Against Exoticism

Bruce Kapferer is Director of an ERC Advanced Grant on Egalitarianism at the University of Bergen. He was the Foundation Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Adelaide and later James Cook University. He was the Professor and Chair of Anthropology at University College London, where he is now also Honorary Professor. Dimitrios Theodossopoulos is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Kent. He has conducted research in Panama and Greece, focusing on processes of resistance, exoticisation, authenticity, tourism, environmentalism, and the politics of cultural representation and protest.

“This book demonstrates the urgent need for a scholarly discourse on methodological concerns with intellectual representations of minorities and subaltern groups. It echoes postcolonial critiques of representation, challenges the ‘transparency by denegations’ of intellectuals and undoes the ‘epistemic violence’… By unraveling these realities, the book contributes a meaningful analysis of deep-seated social values and heterogeneous norms for advancing the discipline of anthropology.” • Anthro Book Forum

• Introduction: Against ExoticismBruce Kapferer and Dimitrios TheodossopoulosChapter 1. On Ethnographic Nostalgia: Exoticizing and De-exoticizing the Embera, for ExampleDimitrios TheodossopoulosChapter 2. Between Triste Tropique and Cultural Creativity: Modern Times and the Vanishing PrimitivePnina WerbnerChapter 3. The Exotic Albatross: Exotic Indians, Exotic TheoryStephen NugentChapter 4. Living the Li(f)e: Negotiating Paradise in Southern Sri LankaMaurice SaidChapter 5. Bahia of All Saints, Enchantments and Dreams: Female Tourists, Capoeira Practitioners, and The ExoticTheodora LefkaditouChapter 6. From Primitive to Culturally Distinct: Patachitra Art and Self-Exoticization in West BengalUrmi BhattacharyyaAfterwordBruce Kapferer and Dimitrios TheodossopoulosIndex