This chapter attempts to locate anthropology historically as to its epistemological roots, its critique that occurred after decolonization and its future, as once again the centre of gravity of the world's economic axis shifts to Asia. The position taken in this chapter is that of standpoint theory, namely that all theoretical as well as empirical statements are bound within a social framework and perspective.

Hitherto, in the discussions on the social construction of knowledge, the canvas had either been the small groups within which knowledge is created (for example, in the case of natural sciences in the laboratory, or in the case of publishing in the peer review group) or, sometimes, the larger perspective of a nation. Here, I extend the social framework to the larger civilizational context, noting that anthropology rose out of the West's search at the period of its ascendancy for knowledge on what it considered inferior societies. I also consider the present global shift as also having a civilizational aspect, namely that Asian civilizations would increasingly impinge on the directions of knowledge, including those in anthropology.

Civilizational border crossings in anthropology from Asia would subsume Asian subject matter, as well as an anthropology of Europe and the West from the standpoint of various Asian epistemological, geographical and cultural locations. The various regions of Asia – although not by any means defining Asia's total culture – have once had as a running thread a Buddhist cultural overlay through their histories (the ‘Light of Asia’ in Edwin Arnold's evocation).