"The progress ruined", or evolutionism versus anthropology

The interview discusses the critical analysis of the persisting legacy of evolutionism and Westocentrism in contemporary social anthropology. Despite the seeming epistemo-logical turn - radical change in research paradigms and adoption of methodological relativism - many today's theoretical constructions still draw on chrono-typologies characteristic of a linear progressive understanding of history. The interview deals with the philosophical foundations of anthropology, its key concepts (community, society, ethnie, ethnicity, culture, nation, identity, difference, etc.) and the relationships among these, as well as with certain analytical categories. Special attention is paid to the universal nature of the concept of 'the political-and-religious' and to its applicability to secular societies where there are manifestations of 'secular', 'civil', 'public', 'revolutionary', 'republican', and 'communist' religion. Also, the interview traces the connection between the evolutionist paradigm and the tendency toward exoticisation of the Other and 'folklorisation' of one's own people which is still inherent in many anthropological studies.

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