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SUMMARY:Imperial empiricism and the decline of the Raj: Caste\, religion a
 nd official anthropology in the early twentieth century - Professor Chris 
 Fuller\, London School of Economics
DTSTART:20150114T170000Z
DTEND:20150114T180000Z
UID:TALK56830@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Barbara Roe
DESCRIPTION:The scholarship on colonial anthropological knowledge and its 
 preoccupation with caste is mainly focused on the late nineteenth century\
 , ending with the 1901 census.  In later years\, official interest in coll
 ecting data about caste and also religion declined\, partly in reaction to
  their politicisation.  Because castes and religious communities were seen
  as ‘things’ that could be classified and counted\, colonial anthropol
 ogy was thoroughly empiricist.  In the early twentieth century\, however t
 hree official anthropologists – E. A. Gait\, E. A. H. Blunt and L. S. S.
  O’Malley – started to overcome the limitations of empiricism in the s
 tudy of caste.  Gait and Blunt also held senior positions in the governmen
 t\, but their knowledge of the social realities of caste and religion did 
 not throw much light on the political realities faced by the British\, so 
 that their anthropological expertise had little significant or consistent 
 effect on the two men’s thinking about political problems\, such as Hind
 u-Muslim conflict.  How far official anthropology helped to sustain imperi
 al power and authority\, even in the late nineteenth century\, is debatabl
 e\, but it certainly did not help much in the early twentieth\, despite th
 e intellectual progress made by Gait\, Blunt and O’Malley in understandi
 ng the caste system.
LOCATION:Seminar Room SG1\, Alison Richard Building\, 5.00 pm
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