their world that anthro-pology has not very easily turned to the production of radically subversive forms ofunderstanding’ (Asad 1973, 17). From challenging stereotypical portrayals of ‘happydarkies’ to protesting foreign and domestic policies, the four anthropologists in ques-tion did little to confirm the ‘powerful’ in their world. All used anthropology and theiranthropologically informed performances to advance the cause of social justice in acountry still plagued by the shadows of slavery.

In 1943, Primus choreographed a solo, Strange Fruit, to a Lewis Allen Poem aboutlynching; given the political turmoil of the 1940s, she felt encouraged to protestagainst fascist ideas in the United States (Hill 2000/1994, 347). Hurston’s choreogra-phy anticipated the work of Paul Gilroy by presenting a transnational picture ofAfrican dance practices (Kraut 2003, 435 and 441)15; unfortunately she lived duringan era when audiences were conditioned to see ‘the black dancing body in purelyprimitivist terms’ (Kraut 2003, 444).

Dunham, who refused to play to a Southern theatre on the grounds of its segrega-tionist policies, presented audiences with an uncomfortable view of contemporaryrace relations with Southland (1951). While dance had offered a highly acceptablemedium for social commentary and agitation in previous decades, conditions changedunder the Red Scare of the 1950s. Dunham’s company was henceforth denied govern-mental funding and gave its final performance in 1965 after succumbing to bankruptcy(Hill 2000/1994, 348–57).

VIII. Conclusion

In 1970, the American Anthropological Association criticized Dunham for includinghistoric-political dimensions in Island Possessed but awarded her a DistinguishedService Award in 1986 (Aschenbrenner 2002, 92–93). Primus completed a PhD inanthropology in 1978 and taught at New York University until her death. Hurstonpublished prolifically and Boas made substantial contributions to the development ofdance therapy and dance education. While most ethnographic monographs receivelittle attention outside governmental and academic institutions, the widely publicizedethnographic performances of these four women brought anthropology – and theiranthropologically informed dreams of racial equality – to a wider audience.

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Boas, Hurston, Dunham and Primus tried, each in her own way, to use anthropol-ogy for the betterment of society, foreshadowing Kathleen Gough’s 1968 call toanthropologists to conduct their research for ‘the ultimate economic and spiritualwelfare of our informants and of the international community, rather than the short runmilitary or industrial profits of the Western nations’ (Gough 1968, 407). If we returnto our initial question of ‘[f]or whom should research be conducted, and by whomshould it be used?’ it becomes clear that these four forgotten anthropologists providedoriginal, creative and thought-provoking answers to these questions.

The reasons for their marginalization range from the social and economic condi-tions under which they conducted their fieldwork to the modes of performance and theliterary genres in which they presented their research. Nevertheless, by reviving thehumanitarian concerns of nineteenth-century anthropology, Boas, Hurston, Dunhamand Primus managed to produce Asad’s ‘radically subversive forms of understand-ing’, which were so conspicuously absent from imperialist anthropology.

Notes1. In 1969, Karen Sachs proposed a successful resolution to the AAA stipulating that members

should not engage in classified research. In 1982, the AAA passed the CIA and MilitaryIntelligence Recruitment of Anthropologists Resolution, thereby strengthening its commit-ment to avoid work with the CIA (American Anthropological Association 2009 [online]).

2. Throughout this essay, ‘Boas’ will refer to Franziska Boas and not her father, Franz Boas,unless indicated.

3. In 1907, the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was granted permissionto add the world ‘Royal’, thereby becoming the Royal Anthropological Institute (RoyalAnthropological Institute 2009 [online]).

4. Records reveal Hurston was born in 1891 but she claimed 1901 as the year of her birth. Seethe Appendix for important dates in the lives of Hurston, Boas, Dunham and Primus.

5. It is worth noting that St Clair Drake, one of the early African-American anthropologists,began his work in anthropology at Pendle Hill, a Quaker institution that housed the JointCommittee of Race Relations of the Religious Society of Friends. He worked under anthro-pologist Rachel Davis DuBois on an ‘experiment’ designed to counter racism (Drake 1978,89), thereby continuing the tradition of humanitarian anthropology espoused by the Reli-gious Society of Friends and men such as Thomas Hodgkin.

6. Amongst these was Dr Allison Davis, who received his PhD from the University ofChicago and secured a post in the University’s School of Education. St Clair Drake givesan excellent account of the challenges faced by African-American anthropologists in thefirst half of the twentieth century in his article ‘Reflections on Anthropology and the BlackExperience’. He notes that his friends discouraged him from the pursuit of anthropology onthe grounds that, ‘Where else [aside from historically black universities such as Fisk andHoward] can any Negro get a post teaching anthropology? And what else can you do withit? You know the Bureau of Indian Affairs isn’t using “our kind” and the Bureau ofAmerican Ethnology (BAE) and the Smithsonian aren’t either’ (Drake 1978, 95).

7. Founded in 1917, the Julius Rosenwald Foundation focused on providing educationalopportunities for African-Americans mainly in response to the work of Booker T.Washington.

8. It was only then, in 1948, that Primus finally travelled to Africa. Previously her dancereconstructions were based entirely on books but they so impressed an agent of the Rosen-wald Foundation that he granted Primus the Foundation’s largest grant ($4000) to conductfieldwork in Angola, Liberia and Senegal (Dance Research Journal 1995, 81).

9. Hurston wrote a review of Dunham’s Journey to Accompong entitled ‘Thirty Days Amongthe Maroons’. As the title suggests, Hurston was critical of the short duration of Dunham’sfieldwork and deemed the work ‘thin material’ (Hurston 2000/1947, 272).

10. Numerous scholars, including Kariamu Welsh Asante, Jacqui Malone and even Zora NealeHurston, articulate a similar desire to list the defining characteristics of ‘African’ dance.

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(See Asante, K.W. 2001. Commonalities in African Dance: An Aesthetic Foundation.Reprinted in Moving Histories/Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader, ed. Ann Dilsand Ann Cooper Albright, Middleton, CT, 144–51; Malone, J. 2006. Keep to the Rhythmand You’ll Keep to Life: Meaning and Style in African American Vernacular Dance.Reprinted in The Routledge Dance Studies Reader, ed. Alexandra Carter, New York andOxford, 230–35; and Hurston, Z.N. 1934. Characteristics of Negro Expression. In Negro:An Anthology, ed. Nancy Cunard, Amherst, 39–46.)

11. Katherine Dunham also wrote fiction though she was never well known as a novelist.Worth noting, however, is the fact that Peter Waddington, an Opera and Concert critic,mistakenly referred to her ethnographic Journey to Accompong as a work of fiction in 1948(Clark and Johnson 2000, 305). His mistake suggests the general sense of confusionsurrounding Dunham’s career and the ways in which both she and Hurston challengedconventional forms of ethnographic writing.

12. Drid Williams criticizes Grove’s work as ‘highly suspect’ given her reliance on ‘mission-aries, travelers and others’ for information but attributes this to the times in which Grovelived (Williams 2004, 7 and 25).

13. That Vèvè Clark and Sarah E. Johnson’s anthology Kaiso! Writings By and AboutKatherine Dunham (2000) includes an entire sectioned entitled ‘AutobiographicalReflections’ illustrates Dunham’s engagement with issues of ethnographic textuality. InDunham’s Journey to Accompong and Island Possessed and in Hurston’s Dust Tracks ona Road: An Autobiography, both women reflect on the process of conducting ethnography.Furthermore, in her assessments of Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God,Cheryl Wall argues that ‘Hurston was concerned to establish authenticity in the represen-tation of popular forms of folk culture and to expose the disregard for that culture throughinappropriate forms of representation’ (Wall 2000, 120).

14. The alleged irreconcilability of academe and the arts is perhaps responsible for Dunham’suse of a pseudonym, Kaye Dunn, when publishing scholarly work.

15. Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993) ‘focuses notonly on African roots and cultural continuities, but also on the routes, ruptures, and cross-cultural exchange that are equally constitutive of the black diaspora’ (Kraut 2003, 435).

Notes on contributorKat Richter holds an MA in Dance Anthropology at Roehampton University and earned adistinction for her dissertation entitled, ‘Importing Rhythm Tap: The Structure and Signifi-cance of the Shim Sham Shimmy at the London Tap Jam’. A former principle dancer with theNew Jersey Tap Ensemble, Richter teaches rhythm tap throughout the US and the UK. Sheplans to begin her PhD in 2011 and her work may be found in Dance Teacher and DanceTheatre Journal.

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Appendix. Indicative bibliography and major works of Zora Neale Hurston,Franziska Boas, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)*Education:

BA from Barnard College 1928

Publications:Jonah’s gourd vine 1934Mules and Men 1935Tell my horse 1938Their eyes were watching god 1939Dust tracks on a road: An autobiography 1942

Artistic works:The Great Day 1927

Fellowships:Mrs Rufus Osgood Mason 1927–1932Rosenwald Fellowship 1934Guggenheim Foundation 1936*Hurston claimed 1901

Franziska Boas (1902–1988)Education:

BA from Barnard College 1923

Publications:The function of dance in human society 1944

Artistic works:Founded the Boas School of Dance 1933

Katherine Dunham (1909–2006)Education:

BA from University of Chicago* 1928–1936

Publications:Journey to Accompong 1946Les danses de Haiti (English reprint in 1983) 1950Island possessed 1969

Artistic works:Cabin in the Sky 1940Tropical Revue 1943Southland 1951

Fellowships:Rosenwald Foundation 1935*Sources suggest she completed her degree in 1935 or 1936

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Appendix. (Continued)

Pearl Primus (1919–1994)Education:

BA from Hunter College 1940MA from New York University 1959PhD from New York University 1978

Artistic works:The Negro Speaks of Rivers 1944Strange Fruit 1945

Fellowships:Rosenwald Foundation 1948

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