Colonial situations: essays on the contextualization of ethnographic knowledge

Abstract

The relation of anthropology to colonialism and became a burning issue for anthropologists in mid-1960s. As European colonies in Asia and Africa became independent nations, as United States engaged in war in South-east Asia and in covert operations in South America, anthropologists questioned their interactions with their subjects and worried about political consequences of government-supported research. By 1970, some spoke of anthropology as the child of Western imperialism and as scientific colonialism. Ironically, as link between anthropology and colonialism became more widely accepted within discipline, serious interest diminished in examining history of anthropology in contexts. This volume attempts a critical historical consideration of varying in which (and from which) ethnographic knowledge essential to anthropology has been produced. The essays comment on ethnographic work from middle of 19th century to almost end of 20th; they cover regions from Oceania through Southeast Asia, Andaman Islands and Southern Africa, to North and South America. The colonial situations also range from first contact through to establishment of power; from District Officer administrations through to white settler regimes; from internal colonialism to international mandates; from early pacification to wars of liberation; from expropriation of land to defence of ecology. The motivations and responses of anthropologists discussed are equally varied: romantic resistance of Maclay and complicity of Kubary in early colonialism; Malinowski's salesmanship of academic anthropology; Speck's advocacy of Indian land rights; Schneider's grappling with ambiguities of rapport; and Turner's facilitation of Kayapo cinematic activism.