I am always skeptical to any area of thought or art that is prefixed with "post-". After all, it is defined negatively, as to what it is not, instead of what it actually is supposed to accomplish. One day I might start to rave and rant about my deep contempt for post-modernism.
Be that as it may, I greatly enjoyed reading Tamar at Zoe's Human getting all worked up about Post-Colonialism. Anthropology and all related fields, including mine (history of religions, a potpourri of all humanistic arts and social sciences as it applies to the study of religion) has been in a deep crisis for decades, born from bad conscience over the role it played in imperialism and colonialism (picture: David Livingstone). I don't disagree that some soul-searching were in order, but sometimes the pendelum swings too far back.
The blanket accusation of western-centrisism in studies of third world cultures is often vaguely unfair. If what "western-centric" scholars say is factually wrong, by all means, it should be criticised on that. Such labels smacks too much of an ad hominem to me.
If I wanted to provoke, and I always do, I could add there is actually some basis for western-centricism in science and scholarly studies. Like it or not, it is a western invention. The science, scholarship and technology that the whole world benefits from today is indeed based on the industrial revolution that happened in Europe, in fact Britain. There are disciplines for understanding cultures that were developed here, and they are applied to all different cultures. How successful these methods are is subject to debate, but there is not one "western way" and one "oriental way" to do scholarly studies in the humanities. There is one humanity, after all, and we are all in it, studying ourselves.
Likewise, there is only one science, that happens to have been invented in the west, and it is my strong opinion that this is by far the best instrument for finding truths that humans have ever developed. The truth is the truth, no matter who states the fact.
