East Indies/West Indies: Comparative Archipelagoes

Abstract

A series of debates in anthropology and other disciplines since the 1980s has raised questions of area studies, comparison, and ‘the field’ in relation to the production of ethnographic knowledge. In search of a concrete framework within which to extend these debates, participants in this special issue of Anthropological Forum bring together research on Southeast Asia and the Caribbean: the ‘East Indies’ and the ‘West Indies’. This introductory paper examines how such a novel paradigm for ethnographic analysis might contribute to new geographic imaginaries in anthropology.

Keywords:

• East Indies
• West Indies
• Comparison
• Area Studies
• Anthropology

Notes

1. Many other theorists such as Aimé Césaire (2000), Franz Fanon (1967), Stuart Hall (1988), C. L. R. James (1963) and Ann Stoler (1955) have challenged theoretical models produced in North American and European metropoles. One striking difference between the East Indies and West Indies is that it is primarily in the latter case that ‘native’ intellectuals have found a global audience, owing to factors such as the legacy of colonial language policies and the dynamics of the British Commonwealth.