Anahuac or the social production of difference: an episode in the historical configuration of anthropology in Mexico

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze a way of producing knowledge in Edward B. Tylor´s Anahuac: or Mexico and the Mexicans, ancient and modern, that, in its arguments and in its exposition, is foreign to contemporary forms of anthropology, but which, on the other hand, reveals the social conditions and policies of its emergence as a scientific discipline. Contrary to the filter used by most of the works that have studied Anahuac, by which the “politically incorrect” perspective of the book has been omitted or justified, my intention is to highlight it as a historical form of the production of anthropological knowledge. Not as a denunciation of the history of anthropology, but as a proper historical exercise in which the confusion with which we receive Tylor’s arguments today serves to introduce a difference and a limit that distinguishes past and present of anthropology.

Keywords:
history of anthropology; production of difference; anthropology in Mexico; capitalism