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Settler colonialism, George Grey and the politics of ethnography

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posted on 2023-06-08, 22:51 authored by Alan LesterAlan Lester
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 Space

ISSN

0263-7758

Publisher

Pion

Issue

3

Volume

34

Page range

492-507

Department affiliated with

  • Geography Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2015-10-20

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2016-04-19

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2015-10-20

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