In The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory and Critique, editor Joan Vincent offers her readers a selection of classic and contemporary articles on the anthropology of politics. Her introduction, headnotes, and suggested readings make this an indispensable resource for students, scholars, and instructors alike.
Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 Joan Vincent Part I Prelude: The Enlightenment and its Challenges 15 Introduction 17 Adam Ferguson, Civil Society (1767) 21 Adam Smith Free-Market Policies (1776) 21 Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace (1795), Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose (1784), and Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1797) 22 Henry Sumner Maine, The Effects of the Observation of India on European Thought (1887) 23 Lewis Henry Morgan, The Property Career of Mankind (1877) 24 Karl Marx, Spectres outside the Domain of Political Economy (1844) 24 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The World Market (1847) 24 James Mooney, The Dream of a Redeemer (1896) 25 Part II Classics and Classics Revisited 27 Introduction 29 1 Nuer Politics: Structure and System (1940) 34 E. E. Evans-Pritchard 2 Nuer Ethnicity Militarized 39 Sharon Elaine Hutchinson 3 ``The Bridge'': Analysis of a Social Situation in Zululand 53 Max Gluckman 4 ``The Bridge'' Revisited 59 Ronald Frankenberg 5 Market Model, Class Structure and Consent: A Reconsideration of Swat Political Organization 65 Talal Asad 6 The Troubles of Ranhamy Ge Punchirala 82 E. R. Leach 7 Stratagems and Spoils 90 F. G. Bailey 8 Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas 96 Victor W. Turner 9 Political Anthropology 102 Marc J. Swartz, Victor W. Turner, and Arthur Tuden 10 New Proposals for Anthropologists 110 Kathleen Gough 11 National Liberation 120 Eric R. Wolf Part III Imperial Times, Colonial Places 127 Introduction 129 12 From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western Hegemony 133 Talal Asad 13 East of Said 143 Richard G. Fox 14 Perceptions of Protest: Defining the Dangerous in Colonial Sumatra 153 Ann Stoler 15 Culture of Terror ± Space of Death 172 Michael Taussig 16 Images of the Peasant in the Consciousness of the Venezuelan Proletariat 187 William Roseberry 17 Of Revelation and Revolution 203 Jean and John Comaroff 18 Between Speech and Silence 213 Susan Gal 19 Facing Power ± Old Insights, New Questions 222 Eric R. Wolf 20 Ethnographic Aspects of the World Capitalist System 234 June Nash Part IV Cosmopolitics: Confronting a New Millennium 255 Introduction 257 21 The New World Disorder 261 Benedict Anderson 22 Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination 271 Arjun Appadurai 23 Transnationalization, Socio-political Disorder, and Ethnification as Expressions of Declining Global Hegemony 285 Jonathan Friedman 24 Deadly Developments and Phantasmagoric Representations 301 S. P. Reyna 25 Modernity at the Edge of Empire 313 David Nugent 26 Politics on the Periphery 325 Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing 27 Flexible Citizenship among Chinese Cosmopolitans 338 Aihwa Ong 28 Long-distance Nationalism Defined 356 Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Fouron 29 Theorizing Socialism: A Prologue to the ``Transition'' 366 Katherine Verdery 30 Marx Went Away but Karl Stayed Behind 387 Caroline Humphrey 31 The Anti-politics Machine 399 James Ferguson 32 Peasants against Globalization 409 Marc Edelman 33 On Suffering and Structural Violence: A View from Below 424 Paul Farmer 34 Anthropology and Politics: Commitment, Responsibility and the Academy 438 John Gledhill 35 Thinking Academic Freedom in Gendered Post-coloniality 452 Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Index 460
Joan Vincent is Professor of Anthropology Emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of numerous books and articles, including Anthropology and Politics (1990, reissued 1995) and is currently working on an historical ethnography of the Irish famine.
Reviews for The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and Critique
The best and most provocative essays by anthropologists on politics, power, colonialism, nationalism, and globalization. This volume showcases the strengths of anthropological analysis: bringing detailed ethnographic and historical analysis to the understanding of the most pressing issues that contemporary societies face. ?Louise Lamphere, University of New Mexico Joan Vincent has a rare grasp of anthropology's past and vision of its future. The twenty-first-century renewal of political anthropology will be excellently served by her thoughtful assemblage of foundational texts, modern classics, recent achievements, and current controversies. ?Ulf Hannerz, Stockholm University In this incomparable volume, Joan Vincent has brilliantly compiled the key texts in the anthropological study of politics. Suitable as a textbook for the beginning student and as a reference work for the professional academic, it will appeal to scholars in many different disciplines. Not only does this volume provide readers with a genealogy of an anthropological approach to politics, it introduces or reacquaints them with some of its most important contemporary contributors. ?Akhil Gupta, Stanford University
