Alejandro Grimson
agrimson@unsam.edu.ar
Universidad Nacional de San Martín, Argentina
Abstract:
Anthropology has theoretically confronted racism and discrimination. The paradox is that once the concept of culture started to become widely accepted, it was also redefined as race. Another paradox is that the arguments for diversity and relativism were appropriated by sectors that promote discrimination. This essay analyzes the Huntingtonian theses about the “clash of civilizations”. The political resource of culture does not have a single expression, and is appropriated by different sectors struggling with each other. It will also be shown that this generalization of culture is far away from not having specific and delimitable political effects. This dialectic of culturalism requires a series of disruptions of anthropological theory. The most theoretically absurd and politically ruinous consists of the equalization of culture and identity.
Keywords: culture, diversity, fundamentalism, anthropology, identity politics.
Keywords plus: anthropology, racism, group identity.
