Introduction Text and Context: Anthropology and Settler Colonialism -- White Man's Flour: Virgin Birth in Anthropology and in Australian Settler Discourse -- Science, Colonialism and Anthropology: the Logic of a Global Transformation -- Mother-Right: Sex and Property in Victorian Anthropology -- Totemism Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Victorian Anthropology's Eternal Dichotomy -- Survival in a Paradigm Shift: E.B. Tylor and the Problem of the Text -- Repressive Authenticity
Summary
This work analyzes the politics of anthropological knowledge from critical perspective that alters existing understandings of colonialism. At the same time, it produces insights into the history of anthropology. Organized around an historical reconstruction of the great anthropological controversy over doctrines of virgin birth, the book argues that the allegation a great deal about European colonial discourse and little if anything about indigenous beliefs. By means of an Australian example, the book shows not only that the alleged ignorance was an artefact of the anthropological theory that
