The Liminal Space: ‘Science’ and ‘Tradition’ by Sheena Panja

in Indian Archaeology explores the relationship between the specialized ‘scientific’ discipline of archaeology and the more fluid realm of ‘collective memory’, defined through textual and oral traditions, in reconstructing the past in colonial and postcolonial India. Drawing on personal letters, official documents, and secondary sources consulted in various archives and libraries, the book examines the emergence and transformation of an ambivalent archaeological methodology through the ideas of colonial officials such as Mortimer Wheeler, the indigenous intellectual response in early twentieth-century Bengal, and the work of post-Independence archaeologists including H.D. Sankalia and B.B. Lal, culminating in the volatile debates of the later twentieth century. The volume highlights how tensions between the public and private lives of practitioners, situated within broader intellectual, political, and social contexts, shaped an ambiguous and often contradictory space within archaeological research. It further argues that this mode of archaeology had significant ramifications for the socio-political landscape of India in the decades that followed. The author, Sheena Panja, formerly Associate Professor in the Department of Ancient History and Archaeology at Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, West Bengal, currently works as an independent researcher. Over the past two decades, she has been actively engaged in historical and archaeological research in Maharashtra and West Bengal. She has received international fellowships and awards including the Overseas Research Student Award (UK), fellowships from the Society of Antiquaries Trust, the Charles Wallace Trust, the Nehru Trust, and a Visiting Fellowship at Wolfson College, Cambridge. She has contributed extensively to national and international journals and has co-edited Archaeology of Eastern India (2002) and Living with Floods: Archaeology of a Settlement in the Lower Ganga Plains, c.600–1800 CE (2015). To procure your copy, please click on the link below: https://primusbooks.com/.../the-liminal-space-science.../... Happy Reading!! #archaeology See less