For a historical anthropology, critical of cultural essentializations. On a commitment from the Universidad Veracruzana

Reflection on the theoretical-methodological specificities of Avatares de la antropología histórica (Kuri and Millán 2021), a book on the origins, particularities and challenges of the degree in historical anthropology at the Universidad Veracruzana, twenty years after its foundation. I situate their proposals with respect to international debates in order to emphasize the relevance of their critical emphasis on cultural essentializations. They focused on relational and interpretative analyses on the production of meanings, referring to links between everyday practices and their socio-spatial conditions of realization, in order to distance themselves from ontological, structuralist and static concepts of culture and identity, traditions, space and body, as well as objectivist notions of history, archives and collective memory. I conclude on key theoretical-methodological opportunities and challenges to further enrich the anthropological-historical orientation of their program: on links between signification and power, and on their positions in debates on the specificities of a historical anthropology.