Renato Rosaldo (jan 1, 1941 – jan 1, 2024)

Description:

About:
-American, PhD at Harvard, taught at Stanford then NYU
-fieldwork among the Ilongot in the Philippines
-central figure in interpretive and postmodern anthropology
-argued for the inclusion of "emotion" in cultural considerations
-active in the establishment of Chicano and Latino studies

Major works:
-Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social Analysis (1989)
→ critiques the objectivist approaches to anthropology that dominated the field for much of the 20th century
→ more interpretive, reflexive approach, where anthropologists acknowledge their own subjectivity and position in the research process
→ introduces the concept of "imperialist nostalgia", the sentimental longing colonizers and westerners feel for the cultures they have helped destroy
-Grief and a Headhunter's Rage (1984)
→ argues that grief and rage are intimately tied t oheadhunting, with the act of takikng a head providing a release for these powerful emotions

Major concepts:
-emotions in anthropology: one of the early anthropologists to seriously explore the role of emotion in cultural practices
-"imperialist nostalgia"
→ westerners often express sentimental longing for the very cultures they have helped to colonize or destroy
→ widely influential in postcolonial studies and cultural critique, offering a framework to understand the paradoxical relationship between Western hegemony and the desire to romanticize "traditional" or "exotic" cultures
-"cultural citizenship"
→ how marginalized groups claim belonging and assert their cultural identities within nation-states, particularly in postcolonial contexts
-emotional "force"

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