RAI RESEARCH SEMINAR
SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Common ground and distinguishing features: the co-production of knowledge by the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute, c. 1883-1900
Dr Emily Hayes, University of Exeter
Wednesday 1 March at 5.30 pm
Geographers are beginning to discern the historical mutualism between anthropology and geography and the manifestation of this within the context of the BAAS Section E meetings and the Royal Geographical Society’s (RGS) publication Hints to Travellers as professional disciplinary identities were fashioned in the second half of the nineteenth century (Ryan 1997; Driver, 2001; Withers 2010). Drawing on the aforementioned scholarship, histories of anthropology (Stocking 1971 & 1996; Kouper 1973; Kuklick 1991; Houtman and Knight 1995; Mills 2003; Silletoe 2004; Sera-Shriar 2013) and the archives and collections of the RGS, this paper argues that the disciplinary co-evolution of geography and anthropology continued throughout the nineteenth century, and that the process was shaped as much by the academe as by a wider range of knowledge-brokering communities. This paper discusses the close connections between the RGS and the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI); their common fellowship, exchange of materials, thematic interests and methodological approaches to knowledge-making within the context of the fin-de-siècle academic popularization and professionalization of geography and anthropology. In examining the imbrication of the RGS and the RAI, the paper presents the common ground and distinguishing features of these two societies.
This event is free, but tickets must be booked. To book tickets please go to https://emilyhayes.eventbrite.co.uk
