In this paper, I discuss the current challenges facing the practice of anthropology in Mozambique after colonisation. The challenges of anthropological practice are intrinsically linked to the history of its institutionalisation as a discipline. During the colonial period, the greatest challenge to the practice of colonial anthropology was the exclusion of local subjects, segregation, and anthropological practice without knowledge of local languages, and the produced knowledge aimed to dominate and control the population politically and socially. These challenges influenced anthropological practice after independence in 1975, as anthropology was perceived as a child of colonialism and was consequently marginalised until the mid-1980s. The reconsideration of anthropological practice was only possible when anthropology was called upon to explain the reasons for the failure of socialist state policies in modernisation and rural development. The challenges in this period were the use of anthropology as a means of solving social problems, a lack of sufficient local staff trained in anthropology, and a lack of production of "pure" academic anthropological knowledge. Despite the institutionalisation of anthropology as a discipline and field of knowledge in the mid-1990s and the creation of the local association, some of these challenges have not been overcome. Currently, the challenges facing anthropological practice include the absence of a conceptual and theoretically defined definition, the dominance of applied anthropology practiced outside academia, which does not tend to follow traditional scientific canons, the lack of recognition of other forms of knowledge such as local languages in the production of anthropological knowledge, the structural tension between universalist and local practice, social devaluation of anthropology, lack of material conditions for the scientific production of anthropological knowledge and the existence of a hypnotised association. This analysis is based on a literature review, published interviews with Mozambican anthropologists, and conversations with colleagues in the discipline.