I like the domains of application as being fairly consistent across Distrikts, but I don’t think we should have one lineage of the discipline. Can this lineage be connected to each Distrikt instead, different for each (shared across some, if people prefer)? The Mauss/Geertz lineage is a highly specific lineage of anthro that a lot of people reject even today (including myself, frankly). I can’t imagine an afro-futuristic or afro-pessimistic aethnographer tracing their history back to Mauss or Geertz, or through a UNDP project. Scott and Graeber are cool for sure (both have been well-critiqued as well), but every person named in the Aethnography origins right now is a white man. For a discipline whose history is imbricated in the colonial project, it’s not what I’d imagine for my futuristic sci fi world! Talal Asad, for example, is someone who’d make a great “founder”, or Zora Neale Hurston. St. Clair Drake, Edward Said. Zoe Todd and Audra Simpson as indigenous aethnographers.
I’d happily contribute to writing the lineage for other Distrikts!