COLONIALISM - ANTHROPOLOGY AND CRITICISM

This article uses a reading of Collingwood's concept of a logic of 'qu estion and answer' to reflect upon Talal Asad's challenge to anthropol ogy that it should alter the ways in which has been thinking about the problem of colonialism. Essentially Asad urged a shift in preoccupati ons, from writing histories of colonial anthropology to writing anthro pologies of Western hegemony (or what will be called, historical anthr opologies of the postcolonial present). In particular the article spel ls out something of the discursive context or conceptual-political pro blem-space in which Asad's challenge ought to be understood - the cont ext of the collapse of the nationalist/liberationist project of Third World sovereignties (the Bandung project) and the singular importance of a more systematic understanding of the forms of modern power that h ave made our present what it is. The concept of an historical anthropo logy of the postcolonial present is illustrated with some remarks on t he problem of understanding postemancipation history in the Caribbean.