Abstract The article critically reassesses Joahnnes Fabian’s contention that anthropology reveals, in its history, an overall tendency to create in discourse a temporal distance between the observer and the observed—as between the West and the rest—that contradicts ethnography’s basic epistemological condition of sharing the same time. The article sustains that the overbearing attitude of actively searching the “faults” of classical anthropology, while not admitting the legitimacy of its vistas, generates historiographic distortions that strongly affect the way anthropologists relate themselves, both politically and heuristically, with their discipline’s past. The article explores, first, the ways in which the language-centered components of the Americanist tradition may contradict Fabian’s thesis; secondly, it identifies comparable uses of the vernacular record in other anthropological traditions; and finally, it addresses the ethical and intellectual predicaments of rejecting pre-colonial studies.

中文翻译：

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挖掘祖先：重新评估费边对异时性的批判

摘要 这篇文章批判性地重新评估了 Joahnnes Fabian 的论点，即人类学在其历史上揭示了一种在话语中在观察者和被观察者之间（如西方与其他人之间）创造时间距离的总体趋势，这与人种学的基本认识论条件相矛盾。同时。文章坚持认为，积极探索古典人类学“错误”的霸道态度，同时不承认其远景的合法性，会产生史学扭曲，强烈影响人类学家在政治上和启发式上与其学科过去相关的方式。这篇文章首先探讨了美国传统中以语言为中心的成分可能与费边的论点相矛盾的方式；第二，它确定了白话记录在其他人类学传统中的类似用途；最后，它解决了拒绝前殖民研究的伦理和智力困境。