Who ’s the author? (conference abstract)

[Andrea Acri]

Dear list members,

while searching my hard disk I came across an interesting abstract (see below), whose text I recall to have copied from a webpage and pasted into a document containing various random notes, unfortunately without including the name of its author (mea maxima culpa!). As far as I can remember, the paper in question was presented in a recent (Indological) conference or workshop (probably held no more than 2 or 3 years ago). As the last paragraph suggests, the workshop might have been held in France (or, rather, the author himself/herself might be French).

I have tried to google several of the keywords occurring in the abstract, and even entire sentences, but nothing relevant has turned up. Any hints about the identity of the author of the abstract in question, and of the related academic event, would be much appreciated.

Best,

Andrea Acri


ABSTRACT:

Before 1950, anthropology in India was busy with describing the "customs" of social groups whose delimitation was construed as self-evident -a quasi "tribe" approach. There was little need to confront data with Indology, and these disciplines developed with only limited interaction. And there still are anthropologists who deny all relevance to Sanskrit scholarship in the understanding of contemporary Indian society. A contrary claim by some Indologists suggests that only texts can lead to an understanding of true India.
Nonetheless, a radical change occurred in the 50s. Village Studies and structuralism made necessary for at least some scholars in anthropology and Indology to explicitly come to terms together. Anthropologists, in particular, could no more ignore that Indian society and its intellectual production were in close interaction: how to make sense together of empirical findings and indigenous theories? Louis Dumont and David Pocock tried to find a synthesis, starting heated debates for years to come; till now, the French academic milieu is marked by this heritage, even in institutional terms. Another rival theory was developed by Chicago-based McKim Marriott in the 1980s, under the name of (Indian) "ethnosociology": here, too, Indology was asked to provide crucial keys for the understanding of ethnographic data.

Today, these theories have receded in the background. But the difficulty remains very much the same: anthropologists just cannot ignore the enormous wealth of Indian literatures. How, then, to relate to Indology? The presentation will build on the experience of collaboration between anthropologists and Indologists in France during the past 15 years, in order to suggest a possible way to work together.


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