Description
| Product ID: | 9781316512395 |
| Product Form: | Hardback |
| Country of Manufacture: | GB |
| Series: | South Asia in the Social Sciences |
| Title: | Bureaucratic Archaeology |
| Subtitle: | State, Science, and Past in Postcolonial India |
| Authors: | Author: Ashish Avikunthak |
| Page Count: | 358 |
| Subjects: | General and world history, General & world history, Sociology and anthropology, Anthropology, Politics and government, Central / national / federal government policies, Sociology & anthropology, Anthropology, Politics & government, Central government policies, Asia, Indian sub-continent, India |
| Description: | Select Guide Rating This book uncovers an endemic link between micro-practice of archaeology in the trenches of Archaeological Survey of India to the manufacture of archaeological knowledge wielded in the making of political and religious identity by Indian state and summoned as indelible evidence in the juridical adjudication in the highest Indian courts. Bureaucratic Archaeology is a multi-faceted ethnography of quotidian practices of archaeology, bureaucracy and science in postcolonial India, concentrating on the workings of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). This book uncovers an endemic link between micro-practice of archaeology in the trenches of the ASI to the manufacture of archaeological knowledge, wielded in the making of political and religious identity and summoned as indelible evidence in the juridical adjudication in the highest courts of India. This book is a rare ethnography of the daily practice of a postcolonial bureaucracy from within rather than from the outside. It meticulously uncovers the social, cultural, political and epistemological ecology of ASI archaeologists to show how postcolonial state assembles and produces knowledge. This is the first book length monograph on the workings of archaeology in a non-western world, which meticulously shows how theory of archaeological practice deviates, transforms and generates knowledge outside the Euro-American epistemological tradition. |
| Imprint Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Publisher Name: | Cambridge University Press |
| Country of Publication: | GB |
| Publishing Date: | 2022-02-03 |
