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The Apotheosis of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking in the Pacific.
... However, the differences might not be as great as they first seem, partly because the approach to relativism in anthropology has changed, and partly because the particular has its proponents in philosophy as well. In this paper, I revisit classical debates on relativism and rationalism in anthropology and philosophy -Peter Winch's classical criticism of Evans-Pritchard's depiction of the Azande, and the debate between Marshall Sahlins and Granath Obeyesekere on captain Cook (Obeyesekere,1993(Obeyesekere, , 1997a(Obeyesekere, , 1997bSahlins, 1995Sahlins, , 1997, in order to highlight some similarities in how the rationality of cultures different from our own is discussed. I also draw parallels to linguistic relativity, more specifically Daniel Everett's much discussed article on the Pirahã (Everett, 2005a). ...
... Sahlins represents the traditional relativist view within anthropology and Obeyesekere the newer rationalist approach. The starting point for the debate is Obeyesekere's The Apotheosis of Captain Cook (Obeyesekere, 1997a) where he argues that the received view, shared by Sahlins (1995), of the death of Captain James Cook in the hands of Hawaiians in 1779 is based on a misunderstanding. To briefly recapture the order of events, it is uncontested that upon arriving in Hawaii, Cook was warmly welcomed by the islanders. ...
... Unsurprisingly, a scuffle broke out when Cook and his men panicked and started firing their guns. Only after his death was Cook deified, for political reasons (Obeyesekere, 1997a). ...
The paper discusses cultural relativism through contrasting views within philosophy and anthropology, drawing parallels to linguistic relativity. Language is commonly perceived as a tool for classifying the world, where the researcher is a detached observer of language or reasoning. This is the starting point for the relativism/rationalism dichotomy in philosophy, which relies on a distinction between language and thought, or the form and content of thought, as separate categories that can be identified from an objective viewpoint. Both the rationalist and the relativist are commonly described as agreeing on the terms of the debate, and disagreeing only on the relations between the categories. This starting point will be challenged through drawing parallels between debates in philosophy, anthropology and linguistics.
... In Saussurean structuralism, which serves as the model for the social sciences, language "is viewed as a purely arbitrary system of signs in which parole or speech is subsidiary to langue, the formal dimension of language. Parole is the world's messiness that the semiotic order [or formal dimension] shuns" (Obeyesekere, 1997(Obeyesekere, [1992, p. 18), subjecting social actors to its binary rules that give them their conceptual framework, rather than the other way around (Levi-Strauss, 1963;Marshall, 1998;Saussure, 1972Saussure, [1916). ...
... In Saussurean structuralism, which serves as the model for the social sciences, language "is viewed as a purely arbitrary system of signs in which parole or speech is subsidiary to langue, the formal dimension of language. Parole is the world's messiness that the semiotic order [or formal dimension] shuns" (Obeyesekere, 1997(Obeyesekere, [1992, p. 18), subjecting social actors to its binary rules that give them their conceptual framework, rather than the other way around (Levi-Strauss, 1963;Marshall, 1998;Saussure, 1972Saussure, [1916). ...
This article argues that the Haitian Vodou spirits (lwas) of fertility and death, Gede, do not promote homosexuality or the fluidity of sexuality in Haitian culture. The latter position is a Western reading of Gede grounded in postmodern and post-structural identity theorizing. Gede in Haitian ontology and epistemology are lwas of fertility and death not sexual identity confusion or fluidity.
... 12 However, there is notable history of anthropologists questioning whether others have met the criterions of Participant Observation and whether they draw likely conclusions. Two famous examples are the Freeman-Mead debate about the accuracy of Margaret Mead's fieldwork findings in Samoa (see Shankman 2009 for an overview) and the case 'Obeyesekere against Sahlins' (Obeyesekere 1997;Sahlins 1995) about whether native Hawaiians believed the British explorer James Cook to be a deity. These debates mark deeper problems in anthropology, such as the question whether Western scholars are in the epistemic position to understand non-Western cultures at all. 13 This point is only at the fringe of a much larger debate on authority, knowledge production and the sociology of knowledge in general. ...
If only implicitly, social anthropology has long incorporated joint attention as a research technique employed in what anthropologists call “the field”. This paper outlines the crucial role joint attention plays in anthropolgical fieldwork—specifically in Participant Observation—and advances the position that joint attention is a goal rather than a starting point of fieldwork practice. Exploring how anthropologists tentatively use attention as a methodological tool to understand other people’s lifeworlds, this paper draws parallels between Participant Observation and ordinary everyday interactions, thus teasing out a view of joint attention as a goal to be reached only by means of knowing what matters to others in the context of the lifeworld they inhabit.
... Humanity can ascertain and embody them via their constituted being as a material being with extrasensory perceptions, reason and rationality, and or through experience [19]. As these transcendentally fundamental (universal and objective) concepts are ascertained, they are constituted and institutionalized and passed on through humanity via priests, priestesses, and early ancestors who institutionalized (reify)/ institutionalize them in the natural world via religious ceremonies, dance, rituals, herbal medicine, trades, concepts, and proverbs [20][21][22][23][24][25]. These trades, ideals, sayings, and or ideas are truisms, mechanisms to ascertain and constitute knowledge, which although they are deduced from the constituted make-up (i.e., consciousness) of the human being, in Vodou metaphysics they are attributed to God and the ancestors who institutionalized (reified) them to be applied in the material world so that their descendants can live freely in the world, satisfy their needs, be happy, and achieve perfection to reunite with God after their sixteen reincarnated life cycles (eight times as a man and eight times as a woman) [26]. ...
This article argues that White and Black Western scholars attempt to postmodernize and post-structuralize Haitian Vodou against its traditional scientific metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, and axiology. This Western reading of Vodou, grounded in postmodern and post-structural identity theorizing, attempts to substantiate the latter two as scientific thought amidst its paradoxical attack on traditional scientism.
... In Saussurean structuralism, which serves as the model for the social sciences, language "is viewed as a purely arbitrary system of signs in which parole or speech is subsidiary to langue, the formal dimension of language. Parole is the world's messiness that the semiotic order [or formal dimension] shuns" [11], subjecting social actors to its binary rules that gives them their conceptual framework, rather than the other way around [4,5,15]. ...
This work argues, against postmodern and post structural theories, that the human being is not a floating signifier; instead, they are constituted as preprogrammed beings based on three structuring structures and the ability to defer meaning in ego-centered communicative discourse. In other words, the human being is a product of their mental stance arising from conflict, or not, between four structuring structures: 1) praxis associated with the phenomenal properties, i.e., qualia, of subatomic particles; 2) the anatomy and physiology of the body; 3) structural reproduction and differentiation; and 4) structural actions driven by the deferment of meaning in ego-centered communicative discourse. It is the mental stance of human beings in relation to these four structuring structures, which determine their being and actions in the material world.
... He is widely recognised as a genius for his navigational skills, cartographic efficacy, and scientific observations. Simultaneously he can be cast as villain because of his seeming inability to exercise restraint with firearms when events on the beach got out of hand (for various perspectives see, e.g.,Beaglehole 1966: 229-315;Obeyesekere 1992; Sahlins 1995; Salmond 2003). Here we take Cook from his own words, spiralling outwards to how his ships might have appeared to the Tannese and their neighbours and take this as a starting point for understanding everything that came before and everything that came after, including our own archaeological investigations over 240 years after Cook and crew departed over the horizon.Following an encounter on Erromango on 4 August 1774 that ended in violence, with Cook's sailors firing upon and killing several islanders, the Resolution and Adventure sailed to the south. ...
... In Saussure and structuralism, which serves as the model for the social sciences, language "is viewed as a purely arbitrary system of signs in which parole or speech is subsidiary to language, the formal dimension of language. Parole is the world's messiness that the semiotic order [or formal dimension] shuns" [6], subjecting social actors to its binary rules that gives them their conceptual framework, rather than the other way around [2,3,7]. ...
In Mocombeian structuration theory, phenomenological structuralism, the understanding is that human action in the material world is a product of their mental stance arising from conflict, or not, between four structuring structures: 1) praxis associated with the phenomenal properties, i.e., qualia, of subatomic particles; 2) the anatomy and physiology of the body; 3) structural reproduction and differentiation; 4) actions driven by the deferment of meaning in ego-centered communicative discourse. It is the mental stance of human beings in relation to these four structuring structures, which determine their actions in
the material world. This article highlights this process
... 17. In anthropology, such imperial nostalgia, with its implicit longing for and construction of 'traditional society', has engendered debates about the nature of representation and encounters among diff erent cultural, historical and social orders (Obeyesekere 1992;Rosaldo 1989;Sahlins 1995). 18. ...
... 18. History is inevitably contested. Anthropologists have known this for a long time, and the Sahlins-Obeyesekere debate (see Borofsky 1997;Obeyesekere 1992;Sahlins 1985Sahlins , 1995 shows that they have themselves been far from immune to such contests-indeed, its obviously ideological contours also show rather dramatically that the idea of an objectivist approach simply reproduces the socially embedded fact that our decisions about what constitutes historical truth are often determined by social and rhetorical positioning. Aristotle understood this well when he pointed out that "metaphor" was always something other people did in contrast to one's own expertise in the literal truth (Lloyd 1990:21). ...
As a discipline, anthropology has increased its public visibility in recent years with its growing focus on engagement. Although the call for engagement has elicited responses in all subfields and around the world, this special issue focuses on engaged anthropology and the dilemmas it raises in U.S. cultural and practicing anthropology. Within this field, the authors distinguish a number of forms of engagement: (1) sharing and support, (2) teaching and public education, (3) social critique, (4) collaboration, (5) advocacy, and (6) activism. They show that engagement takes place during fieldwork; through applied practice; in institutions such as Cultural Survival, the Institute for Community Research, and the Hispanic Health Council; and as individual activists work in the context of war, terrorism, environmental injustice, human rights, and violence. A close examination of the history of engaged anthropology in the United States also reveals an enduring set of dilemmas, many of which persist in contemporary anthropological practice. These dilemmas were raised by the anthropologists who attended the Wenner‐Gren workshop titled “The Anthropologist as Social Critic: Working toward a More Engaged Anthropology,” January 22–25, 2008. Their papers, many of which are included in this collection, highlight both the expansion and growth of engaged anthropology and the problems its practitioners face. To introduce this collection of articles, we discuss forms of engaged anthropology, its history, and its ongoing dilemmas.
... Sahlins is most famous for his writings about why the Hawaiians killed CaptainCook (for example 1981Cook (for example ,1985Cook (for example ,1988Cook (for example ,1995, which he said can be understood in mythic terms, for the Hawaiians understood Cook to be Lono, one of the four major Hawaiian gods, associated with growth.30 He was famously criticized by GananathObeyesekere (1992). This debate has become famous, spreading into Anthropology departments all over the world, and bound up with questions of rationality, native agency and colonialism. ...
Sacred knowledge in Polynesia is believed to live in the higher dimensions of space. Held by a few experts, it is passed down according to the perceived readiness of the questioner. The topic of this thesis is part of that sacred lore. Turning space into place is believed by many to be done by bringing the sacred knowledge to earth; using it to make the land more fertile. The hidden dimensions of knowledge are contained in the Hawaiian language, which has many 'bodies of meaning'. What is seen depends on perception. The 'body' of the word may be grown like a cord, and intertwined with the physical and meta-physical construction of the human body and the growth of the land. Certain perceptions of the hidden meanings may open to the individual body and consciousness to lighter dimensions, where higher beings and greater knowledge reside. This thesis builds on previous geographical and anthropological work in place names. Four sequences of names from three islands, Kaua'i, Hawai'i and Moloka'i are studied. I discuss how 'place' in Hawai'i may be conceived of as not yet existing in reality and refer to the legendary islands of the gods. In these examples I illustrate how place may be thought of as being 'grown' through a system of imaging and reflection. None of these interpretations are exclusive and are indicative of the multi-dimensional nature of Hawaiian knowledge which must be understood according to perception. I demonstrate that the word is part of a system of growth, through attraction and creation. This has different results, depending on the perception of the interpreter, The eventual result can be imaged as regaining the land of the gods or 'bringing the bright land into being'. Frequent comparisons to New Zealand allude to the possibility of a system stretching throughout Polynesia.
What are the reasons behind the “scientific” positioning that anthropology had adopted since its origins up to a few decades ago? They were certainly cognitive reasons, but they were intertwined with political concerns, ideological frameworks and cultural references. The urge to gain academic legitimacy, reliance on “Western-centric” perspectives and the aspiration to build broad, universal knowledge all played a role. Another significant role was played by its involvement in the project and the projection of colonial supremacy. These are all implicit factors that started to take on an increasingly deliberate problematic form and finally culminated in the “crisis of representation”, falling into the wide-open sea of post-modernism, in an effort to “give a voice” to those who, despite everything, still did not have one. The structure of anthropology, which was a Western projection and, inside the West, a projection of modernity on the domestic “pockets” of backwardness, was forced to change because it was challenged by the increasingly strong quests for pluralism and the consequent requirement to rethink its very organisation. In our chapter, we present and sustain the many reasons at the basis of the actual quest for pluralism in anthropology.
Separated by a century in time, the landmass of a continent and differing confessional commu-nities, the religious attitudes and views of Italian miller Menocchio (1532–1599) and Swedish farmer and former soldier Nils Olofsson Bååt (1637–1696) still share numerous parallels and similarities. Both were brought to trial for impious and heretic utterances and in court both presented highly unorthodox statements about the nature of Christ, God and the sacraments. While the focus and themes in their accounts differ, there is a striking similarity in the ten-dency to question and bring down official abstract religious doctrines to a kind of pragmatic understanding based on everyday practical experiences. Are these similarities and parallels only a coincidence or were Menocchio and Nils Olofsson Bååt both representatives of an oral peasant culture proposed by Ginzburg? Or alternatively, did they share a similar way of reading marked by oral culture? Menocchio had read at least eleven identified books – Nils Olofsson Bååt none as far as is known. In this article it will be proposed that the similarities and parallels can be related to a kind of “practical rationality” and common-sense logic that was neither exclusively popular nor learned but a universal mode of thinking brought to the fore by their respective lived experiences as well as by inspiration from a cultural repertoire of common-sense-based doubts and statements circulating between high and low culture. Final-ly, Menocchio’s and Nils Olofsson Bååt’s personal strategies will be analysed and compared based on differences in themes, focuses and personal living circumstances.Keywords:
Este artigo trata de usos da história feitos na e pela antropologia e dos potenciais analíticos de pensar a partir de lógicas que não seguem uma linha temporal ascendente. Discute como algumas teorias clássicas utilizaram, prescindiram ou analisaram a história em suas abordagens espitêmológico-metodológicas. Além disso, também explora “outras historicidades” (Schwarcz, 2005), análises antropológicas que repensam as relações entre passado, presente e futuro. Proponho pensar em um caso em que os sujeitos não apenas vivenciam a história não-linear, mas a instrumentalizam como forma de resistência. Me refiro ao Movimento Zapatista, formado por indígenas do sudeste do México. Com base em duas fases de pesquisa etnográfica — uma documental outra presencial e realizada no estado de Chiapas (2016-2017) —, analiso como seus discursos e projetos embaralham os tempos de duas maneiras: na primeira, passado e presente são indistinguíveis nos comunicados que tratam de história; na segunda, o futuro vive no presente e na construção de um projeto para sobreviver ao fim do mundo, mobilizando emoções e criando alternativas.
This essay is an attempt to show how Vitorino Nemésio’s Corsário das Ilhas, a collection of travel writings based in the Azores during successive return trips to his native land, brings to mind the old debate in the social sciences about the validity of travel literature as a way to understand a society, since Nemésio himself is simultaneously an insider and an outsider. Weber’s concept of Verstehen (empathetic understanding) as a fundamental element in the process of depicting the whole of culture is also marvelously exemplified in the writings of this master of words and of descriptions.
This work highlights the origins and nature of the social class language game in Mocombe"s theory of phenomenological structuralism. According to Mocombe, the human being is a product of their mental stance arising from conflict, or not, between four structuring structures: 1) praxis associated with the phenomenal properties, i.e., qualia, of subatomic particles; 2) the anatomy and physiology of the body; 3) structural reproduction and differentiation; and 4) actions driven by the deferment of meaning in ego-centered communicative discourse. It is the mental stance of human beings in relation to these four structuring structures, which determine their being and actions in the material world. The social class language game, associated with structural reproduction and differentiation, in this theory is constituted as five systems under the control of those who own the means and mode of production in a material resource framework, and is ultimately the determining factor of, and for, human actions.
In this compelling study, Anna Johnston shows how colonial knowledge from Australia influenced global thinking about convicts, natural history and humanitarian concerns about Indigenous peoples. These were fascinating topics for British readers, and influenced government policies in fields such as prison reform, the history of science, and humanitarian and religious campaigns. Using a rich variety of sources including natural history and botanical illustrations, voyage accounts, language studies, Victorian literature and convict memoirs, this multi-disciplinary account charts how new ways of identifying, classifying, analysing and controlling ideas, populations, and environments were forged and circulated between colonies and through metropolitan centres. They were also underpinned by cultural exchanges between European and Indigenous interlocutors and knowledge systems. Johnston shows how colonial ideas were disseminated through a global network of correspondence and print culture.
Doctoral thesis, unpublished, University of Manchester
In communities across the world people have defaced plaques, memorials and monuments commemorating colonial history and protested against statues of historical figures, such as Captain James Cook. While causing disruption and seeking change, these protests have been met with responses that have both praised and condemned them. Set amid growing efforts and protests across Australia about Black Lives Matter and the meaning of commemorations, this chapter focuses on how disruptions and calls for change can result in differing outcomes. Situating our discussion in two Far-Northern Queensland regions in Australia, we consider how colonial monuments attempt to communicate a sense of place by portraying narratives of history that assert white sovereignty via the shrouding of Indigenous voices and agencies. We argue that by protesting monuments that deny Indigenous sovereignty and ensuring greater Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice and involvement in historic accounts, Indigenous peoples are reasserting their agency and reflecting a shared history based on colonial truths and pathways to meaningful conciliation.
In this article, Mocombe highlights what he calls the pathological-pathogenic purposive-rationalities (liberalism, nihilism, conservatism, postmodernism, intersectionality/identity politics, and secular humanism) that emerge out of modernity as constituted by the West under American hegemony. In the place of these pathological-pathogenic responses to the vagaries of modernity, Mocombe calls for an antihumanism, associated with what he calls libertarian communism, as a panacea to the aforementioned malaises.
Considering the colonial heritage and the other forms of domination makes it necessary to take a critical approach to the positions of authority on which scientific discourse is based. What would be the conditions for the possibility of knowledge giving access to alternative forms of knowledge and discourse about the world? Does not every approach bring its own biases in the project of universal knowledge? The reflection is based on an ethnographic survey (Wallis) and the current debate on the restitution of African museum collections by former colonial countries.
Retornar a los legados coloniales y a otras formas de dominación hace necesario un enfoque crítico de las posiciones de autoridad en las que se basa el discurso científico ¿Cuáles serían las condiciones de posibilidad de un saber que permita formas alternativas de conocimiento del mundo y de discurso sobre él? ¿No aporta cada enfoque sus propios sesgos al proyecto de un conocimiento universal? La reflexión se basa en una encuesta etnográfica (Wallis) y en el debate actual sobre la restitución por parte de los antiguos países coloniales de las colecciones africanas conservadas en sus museos.
Le retour sur les héritages coloniaux et les autres formes de domination rendent nécessaires l’approche critique des positions d’autorité fondant le discours scientifique. Quelles seraient les conditions de possibilité d’un savoir faisant droit à des formes alternatives de connaissance du monde et de discours à son sujet ? Toute approche n’apporte-t-elle pas ses biais dans le projet d’un savoir universel ? La réflexion repose sur une enquête ethnographique (Wallis) et le débat actuel sur la restitution, par les anciens pays coloniaux, des collections muséales africaines.
D’un point de vue sémiotique, l’expérience du changement soudain peut impliquer ou bien un excès de signes ou bien une absence de signes, situations qui toutes deux entraînent l’incapacité de former une représentation cohérente et qui, donc, empêchent la compréhension. L’analyse comparative d’études de cas ethnographiques et historiques de changements soudains requiert de porter attention aux contingences contextuelles, au rôle des marqueurs sémiotiques, au degré d’accroissement de la conscience et aux modes d’indirection symbolique.
What are the reasons behind the “scientific” positioning that anthropology had adopted since its origins up to a few decades ago? They were certainly cognitive reasons, but they were intertwined with political concerns, ideological frameworks and cultural references. The urge to gain academic legitimacy, reliance on “Western-centric” perspectives and the aspiration to build broad, universal knowledge all played a role. Another significant role was played by its involvement in the project and the projection of colonial supremacy. These are all implicit factors that started to take on an increasingly deliberate problematic form, and finally culminated in the “crisis of representation”, falling into the wide-open sea of post-modernism, in an effort to “give a voice” to those who, despite everything, still did not have one. The structure of anthropology, which was a Western projection and, inside the West, a projection of modernity on the domestic “pockets” of backwardness, was forced to change because it was challenged by the increasingly strong quests for pluralism and the consequent requirement to rethink its very organisation. In our essay, we present and sustain the many reasons at the basis of the actual quest for pluralism in anthropology.
European ideas about unicorns spread across the world in the colonial era. In South
Africa, hunts for that creature, and indigenous rock paintings of it, were commonplace. The aim was proof from ‘terra incognita’, often with the possibility of claiming a reward. There has, however, been little consideration of the independent, local creature onto which the unicorn was transposed. During cross-cultural engagements, foreign beliefs in the mythical unicorn and a desire for evidence of its natural history intermixed to an extraordinary degree with local beliefs in a one-horned animal. For over two centuries, colonists and researchers alike failed to realize that the local creature, by chance, resembled the European unicorn. A new synthesis of southern African ethnography, history and the writings of early travellers, missionaries and colonial politicians provides unambiguous evidence that one-horned creatures obtained in local beliefs before the arrival of colonists. Moreover, it shows that these creatures are depicted in South African rock art, and that they are a manifestation of San (Bushman) rain-animals. By ignoring relevant beliefs and images, previous scholars have failed to acknowledge that the South African unicorn was, apart from its four legs and single horn, a creature wholly different from the European one.
In this article, we put forth the argument that globalization represents a Durkheimian mechanicalization of the world via the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism under American hegemony. The latter (America), we conclude, serves as an imperial agent, an empire, seeking to interpellate and embourgeois the masses or multitudes to the juridical framework of the Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, and in the age of capitalist globalization and climate change this is done within the dialectical processes of two forms of fascism or system and social integration: right-wing neoliberalism and identity politics masquerading as cosmopolitanism. Identity constitution within such a society leads to representation without difference of purposive-rationality as all social actors are interpellated and embourgeoised to fulfill their economic role in the social structure with representation, without difference, as the means of generating surplus-value for global capital.
Charles Darwin’s two great books of 1859 and 1871 are inseparably linked to the knowledge and mastery of the world by a few select European countries or countries formed by European descendants. That knowledge was, however, conditioned by contradictory problems and points of view, those of the time. The resolution of the question of slavery and the reinforcement of domination over the so-called aborigines, for example, were the obvious result of colonial expansion throughout the world. In one way or another, the concepts of species, subspecies or race were imbued with the ideas of progress and social hierarchy that the available information about the world seemed to confirm. Darwin was by no means oblivious to these questions, sometimes out of moral imperative and sometimes because of his discipline. Without ever betraying his task as a naturalist, his major works reflect the views and concerns of the science and culture of the Victorian generations.
This article examines the identities and mentalités of British sailors that took part in the ‘scientific' voyages of the Royal Navy between 1764 and 1803. The ‘scientific' voyages were a distinct type of late-eighteenth-century naval activity, and this article explores the ways in which the unique socio-cultural experiences of these voyages altered the identities and mentalités of British sailors. In the eighteenth century, sailors travelled almost everywhere in the known world, but not everywhere were their experiences, identities and mentalités the same. Therefore, although this article recognizes that a sailor's rank was a major cause of variation, by incorporating all members of the professional community on board a ship within its definition of ‘sailors', it explores the intersection between general factors - such as rank or social background - and the specific circumstances and experiences of this type of voyage. Fundamentally, it contributes an additional layer of complexity to the current views of naval sailors as a more homogenous entity, by instead demonstrating how the identities and mentalités of a number of sailors, particularly their understandings of status, race, and class, were discernibly influenced, if somewhat temporarily, by their unique socio-cultural experiences of encounter during the ‘scientific’ voyages.
In Bezug auf die Postmoderne als einer weitreichenden Denkbewegung westlicher Provenienz, mit Auswirkungen auf die Felder Politik, Philosophie und Ästhetik/Kunst, herrscht verbreitet Unklarheit über die Verflechtungen mit dem Poststrukturalismus, der Dekonstruktion und der Posthistoire. Es kann im Rahmen dieser Einführung nicht darum gehen, umfassende und in sich durchaus heterogene Konzepte herzuleiten, sondern es soll versucht werden, deren Verbindungen und ‚Interrelationen‘ aufzuzeigen.
Recent scholarship on the Spanish invasion of the New World has brought under scrutiny the historiographic theme of apotheosis—the notion that Indigenous peoples regarded the invaders as gods or godlike beings and that such beliefs influenced their responses. This article examines the question by focusing on Pedro de Alvarado, a leading member of Hernán Cortés’s contingent, who was known as Tonatiuh—a Nahuatl word that designated the sun, the day, and the sun god. Indigenous peoples in Mexico and Guatemala used the name during the invasion, and Nahua, K’iche’, and Kaqchikel authors employed it frequently in later writings that variously hinted at, endorsed, or questioned Alvarado’s associations with the sun god. Rather than an imposition resulting from Spanish teachings, the association of Alvarado with the sun god derived from Mesoamerican beliefs about the rise and fall of successive eras, which provided Indigenous paradigms to explain the Spanish invasion.
This article traces parallels between James Cook’s 1768 Endeavour voyage to measure the transit of Venus and current initiatives searching for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). While separated by vast time and space, both are united in their appeal to celestial frontier science in the service of all humanity, and contain discrepancies between their ethical protocols and probable outcomes. Past, present, and future colonial projects are interwoven by drawing on Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “time-knot,” Star Trek’s “prime directive,” and firsthand experience in SETI’s Indigenous studies working group. This analysis cautions against the current trend toward unabated interstellar imperialism and suggests alternative approaches for engaging outer spaces and beings through celestial wayfinding.
සංස්කෘතික මානවවිද්යාවේ මූලික පරමාර්ථය වන්නේ සුවිශේෂී සංස්කෘතික පද්ධතීන් සහ මානව හැසිරීම අතර පවතින සම්බන්ධතාව ගවේෂණය කරීම ය. ඒ සඳහා සංස්කෘතික සුවිශේෂී න්යාය වින්යාසයක් භාවිත නොකොට, පොදු න්යායාත්මක මූලධර්ම භාවිත කිරීම ගැට`ඵ සහගත ය. එ බැවින්, මෙම විමර්ශිත ලිපියෙහි ප්රධාන අවධානයක් යොමු වන්නේ සංස්කෘතික මානව විද්යාව, පුද්ගල චර්යාවන්හි සංස්කෘතික සුවිශේෂීතාව අධ්යයනය කිරීම සම්බන්ධයෙන් දායක වන ආකාරය පැහැදිලි කිරීමත්, ශ්රී ලංකා සමාජය තුළ සංස්කෘතික මානව විද්යා සම්ප්රදායක් ගොඩ නැගීමෙහි දී ඥානමීමංසාත්මක පරාධීනතාවක් උද්ගත වීම කෙරෙහි බලපෑ හේතු සාධක පැහැදිලි කිරීමත් සම්බන්ධයෙන් ය. එහි දී ගෝලීය වශයෙන් විවිධ සංස්කෘතික කලාප පාදක කොටගෙන බිහි කරගන්නා ලද සංස්කෘතික මානව විද්යා සම්ප්රදායන් කිහිපයකට අයත් අධ්යයන ශ්රී ලංකාවේ මානව විද්යාත්මක අධ්යයන සමග සංසන්දනය කිරීමෙන්, ශ්රී ලංකාවේ මානව විද්යා සම්ප්රදායක් ගොඩ නගා ගැනීම ගැට`ඵකාරී තත්ත්වයකට පත් වූ බව පෙන්වා දෙනු ලැබේ. ඉන්දියානු මානව විද්යා අධ්යයන, දකුණු අප්රිකානු සහ අග්නිදිග ආසියාතික සමාජයන් ආශ්රිතව ගොඩ නැගුණු සංස්කෘතික මානව විද්යාවන්හි දේශීය සම්ප්රදායක් බිහි කර ගැනීමට හැකි වුවත්, ශ්රී ලංකාවේ මානව විද්යාඥයන්ගේ අධ්යයනයන්හි පවතින ඥානමීමංසාත්මක යුරෝ කේන්ද්රීයතාව හේතුවෙන්, දේශීය මානව විද්යා අධ්යයන සම්ප්රදායක් බිහි කර ගැනීමට නො හැකි වූ බව මෙම විමර්ශිත ලිපියෙහි දී තර්ක කරනු ලැබේ.
In seeking to understand the deep past, the knowledges of First Nations peoples and of the various academic disciplines can seem incommensurable. In this essay, we argue the concept of “historicities”, that is, the encultured ways of narrating and conceiving of the past offers to enrich the study of deep history. Sensitivity to the various ways the past is remembered and understood, as well as the ways in which these historicities are dialogically and relationally constructed, offers ways of bringing distinct accounts of the deep past into conversation. Through closely reading various narrations of deep histories of the Tiwi Islands, we suggest ways in which historicities might be understood as coexisting and in relation, without reducing their accounts to a single universalizable story of the past or hierarchy of knowledges. This special issue further explores decolonizing challenges to ways of knowing the deep past from a range of disciplinary perspectives.
Bodies of the Weak tells the intimate history of the encounter between British collectors, indigenous bodies, and the people to whom they belonged in the British World between 1780 and 1880. It traces the movement of indigenous bodies as scientific objects across the globe. A reconstruction of their histories within the decentralized framework of their circulation, rather than the centralized framework of their accumulation in Europe’s museums, reveals that these indigenous remains embodied several worlds simultaneously. The fragmentation of these indigenous bodies, the circulation of their parts and their transformation into the raw materials of European classifications, I suggest, do not only reflect difference, but also reveal what is shared in the history of colonial entanglement. Examining accession records, letter books, museum catalogues, and travel narratives, I trace how British collecting of indigenous bodies emerges as a constitutive, though at times silenced, element in the history of British colonialism in the nineteenth century. The extension and extent of British power depended on the ability of collectors to mobilize and reassemble the remains of the indigenous dead. Nevertheless, the acquisition and circulation of indigenous remains only rarely make it into the historiography of empire. In the nineteenth century, empirical evidence that indigenous peoples were rapidly vanishing from the face of the globe quickly became widespread and invigorated attempts to collect and record their passing. Observers soon understood that these were the bodies of the weak. The remains of the indigenous dead became “contact bodies,” objects around which collectors and indigenous men, women and children formed unsettled relationships and articulated unsettling meanings. The act of collecting was thus not only accumulative but also transgressive. Seen through the eyes of collectors of the indigenous dead and their indigenous interlocutors, the regime of classification British collectors carried with them on board Her Majesty’s men of war, survey vessels and steam ships appears not so much as a paragon of Britain’s hegemony in the world, but rather, and more importantly, as a testimony to the unsettled nature of the social categories upon which her power depended. Collectors of indigenous remains, rambling, ransacking and rummaging through human debris in search of the raw materials from which to construct elaborate natural classifications, ended up confusing the very boundaries they were trying to delineate. In the space between British dominance and open indigenous resistance, alternative forms of power and appropriation developed. Borrowing, confiscating, purchasing, stealing, conquering, bone collectors found that easy oppositions between “colonizer” and “colonized,” “powerful” and “powerless,” could not survive in the nineteenth-century drive to acquire indigenous body parts. Indigenous men, women and children did not surrender the remains of their loved ones without a fight. Nor did they blindly collaborate with European collectors. They often withheld crucial information, showed indifference to the objects for which British collectors were risking their lives, and ridiculed these visitors and their curious obsession with the remains of the indigenous dead. The bodies of the weak presented indigenous men and women with exceptional as well as everyday opportunities to challenge the social categories they were meant to embody, to resist the extension of British power and influence, and to articulate alternative meanings of these remains.
A notícia do falecimento de Marshall Sahlins, aos 90 anos de idade (27/12/1930-05/04/2021), vem acompanhada de grande pesar e do inevitável reconhecimento de seu legado à antropologia, a ponto de não soar estranho alçá-lo ao status de clássico da disciplina. Antropólogo estadunidense, Sahlins deixou profundas influências na antropologia cultural da segunda metade do século XX até a contemporaneidade com obra marcada pelo senso de humor, às vezes ácido, e por um pensamento inquieto, provocador e sempre aberto a embates e mudanças.
No presente artigo serão apresentadas algumas ponderações para a justa medida entre o direito e liberdade, de modo a preservar o direito das pessoas e os limites de sua ação, sem desrespeitar, no entanto, o clamor social que define seus limites, bem como serão trazidos os institutos do constitucionalismo e Neoconstitucionalismo, os desdobramentos do ativismo judicial e suas implicações na segurança jurídica.
The Romantic Period in England can be considered as indicative of 'an age of crises' because the era witnessed several political affairs, ideologies and strategies such as slaver trade, colonialism, American and French Revolutions. These political and social changes all signalled 'chaos' which would dominate European political, cultural, and literary life for the next quarter of a century. Therefore, it was inevitable that Romantic writers were influenced by the political and social events in Europe. They were considerably aware of British expansionism. It would not be incorrect to claim that there is a direct correlation between socio-political revolution and the literary revolution in Britain. No matter what their ideological stance was, some Romantic poets of the era, like S. T. Coleridge, William Cowper, William Blake and Robert Southey, reflected their observations of the colonialist activities in their works. Some other poets of the era, however, like Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, tried to especially avoid subjects concerning European colonialism in their writings. They were concerned with escape from day-today reality, with images and narratives remarkable for their historical or geographical exoticism. This paper will analyse these two reactions of the English Romantic poets; those who directly dealt with colonialism and those who principally presented orientalist and exotic elements in their poems.
This essay serves as an introduction to the articles in this special issue, Stranger Races, dealing with how indigenous peoples use the white Other in constructing their identity. I review key issues in anthropological debates over alterity and relations between former colonisers and indigenous peoples. Addressing the hegemony and power related to constructed identities in postcolonial settings, I highlight the ambivalence in alterity. While negative and ethnocentric evaluations of others are commonly associated with the power of the colonial gaze, there is also agency in the mimesis and exoticism by which indigenous peoples co-opt cultural elements of the former coloniser. Given the ambivalent views of foreign peoples that are marshalled in the interest of local cultural values, popular and academic conceptions of ethnocentrism should be reconsidered. Despite the rise of xenophobia in western politics and the dominance of research on racism, sexism, and economic inequalities within ‘dark anthropology’, this volume suggests that the ethnographic record presents a range of relationships between peoples. In the spirit of Boas, the discipline can use these findings to remind people of the creativity and spectrum of responses to culture contact in the midst of otherwise dark times.
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