#08. Anthropologically Speaking … We must learn from anthropology's dark legacy

Anthropology, the systematic study of human beings in their cultural and biological diversity, has long positioned itself as a discipline of understanding and empathy. Yet its early development is deeply entwined with colonialism, white supremacy, and the scientific legitimation of racism and genocide. As scholars and institutions work toward decolonizing the field, it is imperative to reckon with this dark legacy—particularly its role in constructing and scientifically justifying racial hierarchies, social darwinism, eugenics and its atrocities. Indeed, early anthropologists were the underlaborers to justify the institutionalization and (later) industrialization of human barbarism, like the Holocaust.

Constructing "race" through science

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropology played a central role in formulating and disseminating racial typologies and hierarchies. Physical anthropologists such as Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, Samuel Morton, and later, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, measured skulls, facial angles, and other physical traits in an attempt to classify humans into discrete "races" (Gould, 1981). These racial taxonomies ranked Europeans—especially Northern and Western Europeans—as biologically superior, while Africans, Indigenous peoples, and Asians were positioned as inherently inferior.

This pseudoscientific racialism was cloaked in scientific objectivity but served deeply ideological purposes. Anthropological theories of race provided a framework for colonial conquest, enslavement, and dispossession. They were not neutral inquiries into human difference but instruments of empire and oppression. You may find the German 2023 movie Der vermessene Mensch (English: “Measures of Men”) to be an interesting illustration of anthropology’s role in racism and colonialism. It tells the story of an ethnologist (i.e., anthropologist), who witnesses the genocide of the Ovaherero and Namaqua people - the first genocide of the twentieth century, which was perpetrated by Germany in German South West Africa (Namibia). Tragically it wasn't officially acknowledged by the German government until 2021.

The rise and critique of social darwinism

At the heart of many of these racial hierarchies was social darwinism—a distorted application of Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection to human societies. Though Darwin himself was cautious about extending his biological theories to the social realm, figures like Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and others promoted the idea that human societies, like biological species, evolved through competition, with the "fittest" rising to the top.

In this framework, social inequality was not a problem to be solved but a natural outcome of evolutionary struggle. Wealth, power, and dominance were interpreted as signs of biological - or inherent - superiority, while poverty, colonization, and conquest were seen as evidence of inferiority or obsolescence. 

Anthropology, particularly physical anthropology and early cultural evolutionism, became a vessel for these ideas. Societies were often ranked along an imagined evolutionary ladder—from “primitive” to “civilised”—with European industrial nations at the apex. The work of early anthropologists like Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Burnett Tylor explicitly framed cultural difference as a progression from savagery to barbarism to civilisation.

This model was not only unscientific but ethically disastrous. It justified imperialism, the marginalization of indigenous cultures, and the systematic devaluation of non-European peoples. As the philosopher Karl Popper later noted, Social Darwinism’s circular logic rendered it unfalsifiable and thus unscientific: the powerful are "fit" because they have power, and their power proves their fitness. This thinking can be traced in the implicit beliefs in many modern societies, organisations and institutions, as well as the notions of “meritocracy” they extoll. 

Social darwinism, eugenics and genocide 

Anthropology’s complicity deepened with its alignment with eugenics—the belief in improving the human species through controlled breeding. In the early 20th century, anthropologists in Europe and North America lent academic credibility to eugenic ideologies. Influential figures such as Charles Davenport in the United States and Alfred Ploetz in Germany drew on anthropological and biometric research to argue for “racial hygiene” and the elimination of "undesirable" traits (Kevles, 1985). 

Eugenics shaped public policy, including forced sterilisations, anti-miscegenation laws (prohibiting interracial marriage and relationships, and immigration restrictions). Anthropologists served on 'eugenics boards', advised governments, and promoted theories of ‘racial purity’ grounded in faulty biologically essentialising assumptions.

The most horrifying expression of anthropological racism and eugenics came with Nazi Germany. German anthropologists and racial scientists played key roles in the Nazi regime's racial policies. Institutes such as the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics employed anthropologists who measured and classified Jews, Roma, and other targeted groups—labeling them as racially inferior and biologically dangerous (Mosse, 1985; Kühl, 1994).

Anthropologists participated in the T4 euthanasia program - the organised killing of people with mental and physical disabilities (see here for more details) - conducted racial examinations to determine who would be sterilised or deported, and also conducted experiments on victims in concentration camps. The so-called “scientific” racism of earlier decades had become an apparatus of genocide.

Racialised social hierarchies, and the themes of “racial hygiene”, “population replacements”, and “re-migration” are markers of right-wing ideologies that are on the rise again today. They are the ghosts of anthropology’s deep and dark shadow. And, they are still haunting us today.

A reckoning and its lessons

This is one side of anthropology - the dark one. Without recognising and acknowledging it clearly, we cannot make sense of the other side that seeks to redeem humanity from the barbarism and atrocities that our view of others, and of each other can unleash, particularly when it is scientifically sanctioned. Recognising and acknowledging our part in history's dark side, can hopefully strengthen our resolve to prevent it and exercise moral responsibility and resolve.

In the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust, anthropology began to shift. Franz Boas, one of the most influential anthropologists of the 20th century, had already dismantled the race concept by the 1930s, arguing that culture—not biology—shaped human behavior (Boas, 1911). His students, such as Ashley Montagu and Ruth Benedict, were instrumental in promoting cultural relativism and refuting racial essentialism; i.e., the belief that people of different races (or groups of people defined by ethnicity, nationality, religion, geographic origin, etc.) possess inherent, unchangeable traits that define who they are. These traits are often assumed to be biological, fixed, and to determine behavior, intelligence, or personality. In other words, it treats race as something that naturally determines a person's abilities or character.

Please see Anthropologically Speaking #6 here for a list of important core ideas that shape modern anthropology. No doubt, this reckoning has been slow. Structural racism, implicit biases, and the legacy of extractive research methods continued to haunt the field as it does the modern societies. Only in recent decades has anthropology more fully confronted its complicity and begun to decolonize its practices. Therefore, we find in the redemption and restoration of anthropology also an example of the urgent work required in and of our societies and their organisations and institutions:

1. Scientific knowledge is never neutral - particularly knowledge of and about human beings. Anthropology’s early history reveals how science can be used to reinforce systems of power. Objectivity can be a mask for embedded ideologies and justify categories of thinking, feeling, and acting to de-humanize, disenfranchise, and exclude.

2. Social Darwinism is a cautionary tale. It demonstrates how evolutionary theory can be misused to naturalise inequality and justify oppression. Its persistence in public discourse, especially in neoliberal and racialised narratives of “meritocracy,” demands continued critique, vigilance, and opposition.

3. Ethics must guide both research and action. The involvement of anthropologists in harmful practices—from colonial surveillance to racial classification—underscores the need for rigorous ethical standards and moral consciousness. Inclusive and community-based collaboration must become a guarantor of those standards and concomitant consciousness.

4. Race is a social construct, not a biological reality. While anthropology helped invent modern racial categories, it also holds the tools to deconstruct them. Genetics and contemporary anthropology confirm there is more variation within so-called “races” than between them (AAA, 1998). We must actively work to dismantle any traces of biological (as well as cultural) essentialism, while also recognising that the fiction of racialising others has inflicted very real and painful consequences.

5. Decolonization is an ongoing process. Modern anthropology must amplify Indigenous, Black, and Global South scholars, engage in reciprocal research practices, and dismantle euro-centric paradigms that still shape the discipline and our knowledge of Peoples and our shared humanity. This includes who tells and interprets their stories and how these stories are told.

Biologising differences, creating taxonomies that essentialise them, using the presumed certainty and hubris of science and then laws and policies to reify them are red flags. Not only are they often inaccurate but can lead to dire consequences. 

Perhaps it is for this reason that I am often so uncomfortable when I see scientists present taxonomies of human differences as if they were static features ... or at least present them in a way that can easily leave that impression. This also includes descriptions of generational differences.

This can be particularly prevalent in corporate environments, where neuro-scientists have become a staple with brain scan images that impress executives as they provide seemingly “hard” scientific evidence on questions of the human landscape. The appeal of essentialising (i.e. endowing and describing groups with inherent characteristics) can be particularly strong in these audiences. All this minimises the complexity of human social phenomena and the dynamic interplay between biology, cognition, emotion and social, historical and  environmental context. 

Final thoughts …

Anthropology has the potential to be a force for understanding, justice, and healing—but only if it fully confronts its past. The same discipline that once lent credibility to eugenics, Social Darwinism, and racial violence and oppression must now champion anti-racism, equity, and the radical idea that all human beings are fundamentally equal. Because of its history, anthropology needs to be a model for transformation. Only then can its value to illuminate contemporary challenges and inform the process of evolving socially sustainable solutions be fully realised.

Key References:

• Boas, F. (1911). The Mind of Primitive Man. Macmillan.

• Gould, S. J. (1981). The Mismeasure of Man. W.W. Norton.

• Kevles, D. J. (1985). In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Harvard University Press.

• Kühl, S. (1994). The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. Oxford University Press.

• Mosse, G. L. (1985). Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism. Howard Fertig.

• Popper, K. (1963). Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge.

• American Anthropological Association (AAA). (1998). Statement on Race. https://www.americananthro.org