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Anarchy in Athens: An ethnography of militancy, emotions and violence (Contemporary Anarchist Studies)
by Nicholas ApoifisThe battles between Athenian anarchists and the Greek state have received a high degree of media attention recently. But away from the intensity of street protests militants implement anarchist practices whose outcomes are far less visible. They feed the hungry and poor, protect migrants from fascist beatings and try to carve out an autonomous political, social and cultural space. Activists within the movement share politics centred on hostility to the capitalist state and all forms of domination, hierarchy and discrimination. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork among Athenian anarchists and anti-authoritarians, Anarchy in Athens unravels the internal complexities within this milieu and provides a better understanding of the forces that give the space its shape.
Ancestor Worship in the Diaspora Chinese and China Universes: The Making of a Collaborative Cultural Basin (ISSN)
by Khun Eng KuahKuah explores the centrality of ancestors and ancestor worship of the Chinese in the Diaspora Chinese and China universes. Building on the original work and book on “Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China”, this book goes beyond the premise of remaking the ancestral home.Ancestor worship and the ancestors, together with selected cultural practices, constitute an important aspect of the broad Chinese culture shared by these two groups of Chinese and leads to the making of a collaborative cultural basin. This book takes the audience on an ancestor worship journey to uncover the complexity of ancestors and ancestral souls crossing transnational spaces, their choices of ancestral soul homes, the significance of the lineage ancestral house and the engagement of women through food offering contesting patriarchy. It also explores the increasing role of the Mainland Chinese state in appropriating ancestor and ancestor worship as a cultural icon and during the Qingming festival as a socio-moral capital and cultural bridge to foster closer ties with the Diaspora Chinese in its attempt to bring them into its “Chinese civilizational polity”. The book also takes the audience on a photographic journey to visually experience the various rituals and the vibrancy of the ritual performances conducted during the different stage from pre-communal to communal ancestor worship.An essential read for scholars of Chinese society and religion, Chinese migration and diaspora studies.
Ancestor Worship in the Diaspora Chinese and China Universes: The Making of a Collaborative Cultural Basin (ISSN)
by Khun Eng KuahKuah explores the centrality of ancestors and ancestor worship of the Chinese in the Diaspora Chinese and China universes. Building on the original work and book on “Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China”, this book goes beyond the premise of remaking the ancestral home.Ancestor worship and the ancestors, together with selected cultural practices, constitute an important aspect of the broad Chinese culture shared by these two groups of Chinese and leads to the making of a collaborative cultural basin. This book takes the audience on an ancestor worship journey to uncover the complexity of ancestors and ancestral souls crossing transnational spaces, their choices of ancestral soul homes, the significance of the lineage ancestral house and the engagement of women through food offering contesting patriarchy. It also explores the increasing role of the Mainland Chinese state in appropriating ancestor and ancestor worship as a cultural icon and during the Qingming festival as a socio-moral capital and cultural bridge to foster closer ties with the Diaspora Chinese in its attempt to bring them into its “Chinese civilizational polity”. The book also takes the audience on a photographic journey to visually experience the various rituals and the vibrancy of the ritual performances conducted during the different stage from pre-communal to communal ancestor worship.An essential read for scholars of Chinese society and religion, Chinese migration and diaspora studies.
Ancestral Future (Critical South)
by Ailton KrenakIn response to the damage caused by centuries of colonial ravaging and the current ecological, political and social crises, the leading Indigenous thinker and activist Ailton Krenak warns against the power of corporate capitalism and its destructive impact. Capitalism encroaches on every corner of the planet and orients us toward a future of promised progress, achievement and growth, but this future doesn’t exist – we just imagine it. This orientation to the future also blinds us to what exists around us, to the plants and animals with which we share the Earth and to the rivers that flow through our lands. Rivers are not just resources to be exploited by us or channels to carry away our waste, they are beings that connect us with our past. If there is a future to imagine, it is ancestral, since it is already present in the here and now and in that which exists around us, in the rivers and mountains and trees that are our kin. In a spoken language that has the mark of ancestral oral wisdom, Krenak offers a new perspective that challenges and disrupts some of the assumptions that underpin Western attitudes and mentalities. His work will be of great interest to anyone concerned about the climate crisis and the worsening plight of our planet.
Ancestral Genomics: African American Health in the Age of Precision Medicine
by Constance B. HilliardA leading evolutionary historian offers a radical solution to racial health disparities in the United States.Constance B. Hilliard was living in Japan when she began experiencing joint pain. Her doctor diagnosed osteoarthritis—a common ailment for someone her age. But her bloodwork showed something else: Hilliard, who had never had kidney problems, appeared to be suffering from renal failure. When she returned to Texas, however, a new round of tests showed that her kidneys were healthy. Unlike the Japanese doctor, her American primary care provider had checked a box on her lab report for “African American.” As a scholar of scientific racism, Hilliard was perplexed. Why should race, which experts agree has no biological basis, matter for getting accurate test results?Ancestral Genomics is the result of Hilliard’s decade-long quest to solve this puzzle. In a masterful synthesis of evolutionary history, population genetics, and public health research, she addresses the usefulness of race as a heuristic in genomic medicine. Built from European genetic data, the Human Genome Project and other databases have proven inadequate for identifying disease-causing gene variants in patients of African descent. Such databases, Hilliard argues, overlook crucial information about the environments to which their ancestors’ bodies adapted prior to the transatlantic slave trade. Hilliard shows how, by analyzing “ecological niche populations,” a classification model that combines family and ecological histories with genetic information, our increasingly advanced genomic technologies, including personalized medicine, can serve African Americans and other people of color, while avoiding racial essentialism.Forcefully argued and morally urgent, Ancestral Genomics is a clarion call for the US medical community to embrace our multigenomic society.
Ancient Sacred Sites in the Gulf of Naples: The Sanctuary of Athena at Punta Campanella (Young Feltrinelli Prize in the Moral Sciences)
by Luca Di FrancoThe geographical position between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno made pre-Roman Sorrento a fundamental point of passage. Around the inhabited centre, sacred sites or scattered settlements developed, including the sanctuary of Athena on the extreme tip of the peninsula near Punta Campanella. This book explores the historical development of the sanctuary from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD. Drawing on partly unpublished archaeological documentation and literary sources, the book provides useful elements for understanding the site and its relationship with the surrounding area. Sorrento and the Greek presence in the Gulf of Naples are linked to the sanctuary installation, perhaps first dedicated to the Sirens but surely after to Athena. Judging from literary sources, it was one of the best-known places of worship in ancient Italy. It was only in the 1980s that the discovery of an Oscan inscription with a dedication to Minerva made it possible to hypothesise the presence of a sanctuary near the Medieval tower at Punta Campanella. The analysis of the archaeological documentation known until now, the study of the new archaeological plans and the material culture (ceramics) from the site make it possible to better understand the development and the importance of the sanctuary. This book, therefore, defines the historical and territorial development of the sanctuary of Athena, reconstructing the history of the territory of ancient Surrentum and, above all, its most important sanctuary. The book will be of particular interest to archaeologists, ancient historians and historians of religion.
Ancient Sacred Sites in the Gulf of Naples: The Sanctuary of Athena at Punta Campanella (Young Feltrinelli Prize in the Moral Sciences)
by Luca Di FrancoThe geographical position between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno made pre-Roman Sorrento a fundamental point of passage. Around the inhabited centre, sacred sites or scattered settlements developed, including the sanctuary of Athena on the extreme tip of the peninsula near Punta Campanella. This book explores the historical development of the sanctuary from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD. Drawing on partly unpublished archaeological documentation and literary sources, the book provides useful elements for understanding the site and its relationship with the surrounding area. Sorrento and the Greek presence in the Gulf of Naples are linked to the sanctuary installation, perhaps first dedicated to the Sirens but surely after to Athena. Judging from literary sources, it was one of the best-known places of worship in ancient Italy. It was only in the 1980s that the discovery of an Oscan inscription with a dedication to Minerva made it possible to hypothesise the presence of a sanctuary near the Medieval tower at Punta Campanella. The analysis of the archaeological documentation known until now, the study of the new archaeological plans and the material culture (ceramics) from the site make it possible to better understand the development and the importance of the sanctuary. This book, therefore, defines the historical and territorial development of the sanctuary of Athena, reconstructing the history of the territory of ancient Surrentum and, above all, its most important sanctuary. The book will be of particular interest to archaeologists, ancient historians and historians of religion.
Ancient South America
by null Karen Olsen BruhnsAncient South America, 2nd edition features the full panorama of the South American past from the first inhabitants to the European invasions Isolated for all of prehistory and much of history, the continent witnessed the rise of cultures and advanced civilizations rivalling those of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Independently of developments elsewhere, South American peoples invented agriculture, domesticated animals, and created pottery, elaborate architecture, and the arts of working metals. Tribes, chiefdoms, and immense conquest states rose, flourished, and disappeared, leaving only their ruined monuments and broken artifacts as testimonials to past greatness. This new edition is completely revised and updated to reflect archaeological discoveries and insights made in the past three decades. Incorporating new findings on northern and eastern lowlands, and discussions of the first civilizations, it also examines the first inhabitants of Brazil and Patagonia as well as the Andes. Accessibly written and abundantly illustration, the volume also includes chronological charts and new examples.
Ancient Southeast Mesoamerica: Political Economies without the State (Case Studies in Early Societies)
by null Patricia A. Urban null Edward M. SchortmanAncient Southeast Mesoamerica explores the distinctive development and political history of the region from its earliest inhabitants up to the Spanish conquest. It was composed of a matrix of social networks rather than divided by distinct cultures and domains. Making use of the area's rich archaeological data, Edward Schortman and Patricia Urban provide a social network analysis of southeast Mesoamerica. They demonstrate how inhabitants from different locales were organized within such networks, and how they mobilized the assets that they needed to define and achieve their own goals. The also provide evidence for the actions of other groups, who sought to promote their importance at local and regional scales, and often opposed those efforts. Schortman and Urban's study demonstrates the fresh insights gained from study of socio-political structures via a social network perspective. It also challenges models that privilege the influence of powerful leaders in shaping those structures.
Angels and Other Cows: A Celestial Adventure into AI Worlds, the Social Good, and Unknown Connections (Artificial Intelligence, Simulation and Society)
by Petra AhrweilerThis open access novel uses fantasy and romance to pique readers' interest in understanding how AI technologies can be used for social justice across very different political and social terrains. Can you truly reach out to somebody who is in every aspect the direct opposite of yourself? Gabriel and Tilda, the two protagonists of this futuristic novel, are very different people. They work at a Berlin-based international aid company, and the only thing they can agree on is that the world is in a shambles: Scarce public resources, conflict and crises, inequalities, religious and socio-cultural belief systems that cement social injustice, have created a world as deeply divided and set apart as Gabriel and Tilda. They are sent on company business to recruit international partners for a social development project on global justice, and start travelling the world together. On their adventurous journey through many countries, they learn about the impacts of culture on social welfare systems, while trying to define their own relationship, which is intermingled with generational power games and milieu-specific worldview struggles. In Gabriel and Tilda’s attempts to bridge the deep gulf between their personalities, the novel creates a metaphor for finding a cohesive model of global justice using artificial intelligence that can integrate highly contextualized, national value cultures. Gabriel and Tilda are supported by two guardian angels: Assigned to save the planet through interpersonal and intercultural integration, the angels GA and TA team up with English Benedictine monk and mystic guru Bede Griffiths who is very keen to help Tilda and Gabriel in their model pilot of unlikely love.
Anglo-American Stage and Screen Drama: The Post-Democratic World Order
by Mike InghamAnglo-American Stage and Screen Drama analyses and discusses the contemporary role of stage and screen drama as a critical forum for progressive thinking in an increasingly polarised geopolitical world. The book addresses the cultural politics of socially engaged 21st century stage plays and films, and makes the case for drama as a sociopolitical forum, in which the complex and contentious issues that confront society can be explored and debated. It conceives of Anglophone political drama as a significant intervention in today’s culture wars, representing the latter as a convenient distraction from the ongoing depredations of neoliberalism. In the main part of the book selected case-study plays and films from each of the first two decades illustrate drama’s capacity to influence critical debate on social justice issues. All of the case-study texts under discussion express a powerful aesthetics of resistance to right-wing ideology, and promote inclusive and enlightened values. This broader orientation underlines drama’s role as a channel for critical agency in today’s putative post-socialist, post-democratic climate.
Animal Lives Matter: The Continuing Quest for Justice
by Raymond WacksAnimal Lives Matter provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal, philosophical, and ethical aspects of animal rights. It argues that the subject extends beyond the matter of our obligations towards animals, to include our wider responsibilities for protecting the environment. Drawing on numerous moral, political, legal, religious, and philosophical theories including utilitarianism, deontology, rights theory, social contractarianism, and the capabilities approach, the author meticulously examines the questions of sentience, speciesism, personhood, and human exceptionalism. Lucid, nuanced, and academically rigorous, this important book will be an essential resource for scholars of law, politics, philosophy, ethics, as well as policy makers and the general reader.
Animal Lives Matter: The Continuing Quest for Justice
by Raymond WacksAnimal Lives Matter provides a comprehensive analysis of the legal, philosophical, and ethical aspects of animal rights. It argues that the subject extends beyond the matter of our obligations towards animals, to include our wider responsibilities for protecting the environment. Drawing on numerous moral, political, legal, religious, and philosophical theories including utilitarianism, deontology, rights theory, social contractarianism, and the capabilities approach, the author meticulously examines the questions of sentience, speciesism, personhood, and human exceptionalism. Lucid, nuanced, and academically rigorous, this important book will be an essential resource for scholars of law, politics, philosophy, ethics, as well as policy makers and the general reader.
Anna-daan, Food Charity in India: Preaching and Practice
by K. V. Raju S. ManasiEating together unites people and has a significant impact on their physical, social, and emotional development. This book looks at practices and traditions of sharing food prevalent among major religious communities in India, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam.Food insecurity is one of the major problems every country in the world is facing today because of increasing population, climate change, agrarian distress, wars and conflicts, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Including case studies from across India, this book examines the necessity and effectiveness of food-sharing practices in temples, mosques, and gurudwaras, among others. Emphasising the importance of these practices for the social and physical well-being of the most vulnerable sections of society, it showcases how traditional religious practices of food sharing have contributed to tackling hunger, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume also offers long-term solutions to address underlying issues which cause hunger and food insecurity.One of the first to study food sharing and alms-giving practices in India, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of sociology, anthropology, food studies, religion, security studies, political economy, public policy, and South Asian history and culture.
Anna-daan, Food Charity in India: Preaching and Practice
by K. V. Raju S. ManasiEating together unites people and has a significant impact on their physical, social, and emotional development. This book looks at practices and traditions of sharing food prevalent among major religious communities in India, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Christianity, and Islam.Food insecurity is one of the major problems every country in the world is facing today because of increasing population, climate change, agrarian distress, wars and conflicts, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Including case studies from across India, this book examines the necessity and effectiveness of food-sharing practices in temples, mosques, and gurudwaras, among others. Emphasising the importance of these practices for the social and physical well-being of the most vulnerable sections of society, it showcases how traditional religious practices of food sharing have contributed to tackling hunger, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. The volume also offers long-term solutions to address underlying issues which cause hunger and food insecurity.One of the first to study food sharing and alms-giving practices in India, this book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of sociology, anthropology, food studies, religion, security studies, political economy, public policy, and South Asian history and culture.
The Anthropocene and its Future: The Challenges of Accelerating Social and Ecological Change
by Karl BruckmeierThis book analyses the complex social and ecological processes of the Great Acceleration, the Great Transformation, and sustainable development that shape the future of the global society in the twenty-first century. The first process takes place for a longer time, the second over the past thirty years, with attempts to build a sustainable economy and society in the global policy of sustainable development. The processes and their interaction will be discussed with knowledge from inter- and transdisciplinary transformation research, social and political ecology, and theories of modern society. The guiding theoretical concepts for the social-ecological transformation will be clarified: the concepts of acceleration, transformation, and sustainable development, and the societal and ecological processes they include. To obtain a more detailed picture of the changes in the global social-ecological system, different parts of the global transformation, the digital transformation, the transformation of food systems, and the transformation of modes of living in the social lifeworld are described to show the complex changes in the epoch of the Anthropocene more concretely. The global change processes in society and nature are caused by human forces but are difficult to control through policy and governance. With the interdisciplinary integration of concepts and knowledge, it becomes possible to provide a more detailed picture, of the difficulties to achieve a sustainable future society.
Anthropocene Poetry: Place, Environment, and Planet (Literatures, Cultures, and the Environment)
by Yvonne ReddickAnthropocene Poetry: Place, Environment and Planet argues that the idea of the Anthropocene is inspiring new possibilities for poetry. It can also change the way we read and interpret poems. If environmental poetry was once viewed as linked to place, this book shows how poets are now grappling with environmental issues from the local to the planetary: climate change and the extinction crisis, nuclear weapons and waste, plastic pollution and the petroleum industry. This book intervenes in debates about culture and science, traditional poetic form and experimental ecopoetics, to show how poets are collaborating with environmental scientists and joining environmental activist movements to respond to this time of crisis. From the canonical work of Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney, to award-winning poets Alice Oswald, Pascale Petit, Kei Miller, and Karen McCarthy Woolf, this book explores major figures from the past alongside acclaimed contemporary voices. It reveals Seamus Heaney’s support for conservation causes and Ted Hughes’s astonishingly forward-thinking research on climate change; it discusses how Pascale Petit has given poetry to Extinction Rebellion and how Karen McCarthy Woolf set sail with scientists to write about plastic pollution. This book deploys research on five poetry archives in the UK, USA and Ireland, and the author’s insider insights into the commissioning processes and collaborative methods that shaped important contemporary poetry publications. Anthropocene Poetry finds that environmental poetry is flourishing in the face of ecological devastation. Such poetry speaks of the anxieties and dilemmas of our age, and searches for paths towards resilience and resistance.
Anthropological Approaches to Reading Migrant Writing: Reimagining Ethnographic Methods, Knowledge, and Power
by Deborah Reed-Danahay Helena WulffThis book brings fresh perspectives to the anthropology of migration. It focuses on what migrants write and how anthropologists may incorporate insights gained from engagement with this writing into research methods and writing practices. The volume includes a range of contributions from leading scholars in the field, all organized around a striking set of questions about the conditions in which migrant narratives are written and translated, the audiences for which they are intended, the genres and media through which they are disseminated, and what such stories include or leave out. The contributors to this volume demonstrate an innovative shift in anthropological methods by showing how fiction and nonfiction, graphic memoir and autoethnography, song lyrics, as well as social media posts and images unsettle the power dynamics in the study of migration narrative. This book will serve as important supplemental reading for courses on migration, literary anthropology, ethnographic methods, and sociocultural anthropology in general. Its interdisciplinary perspective will appeal to a broad range of scholars and students with interests in migration, narrative, and anthropological writing genres.
Anthropological Approaches to Reading Migrant Writing: Reimagining Ethnographic Methods, Knowledge, and Power
This book brings fresh perspectives to the anthropology of migration. It focuses on what migrants write and how anthropologists may incorporate insights gained from engagement with this writing into research methods and writing practices. The volume includes a range of contributions from leading scholars in the field, all organized around a striking set of questions about the conditions in which migrant narratives are written and translated, the audiences for which they are intended, the genres and media through which they are disseminated, and what such stories include or leave out. The contributors to this volume demonstrate an innovative shift in anthropological methods by showing how fiction and nonfiction, graphic memoir and autoethnography, song lyrics, as well as social media posts and images unsettle the power dynamics in the study of migration narrative. This book will serve as important supplemental reading for courses on migration, literary anthropology, ethnographic methods, and sociocultural anthropology in general. Its interdisciplinary perspective will appeal to a broad range of scholars and students with interests in migration, narrative, and anthropological writing genres.
Anthropological Expertise and Legal Practice: In Conversation (Law and Anthropology)
This book draws on concrete cases of collaboration between anthropologists and legal practitioners to critically assess the use of anthropological expertise in a variety of legal contexts from the point of view of the anthropologist as well as of the decision-maker or legal practitioner. The contributions, several of which are co-authored by anthropologist–legal practitioner tandems, deal with the roles of and relationships between anthropologists and legal professionals, which are often collaborative, interdisciplinary, and complementary. Such interactions go far beyond courts and litigation into areas of law that might be called ‘social justice activism’. They also entail close collaboration with the people –often subjects of violence and dispossession –with whom the anthropologists and legal practitioners are working. The aim of this collection is to draw on past experiences to come up with practical methodological suggestions for facilitating this interaction and collaboration and for enhancing the efficacy of the use of anthropological expertise in legal contexts. Explicitly designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and between scholarship and practical application, the book will appeal to scholars and researchers engaged in anthropology, legal anthropology, socio-legal studies, and asylum and migration law. It will also be of interest to legal practitioners and applied social scientists, who can glean valuable lessons regarding the challenges and rewards of genuine collaboration between legal practitioners and social scientists.
Anthropological Expertise and Legal Practice: In Conversation (Law and Anthropology)
by Marie-Claire Foblets, Maria Sapignoli and Brian DonahoeThis book draws on concrete cases of collaboration between anthropologists and legal practitioners to critically assess the use of anthropological expertise in a variety of legal contexts from the point of view of the anthropologist as well as of the decision-maker or legal practitioner. The contributions, several of which are co-authored by anthropologist–legal practitioner tandems, deal with the roles of and relationships between anthropologists and legal professionals, which are often collaborative, interdisciplinary, and complementary. Such interactions go far beyond courts and litigation into areas of law that might be called ‘social justice activism’. They also entail close collaboration with the people –often subjects of violence and dispossession –with whom the anthropologists and legal practitioners are working. The aim of this collection is to draw on past experiences to come up with practical methodological suggestions for facilitating this interaction and collaboration and for enhancing the efficacy of the use of anthropological expertise in legal contexts. Explicitly designed to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and between scholarship and practical application, the book will appeal to scholars and researchers engaged in anthropology, legal anthropology, socio-legal studies, and asylum and migration law. It will also be of interest to legal practitioners and applied social scientists, who can glean valuable lessons regarding the challenges and rewards of genuine collaboration between legal practitioners and social scientists.
Anthropological Perspectives on Global Challenges (ASA Monographs)
This volume offers a snapshot of anthropological perspectives on global challenges. Whilst it could not hope to represent the full scope of anthropological perspectives, those that are presented highlight some of the critical flaws embedded in such an all-encompassing notion. The contributors reveal the possibilities of reimagining the ways in which ‘challenges’ are understood and addressed and demonstrate how a combination of deep understanding of the past and collaboration, cooperation and inclusive dialogue about the future, can improve the chances of positive action. The collection thus not only shows us that perspectives must change, but also how that change might be realised. Whilst the chapters are authored solely by anthropologists, this book is not solely for anthropologists. The book is illustrative of the practical and theoretical insights that anthropology can offer those individuals, teams, and policy- and decision-makers engaged in research, mitigation and/or intervention practices in relation to the global challenges. Beyond academia, it contributes to broader understandings of the challenges we collectively face at this point in time and how we might collectively and effectively address them.
Anthropological Perspectives on Global Challenges (ASA Monographs)
by Emma GilberthorpeThis volume offers a snapshot of anthropological perspectives on global challenges. Whilst it could not hope to represent the full scope of anthropological perspectives, those that are presented highlight some of the critical flaws embedded in such an all-encompassing notion. The contributors reveal the possibilities of reimagining the ways in which ‘challenges’ are understood and addressed and demonstrate how a combination of deep understanding of the past and collaboration, cooperation and inclusive dialogue about the future, can improve the chances of positive action. The collection thus not only shows us that perspectives must change, but also how that change might be realised. Whilst the chapters are authored solely by anthropologists, this book is not solely for anthropologists. The book is illustrative of the practical and theoretical insights that anthropology can offer those individuals, teams, and policy- and decision-makers engaged in research, mitigation and/or intervention practices in relation to the global challenges. Beyond academia, it contributes to broader understandings of the challenges we collectively face at this point in time and how we might collectively and effectively address them.
Anthropologist and Imperialist: H.H. Risley and British India, 1873-1911
by C. J. FullerSir Herbert Hope Risley (1851 - 1911) - 'H. H. Risley', as he always signed himself - was a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) from 1873 to 1910 who served in Bengal and became a senior administrator and policymaker in the colonial government, as well as the pre-eminent anthropologist in British India. He was also an imperialist, who was convinced of the rightness of 'civilising' British rule and its benefits for both India and Britain, and one of this book's objectives is to render his simultaneous commitment to anthropology and imperialism intelligible to present-day readers. More specifically, Anthropologist and Imperialist: H. H. Risley and British India, 1873–1911 documents the two sides of Risley’s career, which is used as a case-study to investigate, first, the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, specifically anthropological knowledge, and secondly, its often loose and inconsistent connection with administration and policymaking, and with the government and state overall. Risley, like other officials engaged in anthropology in India, as well as the government itself, insisted that ethnography and anthropology had both ‘administrative’ and ‘scientific’ value; unlike previous works on Indian colonial anthropology, this book carefully examines its ‘scientific’ contributions in relation to contemporary metropolitan anthropology. It does not attempt to reinvent ‘greatman’ political or intellectual history, but does demonstrate the importance of studying the powerful officials who ruled British India, as well as the minor provincial politicians and subaltern subjects – or the abstract forces, such as colonialism and resistance – that have dominated recent historical scholarship. This book shows, too, that a detailed inquiry into Risley’s career, and his ideas and actions, can open new perspectives on a variety of continuing debates, including those over the colonial construction of caste and race in ‘traditional’ India, orientalism and forms of colonial knowledge, Victorian anthropology’s close relationship with the British empire, and the modern discipline’s uneasy links with its colonial past. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)
Anthropologist and Imperialist: H.H. Risley and British India, 1873-1911
by C. J. FullerSir Herbert Hope Risley (1851 - 1911) - 'H. H. Risley', as he always signed himself - was a member of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) from 1873 to 1910 who served in Bengal and became a senior administrator and policymaker in the colonial government, as well as the pre-eminent anthropologist in British India. He was also an imperialist, who was convinced of the rightness of 'civilising' British rule and its benefits for both India and Britain, and one of this book's objectives is to render his simultaneous commitment to anthropology and imperialism intelligible to present-day readers. More specifically, Anthropologist and Imperialist: H. H. Risley and British India, 1873–1911 documents the two sides of Risley’s career, which is used as a case-study to investigate, first, the production and circulation of colonial knowledge, specifically anthropological knowledge, and secondly, its often loose and inconsistent connection with administration and policymaking, and with the government and state overall. Risley, like other officials engaged in anthropology in India, as well as the government itself, insisted that ethnography and anthropology had both ‘administrative’ and ‘scientific’ value; unlike previous works on Indian colonial anthropology, this book carefully examines its ‘scientific’ contributions in relation to contemporary metropolitan anthropology. It does not attempt to reinvent ‘greatman’ political or intellectual history, but does demonstrate the importance of studying the powerful officials who ruled British India, as well as the minor provincial politicians and subaltern subjects – or the abstract forces, such as colonialism and resistance – that have dominated recent historical scholarship. This book shows, too, that a detailed inquiry into Risley’s career, and his ideas and actions, can open new perspectives on a variety of continuing debates, including those over the colonial construction of caste and race in ‘traditional’ India, orientalism and forms of colonial knowledge, Victorian anthropology’s close relationship with the British empire, and the modern discipline’s uneasy links with its colonial past. Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan)