Anthropologists and the “Concept” of Populism. Going Beyond the Discomfort to Trace New Paths

Anthropologists remain in the background in the academic debate on populism, yet their contribution is fundamental, as their expertise concentrates on the study of population groups in their multiple forms. Going back to their initial involvement in this debate allows us to understand their current discomfort. Structured by a liberal perspective, this “concept” has continually been the object of political investments within the academic sphere itself. Conceptualized by American sociologists in reference to McCarthyism, populism has been given a negative connotation that is now contested. The liberal normativity inherent in this concept contradicts the approach of anthropologists who, on the contrary, seek to remove all forms of judgement from their descriptions in order to account for reality on the basis of the categories which those involved use. However, they have taken advantage of the hypotheses regarding the paranoid substratum of populism. In striving to embody the popular will, populist leaders tend to substantialize the people through bodily displays that make explicit a physical attachment to the nation and its characteristics. This trend is also perceptible in the progressive forms of populism. Anthropologists must strive, today as in the past, to reveal these processes of the substantialization of citizenship and the ossification of democracy.