Morganova naučna teorija, nacionalna ideologija i politika savezne vlade SAD prema Indijancima u XIX veku

Abstract

Luis Henri Morgan (1818–1881) je bio glavni predstavnik teorije o socio-kulturnoj evoluciji čovečanstva u severnoameričkoj etnologiji i najuticajniji etnolog u drugoj polovini XIX veka u SAD. Pod njegovim uticajem, etnografija se pojavila kao vitalno i uticajno polje istraživanja u američkoj nauci. Međutim, do početka XX veka, njegova naučna teorija bila je potpuno diskreditovana, denuncirana kao etnocentrična pa i implicitno rasistička. Doktrinu o biološkom, rasnom determinizmu, koja je bila dominantna u naučnoj misli tokom XIX veka, zamenile su doktrine o kulturnom relativizmu i istorijskom partikularizmu, koje je zastupala nova generacija akademskih antropologa predvođena Francom Boasom. O tome kako i zašto se to dogodilo govori ovaj osvrt i pregled.

Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881) was the main representative of the theory of socio-cultural evolution of humanity in North American ethnology, and the most influential ethnologist in the second half of the 19th century in the United States. Under his influence, ethnography emerged as an important and influential field of research in American science. However, by the beginning of the 20th century, his scientific theory of human progress was discredited as an ethnocentric and even implicitly racist. The doctrine of biological, racial determinism, which was dominant in scientific thought during the nineteenth century, replaced the doctrines of cultural relativism and historical particularism, represented by a new generation of professional American anthropologists led by Franz Boas. This is a review of how and why this happened.