This article examines the history of anthropological research in Africa, focusing on the relationship between funding, methodology, and the discipline’s potential for decolonisation. It argues that the field’s development has been significantly influenced by external forces, particularly colonial powers and subsequently, Western institutions. The British colonial office’s Colonial Social Study Council (CSRC) funded anthropological study and education in Africa throughout the 1940s. Britain established the East African Institute of Social Research (EAISR) at Makerere University with the goal of gathering ethnographic data on East African peoples and reporting directly to the British government’s colonial administration. Following the expulsion of anthropologists by President Amin, funding shifted to the Americas and Scandinavia. Anthropology has been criticized for its role in imperialism, and its post-independence trajectory remains unclear. Efforts to decolonise anthropology in the 1960s included Africanisation and breaking with colonial frameworks. However, the universities in the South have limited influence over altering the research agenda and the frameworks for its implementation, since the North continues to dominate funding and agenda-setting for anthropological research. This article questions the possibility of decolonising anthropology given that the field has been historically shaped and financed by those who once colonised Africa and other regions. We examine the funding trends in anthropological research and analyse efforts to make anthropology more African-centered or decolonised. This analysis considers the ongoing power dynamics and competition for research funds both within and between academic disciplines, as well as between the Global South and the Global North.