Participant Observers : Anthropology, Colonial Development, and the Reinvention of Society in Britain

Social anthropology was at the forefront of debates about culture, society, and economic development in the British Empire. This book explores the discipline's rise in the interwar period, crisis amid decolonization, and ironic reemergence in the postwar metropole. Across the humanities and social sciences, activists and scholars used anthropological concepts forged in empire to rethink British society at midcentury. Participant Observers shows how colonial anthropology helped define the social imagination of postimperial Britain. Part institutional history of the discipline's formation, part cultural history of its impact, this is the first account of social anthropology's pivotal role in Britain's intellectual culture. "By the 1950s, social anthropologists were at the forefront of debates about culture, society, and the limits to economic development in Britain and the British Empire. This book explains how anthropology rose to such prominence and how its influence dispersed across the humanities and social sciences. Part institutional history of social anthropology's imperial formation, part cultural history of the discipline's impact, this is the first account of social anthropology's pivotal role in Britain's midcentury intellectual culture"-- Provided by publisher Contents Map Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1 Islands and Institutions Chapter 2 Philanthropists and Imperialists Chapter 3 Pencils, Schemes and Letters Chapter 4 Popularising the Field Chapter 5 From Kinship Studies to Community Studies Chapter 6 The Development Decades Chapter 7 From Development Economics to the ‘Moral Economy’ Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index