Overview

No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as government servants and anthropologists. Most of the volume deals with Walter E. Roth, who developed foundational studies of both the Australian Aborigines—considered to be among the first systematic ethnographies anywhere—and South American tribes while serving as Chief Protector of Aborigines in Queensland and later medical officer, magistrate, museum curator and indigenous relations officer in British Guyana. Henry Ling Roth’s contributions to the anthropology of Tasmania, Benin, Sarawak, and New Zealand are also enumerated, as are the publications and administrative activities of the succeeding generation of Roths. This volume serves the reader as a family biography, a slice of the English colonial history, and an important introduction to the history of anthropology.

Full Product Details

Author:   Russell McDougall ,  Iain Davidson
Publisher:   Left Coast Press Inc
Imprint:   Left Coast Press Inc
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.589kg
ISBN:  

9781598742282

ISBN 10:   1598742280
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   31 July 2008
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction; 1: The Background and Scope of the Roth Family; 1: Making Otherness the Norm; 2: The Family Background and Achievements of Walter Edmund Roth; 2: Henry Ling Roth; 3: Henry Ling Roth: The Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo; 4: The Making of Great Benin: Felix Norman Roth and Henry Ling Roth 1; 5: The Primitive Body and Colonial Administration: Henry Ling Roth's Approach to Body Modification; 3: Walter E Roth and the Scientific Collection of Data about Australian Indigenous People; 6: From Oxford to the Bush: WE Roth, WB Spencer and Australian Anthropology; 7: Ethnological Studies and Archaeology of North West Central Queensland; 8: WE Roth and the Study of Aboriginal Languages in Queensland; 4: Walter E Roth and Controversy in Australia; 9: WE Roth on Asians in Australia; 10: The Legacy of a ‘Lazy Character': Walter Roth's Contribution to the Ethnography Collections of the Queensland Museum; 11: The Life and Times of Walter Edmund Roth in North Queensland: The First Protector, the Australian Museum and Scandal; 12: Naked Shame: Nation, Science and Indigenous Knowledge in Walter Roth's Interventions into Frontier Sexualities; 13: Walter Edmund Roth: Royal Commissioner of Western Australia, 1904; 14: Walter Roth and Ethno-Pornography; 5: Walter E Roth in Guyana; 15: An Indigenous Compendium: Walter E Roth and the Ethnology of British Guiana; 16: ‘Protector of Indians': Assessing Walter Roth's Legacy in Policy Towards Amerindians in Guyana; 6: The Roth Legacy; 17: Vincent Roth: The Man, His Life and His Work; 18: George Kingsley Roth and the Fijian Way of Life

Reviews

. ..it is easy to welcome this collection of papers that had their genesis in a conference devoted exclusively to the purpose of exploring the achievements as well as other aspects of the careers of this remarkable family. As someone who has worked in central and western Queensland for a number of years I have always found it a pleasure to delve into Roth\'s voluminous materials from these regions for some new insight. This volume nicely complements that. For others there will be other aspects to catch their interest, including an opportunity to compare colonial administrations in Australia, the Pacific, and South America. - Luke Godwin, Australian Archaeology

""...it is easy to welcome this collection of papers that had their genesis in a conference devoted exclusively to the purpose of exploring the achievements as well as other aspects of the careers of this remarkable family. As someone who has worked in central and western Queensland for a number of years I have always found it a pleasure to delve into Roth\'s voluminous materials from these regions for some new insight. This volume nicely complements that. For others there will be other aspects to catch their interest, including an opportunity to compare colonial administrations in Australia, the Pacific, and South America.""- Luke Godwin, Australian Archaeology

Author Information

Russell McDougall has published widely on West African, West Indian and Australian literatures and histories. He is Associate Professor in English at the University of New England. Iain Davidson has studied the archaeology of hunter-gatherers in Europe and Australia since the early 1970s. He has studied stone tools, animal bones and rock art, and published extensively on the archaeology of language origins, often with psychologist William Noble. He has undertaken archaeological work in North West Central Queensland since 1986.

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