The Invention of Invention

Desai, Gaurav

doi:10.2307/1354131

Cited by 9 publications

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“…Although these lines of reasoning do not necessarily explicitly mention the concept “invention,” they reflect the idea implied in the concept. It points to the “power of the agent of invention” (Desai, 1993: 121) and neglects the historicity of ethnic categories and the complexity of the interpretative process (involving, e.g. also the social actors being subjects to these inventions) (Spear, 2003: 4).…”

Section: How Is Ethnicity (To Be) Approached?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How is ethnicity experienced? Essentialist and constructivist notions of ethnicity in Rwanda and Burundi

Schraml

2014

Ethnicities

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This article argues that the mainstream (constructivist) theorizing about ethnicity should be expanded in order to take essentialist aspects that are present in the notions of ''potential ethnics'' into account. By focusing on the notions of ''potential ethnics'', that is, in this case Rwandans and Burundians, one avoids the oversimplification that still persists in the debate about essentialist and constructivist approaches to ethnicity. Qualitative interviews conducted between September 2007 and May 2008 show that Rwandans and Burundians do not conceive of ethnic categories as either constructivist or essentialist, but that constructivist and essentialist notions exist next to each other and are strongly intertwined in the different lines of reasoning. These findings support arguments criticizing the dominant constructivist theories (about being Hutu and Tutsi) as being unable to capture the complexity of ethnic realities.

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Section: How Is Ethnicity (To Be) Approached?mentioning

confidence: 99%

How is ethnicity experienced? Essentialist and constructivist notions of ethnicity in Rwanda and Burundi

Schraml

2014

Ethnicities

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“…Yet despite many devastating critiques, the force field of this “invention tradition” (Desai 1993) has proven impossible to escape. By now, the claims of postcolonialist history seem so obvious, so deeply rooted in the historians' “unconscious” (Lazarus 2011), that even critics do not question them.…”

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confidence: 99%

The “Criminal Tribe” in India before the British

Piliavsky¹

2015

Comp Stud Soc Hist

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This paper challenges the broad consensus in current historiography that holds the Indian stereotype of criminal tribe to be a myth of colonial making. Drawing on a selection of precolonial descriptions of robber castes—ancient legal texts and folktales; Jain, Buddhist and Brahmanic narratives; Mughal sources; and Early Modern European travel accounts—I show that the idea of castes of congenital robbers was not a British import, but instead a label of much older vintage on the subcontinent. Enjoying pride of place in the postcolonial critics' pageant of “colonial stereotypes,” the case of criminal tribes is representative and it bears on broader questions about colonial knowledge and its relation to power. The study contributes to the literature that challenges the still widespread tendency to view colonial social categories, and indeed the bulk of colonial knowledge, as the imaginative residue of imperial politics. I argue that while colonialusesof the idea of a criminal tribe comprises a lurid history of violence against communities branded as born criminals in British law, the stereotype itself has indigenous roots. The case is representative and it bears on larger problems of method and analysis in “post-Orientalist” historiography.

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Refusing to Vanish: Despair, Contingency, and the African Political

Karina

2024

Africa Beyond Inventions

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The Invention of Invention

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

How is ethnicity experienced? Essentialist and constructivist notions of ethnicity in Rwanda and Burundi

How is ethnicity experienced? Essentialist and constructivist notions of ethnicity in Rwanda and Burundi

The “Criminal Tribe” in India before the British

Refusing to Vanish: Despair, Contingency, and the African Political

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