The World Archaeological Congress in India: politicizing the past

Hassan, Fekri A.

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00082429

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Telles écoles d'archéologie historique ou d'anthropologie historique actuelles (par exemple, Ucko 1989 ;Hassan 1995Hassan , 1999Gilchrist 2005), fondent, de même d'ailleurs, l'essentiel de leur critique (autocritique? ), plutôt moralisatrice, sur le rapport socio-économique et culturel inégal entre les peuples, suscité par le développement européen (caractérisé par les mots « colonialisme », « impérialisme »), sans s'interroger sur la Constitution fondant la modernité, les sciences (dont l'anthropologie et donc l'archéologie) et les dé-veloppements qui s'ensuivirent.…”

Section: Premiers Contactsunclassified

À propos des objets et des mots de l’Anthropologie (Essai)

Marliac¹

2008

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Comment passer des concepts et des mots de la socio-anthropologie, aux notions, mots, visions, habitudes et conduites des gens observés par elle? L’anthropologie – sous la qualification qu’elle accepte sans sourciller d’être une science – ne jouit-elle pas du redoutable avantage encore reconnu, même si immérité, de dire la vérité, d’apprendre aux gens comment ils vivent et en conséquence comment se conduire? Le poids de ses produits repose en fait sur un traitement de l’information collectée similaire à celui utilisé dans les sciences dures où existent des référents, des instruments, des procédures construits et établis au fil des années par les disciplines à l’oeuvre. Or, la socio-anthropologie ne dispose d’aucun référent équivalent si ce n’est l’ensemble des théories autour desquelles se rassemblent tels ou tels groupes de chercheurs en sciences humaines, théories qui posent d’emblée l’existence d’un social (parfois un culturel), matériau qui se voudrait équivalent au naturel des sciences dures. S’il semble clair désormais que seul le dialogue réel entre toutes les connaissances s’impose aux sciences en général, il semble plus important encore que les sciences humaines apprennent à construire le social avec les connaissances des concernés et non à l’imposer à partir d’une panoplie de concepts figés, peu expérimentés. Cette imposition revèle en fait l’extension du rôle politique que la Constitution moderne donne aux sciences de la Nature, (déclarées vraies définitions de la Nature), aux sciences de l’homme et en particulier à la socio-anthropologie.How can one relates the concepts and words of Socio-Anthropology to the notions, words, visions, customs and behaviours of the people which it observes? Does not Socio-Anthropology enjoy, - under the qualification of being a science, with which it agrees without batting an eyelid, - the formidable advantage still recognized, even if unmeritted, of telling the truth, to teach people how they live and consequently how they should behave? The Socio-Anthropology’s products value rests in fact on a form of information processing similar to that used within the hard sciences where there exist reference points, toolkits, proceedings, built up and established by the practices of disciplines over the years. Socio-anthropology has no equivalent frame of reference except the set of theories on which gather such or such social scientists group. These theories pose right away the existence of a social (sometimes a cultural ) as a material would-be equating the natural of hard sciences. If it seems clear now that only real dialogue between all kinds of knowledge asserts itself upon sciences in general, it seems yet more important that social sciences learn how to build the social, making use of the knowledge of peoples concerned and that they cease to dictate it from a congealed set of concepts that have little been tested. This imposition betrays in fact the extension of the political role that the Modern Constitution allots to the natural sciences, considered as true definitions ...

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À propos des objets et des mots de l’Anthropologie (Essai)

Marliac¹

2008

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“…By ignoring caste and other contemporary social and political issues, archaeologists leave social oppositions and inequalities entirely to the mercy of politicians and politically-motivated archaeologists, who happily exploit them for their own ends. As Ayodhya so powerfully demonstrated (Colley, 1995;Hassan, 1995;Mandal, 1993;Rao, 1994Rao, , 1999Ratnagar, 2004;Shaw, 2000), it is essential that South Asian archaeology adopts a position of responsibility with respect to its role in present-day affairs in South Asia, if involvement in such affairs is to do more than reflect the interests of a minority of extremist archaeologists. It is time for all archaeologists living and working in South Asia to recognize the need for informed debate and discussion about the role of archaeology in contemporary South Asia, and the role of contemporary South Asian issues in archaeology (the beginnings of such a discourse can be found in Boivin and Fuller, 2002;Chakrabarti, 2000;Coningham and Lewer, 2000;Rao, 1994 andRatnagar, 2004, among others).…”

Section: ■ Archaeology's Contribution To the Study Of Castementioning

confidence: 99%

Orientalism, ideology and identity

Boivin¹

2005

Journal of Social Archaeology

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While many would argue that the preoccupation with caste in South Asian anthropology can be linked to an essentializing and orientalist project that has increasingly come under fire in post-colonial and subaltern studies, this article suggests that within South Asian archaeology it is, in contrast, the almost complete neglect of caste that hints at deeper problems within the discipline. After attempting to identify why caste has been largely omitted from archaeological studies in South Asia, the article goes on to explore some of the issues that archaeologists will have to consider if they are going to begin to explicitly address caste in their research, including the relationship between caste and material culture, time, place, agency and ideology. The article concludes by examining the reasons why archaeologists need to address caste, and the ways in which archaeology can contribute to a more sophisticated and nuanced understanding of caste and its development and contemporary relevance in South Asia.

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“…The second category is a growing body of literature which has filled many pages of international publications (Rao 1994;Navlakha 1994). Especially following the World Archaeology Congress (WAC) in Delhi (1994), and sub-sequently in Brae, Croatia (1998), this has been preoccupied with finding an acceptable route through the battlefield which arises as a result of the problematic, but recurrent, marriage between archaeology, folklore and politics (Kitchen 1998;Hassan 1995).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ayodhya's sacred landscape: ritual memory, politics and archaeological ‘fact’

Shaw

2000

Antiquity

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Great astonishment has been expressed at the recent vitality of the Hindu religion at Ajudhia [sic], and it was to test the extent of this chiefly that … this statement has been prepared. As the information it contains may be permanently useful, I have considered it well to give it a place here. This information is as correct as it can now be made and that is all that I can say CARNEGY(1870: appendix A)After the destruction of Ayodhya's Babri mosque in 1992 by supporters of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), the statement above seems laden with premonition of the events to come (Rao 1994). More importantly, Carnegy’s comments highlight that the mosque’s destruction was not simply the result of 20th-century politics. The events surrounding and following the outbreak of violence in 1992 have resulted in more ‘spilt ink’ than Carnegy could ever have imagined. This literature can be divided into two main categories; firstly, the initial documentation submitted to the government by a group of VHP aligned historians, which presented the ‘archaeological proof’ that the Babri mosque had occupied the site of a Hindu temple dating to the 10th and 11th century AD (VHP1990; New Delhi Historical Forum 1992). This was believed to have marked the birthplace of the Hindu god Rama (hence the name Rama Janmabhumi — literally ‘birthplace of Rama’), and been demolished at the orders of the Mughal emperor Babur during the 16th century. As a response, a second group of ‘progressive’ Indian historians began a counter-argument, based on the same ‘archaeological proof’ that no such temple had ever existed (Gopal et al. 1992; Mandal 1993). The second category is a growing body of literature which has filled many pages of international publications (Rao 1994; Navlakha 1994). Especially following the World Archaeology Congress (WAC) in Delhi (1994), and subsequently in Brač, Croatia (1998), this has been preoccupied with finding an acceptable route through the battlefield which arises as a result of the problematic, but recurrent, marriage between archaeology, folklore and politics (Kitchen 1998; Hassan 1995).

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The World Archaeological Congress in India: politicizing the past

Abstract: The wider context to events at the World Archaeological Congress — 3, held in New Delhi late 1994, that were reported in the March 1995 ANTIQUITY.

Cited by 9 publications

References 4 publications

À propos des objets et des mots de l’Anthropologie (Essai)

À propos des objets et des mots de l’Anthropologie (Essai)

Orientalism, ideology and identity

Ayodhya's sacred landscape: ritual memory, politics and archaeological ‘fact’

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