Society Against The State Essays In Political Anthropology

Author : Pierre Clastres
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0942299876
Total Pages : 173 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Society Against the State written by Pierre Clastres and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this seminal, founding work of political anthropology, Pierre Clastres takes on some of the most abiding and essential questions of human civilization: What is power? What is society? How, among all the possible modes of political organization, did we come to choose the monolithic State model and its accompanying regimes of coercion? As Clastres shows, other and different regimes do indeed exist, and they existed long before ours — regimes in which power, though it manifests itself everywhere, is nonetheless noncoercive. In such societies, political culture, and cultural practices generally, are not only not submissive to the State model, but they actively avert it, rendering impossible the very conditions in which coercive power and the State could arise. How then could our own “societies of the State” ever have arisen from these rich and complex stateless societies, and why? Clastres brilliantly and imaginatively addresses these questions, meditating on the peculiar shape and dynamics of so-called “primitive societies,” and especially on the discourses with which “civilized” (i.e., political, economic, literate) peoples have not ceased to reduce and contain them. He refutes outright the idea that the State is the ultimate and logical density of all societies. On the contrary, Clastres develops a whole alternate and always affirmative political technology based on values such as leisure, prestige, and generosity. Through individual essays he explores and deftly situates the anarchistic political and social roles of storytelling, homosexuality, jokes, ruinous gift-giving, and the torturous ritual marking of the body, placing them within an economy of power and desire very different from our own, one whose most fundamental goal is to celebrate life while rendering the rise of despotic power impossible. Though power itself is shown to be inseparable from the richest and most complex forms of social life, the State is seen as a specific but grotesque aberration peculiar only to certain societies, not least of which is our own. Not for sale in the U.K. and British Commonwealth, South Africa, Burma, Jordan, and Iraq.

Author : Zdzis?aw Mach
Publisher : SUNY Press
ISBN 13 : 9780791414651
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Symbols, Conflict, and Identity written by Zdzis?aw Mach and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates cultural and social identity in contemporary complex societies, focusing especially on Eastern Europe. Mach explains the role of symbols and symbolic forms in he relations between groups and the protection and development of their identities, especially ethnic identity. He places his study within the context of social order and the structure of power, using case studies which deal especially with the significance of politics, state rituals and national identity (Great Britain, Israel, Russia, Poland); in the conflict and displacement of migrating groups (Polish and German); and in regional questions of identity and inter-ethnic relations (Poland, United States, Great Britain). Mach presents a clear conceptual framework for analyzing the symbolic construction of identity. He views cultural identity as a dynamic, creative process which clarifies issues that are particularly significant in contemporary society, such as nationalism, new ethnicity, minority culture, and the cultural dimension of political conflicts.

Author : Pierre Clastres
Publisher : Semiotext(e)
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 340 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Archeology of Violence, New Edition written by Pierre Clastres and published by Semiotext(e). This book was released on 2010-10-08 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The posthumous publication in French of Archeology of Violence in 1980 gathered together Clastres's final groundbreaking essays and the opening chapters of the book he had begun before his death in 1977. Elaborating upon the conclusions of such earlier works as Society Against the State, Clastres turns around the analysis of power among South American Indians and rehabilitates violence as an affirmative act meant to protect the integrity of their societies and presents us with a generalogy of power in a native state. For him, tribal societies are not Rousseauist in essence; to the contrary, they practice systematic violence in order to prevent the rise in their midst of this "cold monster": the state. Only by waging war with other tribes can they maintain the dispersion and autonomy of each group. In the same way, tribal chiefs are not all-powerful; to the contrary, they are rendered weak in order to remain dependent on the community. In a series of groundbreaking essays, Clastres turns around the analysis of power among South American Indians and rehabilitates violence as an affirmative act meant to protect the integrity of their societies. These "savages" are shrewd political minds who resist in advance any attempt at "globalization".

Author : Pierre Clastres
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1942130597
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians written by Pierre Clastres and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians is Pierre Clastres’s account of his 1963–64 encounter with this small Paraguayan tribe, a precise and detailed recording of the history, ritual, myths, and culture of this remarkably unique, and now vanished, people. “Determined not to let the slightest detail” escape him or to leave unanswered the many questions prompted by his personal experiences, Clastres follows the Guayaki in their everyday lives. Now available for the first time in a stunningly beautiful translation by Paul Auster, Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians radically alters not only the Western academic conventions in which other cultures are thought but also the discipline of political anthropology itself. Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians was awarded the Alta Prize in nonfiction by the American Literary Translators Association.

Author : John L. Comaroff
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226114149
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.47/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Civil Society and the Political Imagination in Africa written by John L. Comaroff and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this important new collection explore the diverse, unexpected, and controversial ways in which the idea of civil society has recently entered into populist politics and public debate throughout Africa. In a substantial introduction, anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff offer a critical theoretical analysis of the nature and deployment of the concept—and the current debates surrounding it. Building on this framework, the contributors investigate the "problem" of civil society across their regions of expertise, which cover the continent. Drawing creatively on one another's work, they examine the impact of colonial ideology, postcoloniality, and development practice on discourses of civility, the workings of everyday politics, the construction of new modes of selfhood, and the pursuit of moral community. Incisive and original, the book shows how struggles over civil society in Africa reveal much about larger historical forces in the post-Cold War era. It also makes a strong case for the contribution of historical anthropology to contemporary discourses on the rise of a "new world order."

Author : Carol J. Greenhouse
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822383489
Total Pages : 447 pages
Book Rating : 4.82/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ethnography in Unstable Places written by Carol J. Greenhouse and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2002-03-13 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethnography in Unstable Places is a collection of ethnographic accounts of everyday situations in places undergoing dramatic political transformation. Offering vivid case studies that range from the Middle East and Africa to Europe, Russia, and Southeast Asia, the contributing anthropologists narrate particular circumstances of social and political transformation—in contexts of colonialism, war and its aftermath, social movements, and post–Cold War climates—from the standpoints of ordinary people caught up in and having to cope with the collapse or reconfiguration of the states in which they live. Using grounded ethnographic detail to explore the challenges to the anthropological imagination that are posed by modern uncertainties, the contributors confront the ambiguities and paradoxes that exist across the spectrum of human cultures and geographies. The collection is framed by introductory and concluding chapters that highlight different dimensions of the book’s interrelated themes—agency and ethnographic reflexivity, identity and ethics, and the inseparability of political economy and interpretivism. Ethnography in Unstable Places will interest students and specialists in social anthropology, sociology, political science, international relations, and cultural studies. Contributors. Eve Darian-Smith, Howard J. De Nike, Elizabeth Faier, James M. Freeman, Robert T. Gordon, Carol J. Greenhouse, Nguyen Dinh Huu, Carroll McC. Lewin, Elizabeth Mertz, Philip C. Parnell, Nancy Ries, Judy Rosenthal, Kay B. Warren, Stacia E. Zabusky

Author : Rachael Stryker
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1782384022
Total Pages : 284 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Up, Down, and Sideways written by Rachael Stryker and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2014-08-01 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a “vertical slice” approach, anthropologists critically analyze the relationship between undemocratic uses and abuses of power and the survival of the human species. The contributors scrutinize modern institutions in a variety of regions—from Russia and Mexico to South Korea and the U.S. Up, Down, and Sideways is an ethnographic examination of such phenomena as debtculture, global financial crises, food insecurity, indigenous land and resource appropriation, the mismanagement of health care, andcorporate surrogacy within family life. With a preface by Laura Nader, this isessential reading for anyone seeking solid theories and concrete methods to inform activist scholarship.

Author : Joel S. Migdal
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521797061
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.63/5 ( download)

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Download or read book State in Society written by Joel S. Migdal and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-08-27 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach. The essays situate the approach within the classic literature in political science, sociology, and related disciplines but present a new model for understanding state-society relations. It allies parts of the state and groups in society against other such coalitions, determines how societies and states create and maintain distinct ways of structuring day-to-day life, the nature of the rules that govern people's behavior, whom they benefit and whom they disadvantage, which sorts of elements unite people and which divide them, and what shared meaning people hold about their relations with others and their place in the world.

Author : Roberto J. González
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 312 pages
Book Rating : 4.84/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Anthropologists in the Public Sphere written by Roberto J. González and published by . This book was released on 2004-04 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anthropologists have a long tradition of prescient diagnoses of world events. Possessing a knowledge of culture, society, and history not always shared by the media' talking heads, anthropologists have played a crucial role in educating the general reader on the public debates from World War I to the second Gulf War. This anthology collects over fifty commentaries by noted anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Franz Boas, and Marshall Sahlins who seek to understand and explain the profound repercussions of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Frequently drawing on their own fieldwork, the anthropologists go beyond the headlines to draw connections between indigenous cultures, corporate globalization, and contemporary political and economic crises. Venues range from the op-ed pages of internationally renowned newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post to magazine articles and television interviews. Special sections entitled "Prelude to September 11" and "Anthropological Interpretations of September 11" include articles that provided many Americans with their first substantial introduction to the history of Islam, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Each article includes a brief introduction contextualizing the commentary.

Author : Giacomo Loperfido
Publisher : Berghahn Books
ISBN 13 : 1800733461
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Extremism, Society, and the State written by Giacomo Loperfido and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-12-10 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Extremism does not happen in a vacuum. Rather, extremism is a relative concept that often emerges in crisis situations, taking shape within the tense and contradictory relations that tie marginal spaces, state orders, and mainstream culture. This collected volume brings together leading anthropologists and cultural analysts to offer a concise look at the narratives, symbolic, and metaphoric fields related to extremism, systematizing an approach to extremism, and placing these ideologies into historical, political, and geo-systemic contexts.