Final answer:
Anthropology has faced historical obstacles such as ethnocentric biases and the challenge of retrospective diagnosis, reflecting the need to understand past cultures as they perceived themselves and to recognize the effect of scholars' own backgrounds on their research.
Step-by-step explanation:
Two historic obstacles to anthropological perspective involve the difficulties in overcoming ethnocentric biases and the challenge of retrospective diagnosis. Ethnocentric biases have historically skewed anthropological interpretations, as studies were often conducted by a homogenous group of White, male scholars from the Northern Hemisphere, leading to a significant interpretive bias. The challenge of retrospective diagnosis refers to the historian's dilemma of whether to reconstruct the past as historical participants perceived it (an emic approach) or to apply modern scientific methods and categories to discern what 'really' happened (an etic approach).
Anthropology's historic obstacles are reflective of broader attitudes, with earlier anthropologists empowered by White privilege and ethnocentrism believing that fieldwork alone was sufficient to understand different cultures. This resulted in research that typically did not recognize how personal background, racial category, nationality, religious beliefs, social status, political affiliation, ambitions, and education shape perceptions and interpretations. It also highlights how anthropology, as a field, has had to contend with its complicated history of representation and its own methodology.