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)
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
466
Anthropologist and Imperialist: H.H. Risley and British India, 1873-1911
466
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781032598048 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Social Science Press |
| Publication date: | 10/05/2023 |
| Pages: | 466 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d) |