Racializing Caste : Anthropology Between Germany and India and the Legacy of Irawati Karve (1905-1970) / Thiago P. Barbosa.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Barbosa, Thiago P., author.

Series:

Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London/ Publications of the German Historical Institute London Series

Veröffentlichungen des Deutschen Historischen Instituts London/ Publications of the German Historical Institute London Series ; v.91

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Anthropology.

Karve, Irawati Karmarkar, 1905-1970.

Karve, Irawati Karmarkar.

Genre:

Biographies

Physical Description:

1 online resource (260 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Berlin, Germany : Walter de Gruyter GmbH, [2025]

Summary:

The book analyses how racial knowledge has circulated in transnational entanglements, particularly between Germany and India, into the research on human variation in India, racializing the understanding of caste and ethnicity. It focuses on the legacy of Irawati Karve (1905-1970), a Indian anthropologist trained at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics, and Human Heredity in Berlin, Germany (1927-1930) and a prominent scientist in post-colonial India. Besides a historical analysis of Karve's adaptation of racial approaches to the study of Indian castes, the book applies material-semiotic and ethnographic lenses to examine how her work is taken up today in anthropology and population genetics. By showing how transnational and transcolonial entanglements in race science shape knowledge on human diversity in India, the book offers novel insights to discussions in anthropology, STS, and global history, including the racialization of difference, colonial legacies, and post-colonial sovereignty in science. It contributes to a better understanding of the co-constitution of politics and sciences of human diversity and it argues for a closer attention to inequalities as a way to de-link from the legacies of scientific racism.

Contents:

Intro

Table of Contents

Prologue

1 Researching the Racialization of Caste

2 Karve's Physical and Biological Anthropology between Berlin and Pune

3 Remembering Karve: Memory Politics and Anthropology at the Crossroads of Caste and Anti-Casteism

4 Enacting Anthropometric Differences and the Awkward Presence of Race in Indian Anthropology

5 Molecularizing Caste and Ancestry: Aryan Migration Theories and Genetics

6 Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

List of Figures

List of Interviews

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9783111546032

3111546039