Tug-of-War
Bones and Stones as Scientific Objects in Postcolonial Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4964438 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paige Madison (0000-0002-2361-2961, North Carolina State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 114 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 77-98 |
| Publication date | 2023-03-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Isis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/723725 |
| OpenAlex | W4321507524 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 32 |
This essay examines a controversy that erupted in 2004 over the bones of a human relative discovered in Indonesia, proclaimed to be a new species named Homo floresiensis. It argues that the controversy comprised two intertwined struggles with roots in Indonesia’s colonial history. Indonesia’s transition to an independent country, it contends, gave rise to a particular set of cultural values, scientific practices, and theories that resulted in scientific objects becoming tied to national identity in ways that shaped the debates. Highlighting the imbalances that can occur in cross-cultural negotiations over the study of human relatives, this essay reveals that the circulation of scientific objects is not a simple process. By focusing on how anthropological objects moved—and the claims of ownership and access embedded in those movements—it illustrates the role of local circumstances in shaping that knowledge as it contributes to increasingly global science
Aesthetics · Colonialism · Epistemology · Identity (music · Negotiation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, Genetics, and Society
An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa
Science in Cultural Borderlands
A History of Modern Indonesia
Racial Science and Human Diversity in Colonial Indonesia
Southeast Asian Studies
Data in Antarctic Science and Politics
Plants and Empire
Archaeological Research in Indonesia
Decent colonialism? Pure science and colonial ideology in the Netherlands East Indies, 1910–1929
Anthropology in Indonesia
Postcolonial partnerships
Five years of Homo floresiensis
Palaeoanthropological discoveries in Indonesia with special reference to the finds of the last two decades
Flores after floresiensis
The life and times of Ralph von Koenigswald
Locality in the History of Science
Knowledge in Transit
Strange alliance
The Fossil Trade
Scientific Patriotism
| Highly cited | No |
|---|