Full Description
This work analyzes the politics of anthropological knowledge from critical perspective that alters existing understandings of colonialism. At the same time, it produces insights into the history of anthropology. Organized around an historical reconstruction of the great anthropological controversy over doctrines of virgin birth, the book argues that the allegation a great deal about European colonial discourse and little if anything about indigenous beliefs. By means of an Australian example, the book shows not only that the alleged ignorance was an artefact of the anthropological theory that produced it, but also that the anthropology was an artefact of the anthropological theory that produced it, but also that the anthropology concerened has been closely tied into both the historical dispossesion and the continuing oppresion of native peoples. The author explores the links between metropolitan anthropological theory and local colonial politics from the 19th century up to the present, settler colonialism, and the ideological and sexual regimes that characterize it.
Contents
Text and context - anthropology and settler colonialism; white manAs flour - virgin birth in anthropology and Australian settler discourse; science, colonialism and anthropology - the logic of global transformation; mother-right - sex and property in Victorian anthropology; totemism yesterday, today and tomorrow - Victorian anthroplogyAs eternal dichtomy; survival in paradism shift - E.B. Taylor and the problem of text; repressive authenticity.
