Socio-cultural anthropology during Austria’s interwar period

This research project systematically examines for the first time the academic interactions of socio- cultural anthropology with church and politics in the Austrian the interwar period. Founded in 1929 by Steyl missionaries in Vienna, the Institute of Ethnology developed into the largest institution of ethnology (today: socio-cultural anthropology) in the German-speaking world. As a result of its spectacular expeditions in South America, Central India, Southeast Asia and Central Africa, the institute also gained a high academic reputation overseas and became known as the Viennese School of Ethnology. Father Wilhelm Schmidt and Father Wilhelm Koppers, the main protagonists of socio- cultural anthropology in Austria, developed a theological research approach that they established in Vienna, the Vatican, Salzburg and Peking. The prestigious institute also maintained an intensive exchange with the Boasians in the USA. The research framework addressed in this project thus contains a local and an international dimension. This project is organized around ten innovative research questions by considering both institutional and biographical aspects. The first three research questions address the institutional history of the University of Vienna, in relation to Roman Catholic influence on academic institutions in Austria before and after the First World War. The following four research questions deal with the period of Austrofascism (1933/34 38) and its relation to the Vatican. Under the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime, individual representatives of Austrian socio-cultural anthropology were closely associated with Austrian state policy. The ensuing research explores which forces were preparing to fight against, or cooperate with Nazism at the time. The project thus extensively investigates the interactions within Catholic -national and (illegal) Nazi circles. The eighth research question examines (through available correspondence) academic connections between Vienna, New York and Berkeley during precisely these years. The last two questions situate the biographies, Schmidt and Koppers, in these overall contexts. Archival work will be carried out in Austria, the Vatican and other parts of Europe as well as in the USA and Israel. Additionally, secondary witnesses will be interviewed implementing interviewing standard procedures. Biographical and historical network analysis will be complemented by institutional analysis, all centered around a methodological focus on the history of ideas and their consequences. Extensive private bequests in Rome and Austria will be evaluated for the first time during this research project. The expected output lies in providing the first overall assessment of Austrian socio-cultural anthropology in the interwar period with special regard to its role in academia of that era both at the national and the international level.