Page 109 - Prathima Volume 12

A Review of Postcolonial Scholarship: Conducting Research on Culture and Society
humanity, culture, society, women, religion, history, language, and literature
according to the major critiques offered by postcolonial theorists. In order to overcome
these critiques and to study society and culture less colonially, contemporary
anthropologists and social theorists should consider the need for an epistemological
divergence from their earlier descriptions of the world and its cultures. But at the same
time, Anthropologists need a different epistemological convergence. One achievable,
perhaps, is amalgamating diverse forms of knowledge – such as those derived from (or
revealed by) postcolonial scholarship: indigenous epistemological critiques of
colonialism, the thoughts of the Dalit movement, feminist scholarship, decolonizing
anthropology, Black feminist thought, and critiques of global capitalism (Abu-
Lughold, 2002; Cesaire, 2013; Appadurai, 1996, 1990; Di Leonardo,1991; Du Bois,
2013; Fanon, 2013; Foucault, 1979; Harrison, 2012, 1991; Hill Collins, 2000; Said,
2013, 1978; Silverstein and Ellen, 2016; and Trouillot, 2003). In any case, the
opportunity to do the above has been accorded to anthropology by postcolonial
theorists focusing on understanding the politics of knowledge produced through the
colonial discourse that were used to subjugate non-European people and their cultures
by means of Western cultural knowledge forms and power.

2. Methodology

This paper uses qualitative data from secondary sources and primary data gathered
during fieldwork in Jaffna, India, and Rome. I have used postcolonial literature and
postmodern literature to complete this paper. In particular, I have used literature on
decolonizing anthropology and feminist anthropology.

3. Objectives of the Study

The major objective of the study is to examine the significance of postcolonial
scholarship to anthropological research and writings. This paper will also identify key
issues in existing anthropological and social science literature by using postcolonial
scholarship to evaluate it. Another objective of this paper is to ask how postcolonial
scholarship reinvents the theories and methods used in conducting research on culture
and society.

4. Results and Analysis

Results are discussed in four different sections in this paper. First, I will briefly discuss
critiques of functionalism and structural-functionalism in anthropology. Second, I will
demonstrate the problem of representation in anthropology. Third, I will emphasize
the importance of the postmodern moment/turn in anthropology, which enabled
anthropologists to revise their application of theories and methods in anthropological
research. And, fourth, I will discuss the revised research methods in anthropology.

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