Page 108 - Prathima Volume 12

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anthropologists have encountered in their ethnographic observations and writings.
First, I would pose the question of why anthropologists and social theorists consider
postcolonial scholarship an important entry in their works. The answer would be that
they have identified a number of issues regarding representations, reflexivity, power,
ethnocentrism, Western imperialism, hegemonic epistemology, divisions (Orient and
Occident), and many other attributes in the existing literatures (Cesaire, 2013; Fanon,
2013; Foucault, 1979; Harrison, 2012, 1991; Abu-Lughold, 2002; Hill Collins, 2000;
Marcus and Fisher, 2013, 1999; Appadurai, 1996, 1990; Said, 1978).

Postcolonial scholarship has been a concern of anthropology since the late 1960s, and
has been a central concern since the 1990s. Yet, being like anthropologists of
yesteryear is not applicable anymore. Hence, contemporary anthropologists, of
course, need a fresh look with postcolonial scholarship to play a positive role in the
dismantling of historically generated and geographically bounded divisions (e.g.
colonized world and colonizer; West and East). Specifically, postcolonial scholarship
reinvents theories and methods through which culture and society were being viewed
and depicted not only during the colonial era, but also later in the social sciences. Here,
I mention the social sciences as such because postcolonial theorists have been trying to
criticize the social sciences as forms of disciplinary power that has intellectually
controlled and conquered the third world nations. For instance, many people have
popularly said that “anthropology is the handmaiden of colonialism” because it
emerged out of colonial ethnography, and the early anthropologists and ethnographers'
ultimate goal has been justifying the superiority of western European civilization by
studying (and, by doing so, producing in a sense) "primitive" people. Also, as
anthropology emerged as a somewhat objective science, colonialism required a
justification for the savagery that was being imposed on non-Europeans. For instance,
postcolonial scholars realized that cultural evolutionary theories (unilineal
evolutionism), anthropometry, and other forms of scientific racism were “normative”
and “essentializing” frameworks for the colonial study of colonized culture and
society.

These constructions were the basis of what was eventually known as anthropology,
and postcolonial scholars, often anthropologists themselves (e.g., Talal Asad)
criticized what and how anthropology dealt with humans and human culture. In
particular, such scholars argued that anthropology was also a form of power
(disciplinary power), and, as such, questioned how anthropologists could use it to
judge people, culture, and society. This would be a good question to begin the
discussion of this paper. Also, I argue that not only anthropology, but history, political
science, linguistics, philosophy, and geography also circulate ideologies, practices,
discourses, methods, and knowledge as part of a neocolonial project. We, however,
cannot simply blame anthropology alone because, colonialism has projected itself into

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