Exploring the colonial histories of Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and the United States, Harrison (social anthropology, U. of Ulster, Northern Ireland) examines occurrences of military trophy-taking, i.e., the mutilation of dead enemies for the purpose of taking body-part trophies. He deploys forensic anthropology to investigate the material objects of military trophy-taking, including their uses long after they have been taken from enemy dead. He also considers his findings in comparison to ethnographic literature on the taking of body parts in indigenous warfare, particularly in relation to modern ideologies of race and indigenous distinctions between close and distant enemies and related colonial and indigenous metaphors of hunting and war. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Exploring the colonial histories of Britain, France, Germany, South Africa, Australia, and the United States, Harrison (social anthropology, U. of Ulster, Northern Ireland) examines occurrences of military trophy-taking, i.e., the mutilation of dead enemies for the purpose of taking body-part tro...