Race and the Culture of Anthropology

The number of panels on “multiculturalism” and “cultural studies” at the AAA's annual meetings has increased significantly. Many anthropologists believe that the discipline has been in the vanguard of debates on racism and multiculturalism, that it stands for precisely those issues raised in the “culture wars”: the equal valuation of all cultures. Yet this is not the case. Multiculturalism and cultural studies have emerged as counterdisciplinary formations which radically foreground race and racial identity precisely because anthropology cannot do so.