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  • 2 - The History of Sexuality and Anthropology

  • Edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Mathew Kuefler, San Diego State University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge World History of Sexualities
    Published online:
    26 April 2024
    Print publication:
    16 May 2024, pp 23-44

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the contribution of anthropology to the understanding of the diversity of practices and attitudes towards sexualized bodies developed by different human cultures, beginning with the works of classical anthropologists, including E.E. Evans-Pritchard, Margaret Mead and Bronisław Malinowski. It discusses Marxist, feminist, and postmodern anthropology, and reflects on the influence of Michel Foucault, particularly his notion of the dispositif, the device of sexuality. The chapter argues that the device of sexuality—that is, that there is such a thing as “sexuality”—is modern and Western. The sexual life of the peoples studied by anthropologists is an inseparable part of their social order and its reproduction, and in no way constitutes a separate sphere of existence that can be studied as such, nor does it constitute the core of any identity, either personal or collective. The task of anthropology consists in restoring how these peoples deal with the sexual in their own social and cultural terms, respecting their radical otherness.