A genealogy of looting
In this talk Dr Vazira Zamindar (visiting fellow at IIAS) will look at the history of \"looting\" as it became a legal category through a set of social and cultural contestations in the early twentieth century with the rise of anti-colonial nationalist movements in the Indian subcontinent.
"Looting" has been a problem for archaeology and heritage since the inception of these forms of material knowledge and cultural historicity. In this talk Dr Vazira Zamindar will look at the history of "looting" as it became a legal category through a set of social and cultural contestations in the early twentieth century with the rise of anti-colonial nationalist movements in the Indian subcontinent. In particular, she emphasizes the importance of nationalism, rather than just colonialism, in understanding the history of looting.
Vazira Zamindar is associate professor of history at Brown University, and is presently working on a book on the history of archaeology and war on the Indo-Afghan borderlands. This talk emerges from this larger body of work. Currently Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali is a visiting fellow at IIAS.