Paper short abstract:

It is well known that there is both hegemony and dominance in the publication of anthropological works in the globalized world of today. I shall not repeat the many significant and relevant observations by my co-panelists. Rather I suggest a small step towards a possible and feasible concrete way out of this impasse based on my knowledge of and participation in an enterprise based in India.

Paper long abstract:

The proposed solution is two-pronged. My former student at Oxford (and present anthropologist colleague now teaching at Harvard) Michael Herzfeld has already launched the idea of publishing indigenously written anthropological works-- in indigenous languages (with progressive translations into cosmopolitan languages)-- a move that by itself would contribute to breaking the hegemony and veiled dominance in the sphere of international anthropological publications. What I propose through this panel is that we articulate this indigenization enterprise in India with the publication house 'Bharatiya Jnanpith' which awards an internationally renowned, prestigious and well-endowed prize of Rs. 7 lakhs (app. U.S. $ 13,360) annually to the best published literary work in any of the 29 0fficially recognized languages of India. This articulation will at once bring indigenous anthropological works in various languages of India to the forefront in the academic world. In terms of our goal of beating the hegemony of the western commercial world in anthropological publications, the proposed articulation, as a first small step, would have the following advantages: firstly, the Bharatiya Jnanpith is a philanthropic trust rather than a commercial venture and, secondly, it already has a time-tested mechanism (46 awards to date to 51 individuals since 1961) of translating selected literary works into English (and potentially in other cosmopolitan langauges of the world).