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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Ashish Avikunthak, "Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Description: Bureaucratic Archaeology: State, Science and Past in Postcolonial India (Cambridge UP, 2022) presents a novel ethnographic examination of archaeological practice within postcolonial India, focusing on the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) as a site where scientific knowledge production intersects with state bureaucracy. Through granular analysis of ASI's quotidian operations, this monograph demonstrates how archaeological micro-practices materially influence the construction of political and religious identities, while simultaneously serving as empirical evidence in India's highest judicial proceedings.This unprecedented study illuminates the epistemological ecology of postcolonial knowledge production from within the bureaucratic apparatus itself. As the first book-length investigation of a...