published in Bérose - Encyclopédie internationale des histoires de l’anthropologie, Paris, 2020
Ethnology is the science of the other. But what other is it and who is there to observe it ? These are particularly sensitive questions in a country like Nepal. Indeed, how can one be an ethnologist in a country that in 1951 had just emerged from almost total isolation, resisting any penetration from outside, except for luxury goods and sumptuary architecture destined for the reigning dynasty, the Rana ? University studies were introduced there very late (the creation of Tribhuvan University, Tribhūvan Viśvavidyālaya, the first in the country, dates only from 1959) and the canons of scientific anthropology are a very recent creation, unlike, for example, what happened in neighbouring India : the opening of a department of sociology and anthropology in Tribhuvan University dates only from 1981.
Gérard Toffin CEH