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Late Western colonialism often relied on the practice of imitating indigenous forms of rule in order to maintain power; conversely, indigenous polities could imitate Western sociopolitical forms to their own benefit. Drawing on historical ethnographic studies of colonialism in Asia and Africa, States of Imitation examines how the colonial state attempted to administer, control, and integrate its indigenous subjects through mimetic governmentality, as well the ways indigenous states adopted these imitative practices to establish reciprocal ties with, or to resist the presence of, the colonial state.
“This delightful collection of studies from Lusophone and Francophone colonies finally advances us beyond the critique of colonial representations, to an ethnography of the ambiguities and risks of a reciprocal colonial presence.” • Peter Pels, Leiden University
Introduction: Mimetic Governmentality, Colonialism, and the State
Patrice Ladwig and Ricardo Roque
Chapter 1. Dances with Heads: Parasitic Mimesis and the Government of Savagery in Colonial East Timor
Ricardo Roque
Chapter 2. Variants of Frontier Mimesis: Colonial Encounter and Intercultural Interaction in the Lao Vietnamese Uplands
Oliver Tappe
Chapter 3. The Hut-Hospital as Project and as Practice: Mimeses, Alterities, and Colonial Hierarchies
Cristiana Bastos
Chapter 4. Imitations of Buddhist Statecraft: The Patronage of Lao Buddhism and the Reconstruction of Relic Shrines and Temples in Colonial French Indochina
Patrice Ladwig
Chapter 5. Colonial Mimesis and Animal Breeding: Karakul Sheep in Southwestern Angola
Tiago Saraiva
Chapter 6. The Colonial State and Carnival: The Complexity and Ambiguity of Carnival in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa
Christoph Kohl
Chapter 7. Mimetic Primitivism: Notes on the Conceptual History of Mimesis
Patrice Ladwig
Postscript: The Risks and Failures of Imitation
Patrice Ladwig and Ricardo Roque