Dark Trophies Dr Yijun Li

Dark Trophies Dr Yijun LiMany anthropological accounts of warfare in indigenous societies have described the taking of heads or other body parts as trophies. But almost nothing is known of the prevalence of trophy taking of this sort in the armed forces of contemporary nation states. This book is a history of this type of misconduct among military personnel over the past two centuries, exploring its close connections with colonialism, scientific collecting and concepts of

Beginning with Book II

Elephant-headed

in an effort to overcome Eurocentric views

it examines both the objective and the subjective aspects of societies that

Exploring questions including how interpretive translators can be and how cultural and social norms affect translations

the troops raped the surviving women-an act still denied by some historians and Shoshoni elders

characterized as the 'moral turn'

and questions concerning the authority of sacred texts

she wakes in the morning with a strange new sensation

and I would never want to see her or the others – or indeed anyone else – having to face any such ordeal

and wonders if the group would even accept his help if he did

In Language and Politics in Julia Kristeva