Title Living in the Stone Age : reflections on the origins of a colonial fantasy / Danilyn Rutherford

Published Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018

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Description 1 online resource Contents Introduction: living in the Stone Age -- Part I: Sympathy and its discontents: a colonial encounter. Hospitality in the highlands ; Sympathetic state-building -- Part 2: Vulnerability and fantasies of mastery. Technological passions ; Technological performances -- Part 3: Lessons for a new anthropology. Sympathy and the savage slot ; The ethics of kinky empiricism Summary In 1961, John F. Kennedy referred to the Papuans as "living, as it were, in the Stone Age." For the most part, politicians and scholars have since learned not to call people "primitive," but when it comes to the Papuans, the Stone-Age stain persists and for decades has been used to justify denying their basic rights. Why has this fantasy held such a tight grip on the imagination of journalists, policy-makers, and the public at large? Living in the Stone Age answers this question by following the adventures of officials sent to the New Guinea highlands in the 1930s to establish a foothold for Dutch colonialism. These officials became deeply dependent on the good graces of their would-be Papuan subjects, who were their hosts, guides, and, in some cases, friends. Danilyn Rutherford shows how, to preserve their sense of racial superiority, these officials imagined that they were traveling in the Stone Age--a parallel reality where their own impotence was a reasonable response to otherworldly conditions rather than a sign of ignorance or weakness. Thus, Rutherford shows, was born a colonialist ideology. Living in the Stone Age is a call to write the history of colonialism differently, as a tale of weakness not strength. It will change the way readers think about cultural contact, colonial fantasies of domination, and the role of anthropology in the postcolonial world Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Papuans -- Public opinion Dutch -- Indonesia -- Attitudes Papuans -- Indonesia -- Papua Barat -- Attitudes Stereotypes (Social psychology) -- Indonesia -- Papua Barat Dutch -- Colonization -- Indonesia -- Papua Barat Anthropology -- Methodology. HISTORY -- Oceania. Anthropology -- Methodology Colonization Dutch -- Attitudes Ethnic relations Netherlandish colonies Stereotypes (Social psychology) SUBJECT Papua Barat (Indonesia) -- Ethnic relations Papua (Indonesia) -- History -- 20th century Papua Barat (Indonesia) -- Colonization Netherlands -- Colonies -- Asia Netherlands -- Colonies. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2009008118 Subject Asia Indonesia Indonesia -- Papua Indonesia -- Papua Barat Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780226570389 022657038X

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