Anthropology, Politics, and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia

by Jonathan Spencer

• ISBN13: 9780521777469
• ISBN10: 0521777461
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780511421358
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-08-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

In recent years anthropology has rediscovered its interest in politics. Building on the findings of this research, this book offers a new way of analysing the relationship between culture and politics, with special attention to democracy, nationalism, the state and political violence. Beginning with scenes from an unruly early 1980s election campaign in Sri Lanka, it covers issues from rural policing in north India to slum housing in Dehli, presenting arguments about secularism and pluralism, and the ambiguous energies released by electoral democracy across the sub-continent. It ends by discussing feminist peace activists in Sri Lanka, struggling to sustain a window of shared humanity after two decades of war. Bringing together and linking the themes of democracy, identity and conflict, this important new study shows how anthropology can take a central role in understanding other people's politics, especially the issues that seem to have divided the world since 9/11.

Table of Contents

The strange death of political anthropology

Locating the political

Culture, nation and misery

Performing democracy

The state and self-making

The state and violence

Pluralism in theory, pluralism in practice

Politics and counter-politics

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