The Pacific Island region is a key context in the history of anthropology. Yet, while much has been written about how anthropology of the Pacific Islands contributed to Anglo‐American anthropology, the discipline's institutional history in the Pacific Islands has received very little attention. This paper is the first to explore the history of anthropology at the University of the South Pacific (USP). Research findings demonstrate that anthropology lacked practical meaning in an institution established to modernise Pacific Island states. Fieldwork conducted at USP suggests that current perceptions of anthropology held by academic staff are strongly linked to the discipline's classic era. I argue that the anti‐colonial version of the Pacific Way from the 1970s onward, coupled with the hegemony of political economist and anti‐culturalist approaches among the USP teaching staff in the 1980s, inhibited a meaningful engagement with the Writing Culture debate at USP. This may explain why there has been little influence by the discipline's postmodern transformation over the past thirty years on current perceptions of anthropology at USP.

中文翻译：

---

南太平洋大学的人类学：从过去的动态到现在的认识

太平洋岛地区是人类学历史上的关键背景。然而，尽管关于太平洋岛屿的人类学如何对英​​美人类学作出贡献的著作很多，但该学科在太平洋岛屿的制度历史却很少受到关注。本文是南太平洋大学（USP）首次探讨人类学历史的研究。研究结果表明，在建立太平洋岛国现代化的机构中，人类学缺乏实际意义。USP进行的实地考察表明，目前学术人员对人类学的看法与该学科的经典时代息息相关。我认为，从1970年代开始，太平洋之路的反殖民版本，再加上1980年代USP教职人员中政治经济学家和反文化主义方法的霸权，阻碍了USP写作文化辩论的有意义参与。这可以解释为什么在过去的30年中，该学科的后现代转型对USP当前的人类学观念影响不大。