Arte y responsabilidad

Abstract

The encounter of the Cuban etnograph Fernando Ortiz and the Polish anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski in Habana in 1939 has an important meaning for the postcolonial Anthropology. Ortiz, who was "lombrosian" in his beginnings, became a scientist and militant antiracist. He also opted from the beginning for a model of Cuba apart from that of the Pan-hispanism and the American annexation. For his part, Malinowski discovered the Hispanic World during his two long stays in the Canary Islands. When they met, there was a good feeling between them. Ortiz granted him his best discovery, the transculturation theory, with he took on at one. With some sense of humor, the chief of the Funcionalist movement wanted to attract Ortiz to his group. Meanwhile a third person appeared on the scene: the American anthropologist Melvin J. Herskovits, who had popularized and extended the term acculturation. This crucial moment for the history of the Anthropology should be interpreted with irony. It could be the base for debate in the post colonial Latin americna studies.