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Settler colonialism, George Grey and the politics of ethnography
This article suggests that the spaces of British settler colonialism and metropolitan science were interconnected, underexamined, grounds upon which both ethnography and colonial governance developed. Focusing on the governmental and ethnographic activities of Sir George Grey during the mid-19th century it argues that the origins of ethnography and the specifically humanitarian governance of spaces invaded by settlers were co-constituted. Although anthropologists have long recognised the complicity of ethnography in modern colonialism, the relationship runs far deeper and extends far more broadly, than has been appreciated in even the most incisive critiques. That relationship was also located in violent settler colonial spaces that have been relatively neglected in the anthropological historiography. The article concludes that Grey's governmental practices, and his representations of them, established the terms upon which cultural genocide, with its logic of elimination, could be posited as a humane alternative to racial extermination. It shows that Grey's promotion of amalgamation, articulated as a preferably cultural and social extinction over a physical one, went on to influence the highest levels of colonial administration. On behalf of the British Empire as a whole, Grey thus helped to reconcile settler colonialism with humanitarian governance.
History
Publication status
- Published
File Version
- Accepted version
Journal
Environment and Planning D: Society and SpaceISSN
0263-7758Publisher
PionExternal DOI
Issue
3Volume
34Page range
492-507Department affiliated with
- Geography Publications
Full text available
- Yes
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2015-10-20First Open Access (FOA) Date
2016-04-19First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date
2015-10-20Usage metrics
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