Towards a historicist anthropology: Gramscian reflections

Abstract

The article reconsiders the relationship between anthropology and the thought of Antonio Gramsci by exploring the possibility of a properly historicist anthropology grounded in the conceptual horizon of the Prison Notebooks. Rather than revisiting the now familiar anthropological uses of notions such as hegemony, the paper shifts attention to a broader epistemological convergence between Gramscian historicism and the anthropological problem of culture. Engaging critically with influential interpretations, including that of Kate Crehan, the article suggests that, although Gramsci’s use of the lexeme “culture” differs from its disciplinary meaning in anthropology, his reflections on history, social relations and ideology open a productive terrain for dialogue. By foregrounding the processual and relational character of human activity in Gramsci’s thought, the paper proposes that anthropology may find in his philosophy of praxis resources for rethinking some of its central conceptual assumptions. Without reducing Gramsci to an anthropological thinker, the article points toward the contours of a possible convergence whose implications remain to be explored.