[Theories of evolution shaping Victorian anthropology. The science-politics of the X-Club, 1860-1872].
This paper discusses the role that a group of evolutionists, the X-Club, played in the epistemic and institutional transformation of Victorian anthropology in the 1860s. It analyses how anthropology has been brought into line with the theory of evolution, which gained currency at the same time. The X-Club was a highly influential pressure group in the Victorian scientific community. It campaigned for the theory of evolution in several fields of the natural sciences and had a considerable influence on the modernization of the sciences. Yet, this club also intervened in the anthropological discourse of these years. The X-Club's meddling with anthropology led to the latter's evolutionary turn. The introduction of an evolutionary agenda into Victorian anthropology depended not only on the X-Club's theoretical contributions but also on the structural reformation of the discipline. Its campaigns also aimed at marginalizing the proponents of pre-evolutionary anthropology in its institutions and led to the foundation of a new organization in anthropology: The Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Thus, evolutionary anthropology emerged in the 1860s also as the result of science-politicking rather than just from the transmission of evolutionary concepts through discourse.
Gondermann
Thomas
T
Thomas.Gondermann@Hamburg.de
D000818:Animals; D000883:Anthropology / Q000266:history*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D049672:History, 19th Century; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans; D007494:Ireland; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011057:Politics; D012586:Science / Q000266:history; D012952:Societies / Q000266:history*; D006113:United Kingdom