Anthropologies of the South

Abstract

■ Traditionally, the southern part of the world has been considered largely as the privileged field for anthropological research carried out from the perspective of the North, where anthropology had its roots as a scientific disci pline. There is still little awareness that in the South an increasing number of particular anthropological traditions has emerged and consolidated during the last decades. This article tries to identify the principal reasons for the silencing of these processes and to point out some important elements for the charac terization of the new 'anthropologies of the South'. Their study will not only be a contribution to the knowledge of specific traditions of culture contact and anthropological sciences, but also to that of worldwide anthropology of which these specific anthropologies are a part.