Clifford Geertz was undoubtedly the leading anthropologist of his generation, a broad-scale thinker whose influence extended far beyond his own discipline. His study of Islam in Indonesia, however, might appear not to have been reprised in his Moroccan work whereas, in fact, one could argue that it was. For in his study of the souk, the Moroccan bazaar, Geertz not only presented one of the most detailed and theoretically sophisticated studies of this form of economic structure but also showed how everyday Islamic assumptions and orientations suffuse that domain. In this sense, Geertz did do a study of Moroccan Islam, indeed one that demonstrates its connection to multiple domains of everyday life. In that sense, too, it is the encounters in this most important realm where religion lives and where it must be understood.

This chapter starts off by discussing the roots of historical anthropology in ‘people’s history’ before the linguistic turn. It then traces the journey from the history workshop movements of the 1960s and 1970s to historical anthropology, focusing on European and Indian groups (the Subaltern Studies Group). It highlights the work of Ann Laura Stoler as an example of how historical anthropology led to new and exciting perspectives in historical writing with deep implications for the deconstruction of historical identities. Historical anthropologists brought with them a concern for the everyday, diversity, performance and resistance and they raised an awareness of the undeterminedness of the past. They also emphasised how collective identities were rooted in constructions of culture. Relating cultural values to practices, diverse theories of the everday examined different structures of power and the agency of ordinary people in resisting and re-appropriating these structures of power. Treating culture as fluid, plural and changing, it also contributed to the de-essentialisation of human identities. Emphasising mimetic processes and the interrelationship of diverse mimetically produced images, historical anthropology also contributed to the decentring of Western perspectives.

There may be many mavericks, but the two to be considered are Gregory Bateson and Dame Mary Douglas. Bateson is of concern particularly through his interest in national character. Douglas is of concern through her interest in ‘grid and group’. In a way, both of these entail structuralist readings of commonplace notions.

Chapter one analyses the geneses of ethno-nationalism in postcolonial states by highlighting the three key elements of ethno-nationalist politics: the modernist response to primordial attachments in the process of nation-building, the active role and passive consequences of colonialism, and the influence of bourgeois and petty bourgeois classes under capitalism. Critically engaging with seminal scholarship in relevant fields by Clifford Geertz, Donald Horowitz, Antonio Gramsci, and Partha Chatterjee, my analysis in this chapter underscores that ethno-nationalism in postcolonial states is, to a great extent, the outcome of a combined force of all three elements. While the three elements highlighted in my analysis of ethno-nationalism are not exclusive aspects, ethno-nationalism in postcolonial states primarily draws on the elements of nation-building, colonialism, and capitalism. I substantiate this claim with the case of anticolonial nationalist movements in India. I demonstrate how conditions created by colonialism, capitalism, and the modernist vision of the nascent Indian state gave the nationalist movement an ethno-nationalist character that ultimately led to the partition of the country along religious lines.

Ceremonies of royal investiture have become a privileged site for historical understanding of medieval symbols and politics since they serve to emphasise the king’s authority, the nature of that power, the use of political symbols, the relationship between the king, nobles and prelates and the sacred idea of monarchy. The words and gestures included in the coronation ceremony (its form) validate its communicated particular message (its content). Based on this reality, this first chapter provides a theoretical exposition of the key theories around the ritual nature of self-coronation and its symbolic implications, focusing on historians and anthropologists’ theoretical perspectives. The intensive debate in the field of symbolic anthropology in the 1970s and 1980s on the meaning and interpretation of the rituals, in which scholars like Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner and Mary Douglas became celebrities, seems to have moved to medieval studies in the past two decades. Scholars such as Philippe Buc, Janet Nelson, Geoffrey Koziol, and Gerd Althoff imported these anthropological theories to medieval studies through their agreements and disagreements around the idea of how the medieval rituals must be interpreted – if they exist at all. Taking into consideration these debates, this chapter questions to what extent or whether self-coronations may be considered ‘medieval rituals’ and what self-crowning reveals about ritual.

In 2011 the Metropolitan Museum opened its renovated Islamic Art wing. In 2012 the Louvre opened its own new galleries on Islamic Art. Yet, neither New York nor Paris give any space to Asia beyond Moghul India. The Met’s Southeast Asia collection focuses on the Hindu-Buddhist “classical” period, while the Louvre simply does not have any objects from Asia, as these are exhibited at the Musée Guimet. This chapter suggests that the approach to the study of Islam in Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries shaped an understanding of Islam as “foreign” to the region and vice versa, contributing to the idea of peculiar forms of Islamic devotion and beliefs in the lands beyond the Oxus/Amu Darya river. Illustrating the missed encounter between “Islam” and “Asia”, the chapter focuses on – and ultimately suggests ways to reconcile – the isolation of Islamic Studies and Asian Studies as two disciplinary fields of study.

This chapter continues the historical investigation in subsequent decades, covering the Cold War, new interdisciplinary initiatives and hidden connections between key thinkers. We look particularly at the experimental interdisciplinarity of James March especially in light of Herbert Marcuse’s work and influences.