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Spring 2008, Haugerud Rutgers University Professor Angelique Haugerud Anthropology 519 <[email protected]> SPRING 2008 T 2:15-5:15 ANTHROPOLOGY OF POLITICS This seminar explores approaches to power and politics in anthropology and related disciplines. We begin with a look at contrasting notions of power, so that throughout the semester we can trace expressions of such theoretical distinctions in works assigned. Next we examine some of political anthropology’s classics or ‘foundation’ works, and the reappraisals and dissent they sparked. Here the anthropology of politics becomes a window on the history of theory in the wider discipline: the emergence of structural-functionalism, alternatives to and critiques of that model, the turn away from anthropology’s Enlightenment legacy and toward analysis of unequal power relations between “the West” and the “Third World,” with attention to histories of colonialism and capitalism, and more recently postmodernity, neoliberal globalization, cosmopolitanism, and transnationalism. The anthropology of politics, like the discipline more broadly, repeatedly engages and absorbs “crisis.” It has grappled with reconceptualizations of the state, violence, nature, citizenship, sovereignty, ideology, civil society, national and ethnic identity, gender, development, resistance, modernity, empire, social movements, academic freedom, and public engagements with diverse interlocutors. A particular contribution of anthropology to political knowledge, as Joan Vincent suggests, is to discern and expose “infrapolitics,” or the “politics below the surface realities” we study. We shall explore this and many other ways of construing a twenty-first-century anthropology of politics. Course Objectives To provide graduate students with knowledge of the history of theory, fundamental concepts, paradigms, and debates in the anthropology of politics. To help graduate students understand past and present forms of political activity in their doctoral field research sites, and to explore political dimensions of their emerging dissertation projects. **** Requirements: Since a productive seminar is a collective endeavor, students are encouraged to participate actively in seminar discussions and are required to complete all assigned readings on time and to attend all classes. Writing assignments include weekly informal response papers (1-2 pages) and three short essays (7-10 pages) on assigned readings. Grades will be based on students’ written and oral contributions to the seminar, as follows: 3 short essays = 60% (20% for each: due February 22, March 28, and May 6); oral contributions and informal written responses to readings = 40%. Late work will be penalized. By 6:00 p.m. each Wednesday, students are to e-mail to the instructor brief informal comments on each of that week’s readings. These written remarks can be a mix of comments such as “The discussion of X led me to reconsider….”, reactions such as “I like/dislike the approach of this article because…”, and questions such as “What did the author mean by….?” I will use your written responses to the readings to structure the seminar discussion and my introductory remarks. If unusual circumstances require a student to miss a seminar meeting, s/he should inform the instructor of the reason for the absence before the class meets. Since seminar knowledge is cumulative, and each week’s readings and discussions build on those of previous weeks, a student who misses a class must make up the work promptly by e-mailing to the instructor, no later than the Monday afternoon following 1 the missed class, a 4-5 page discussion paper on the readings assigned for that week’s seminar meeting. (About half of the discussion paper should summarize the readings and half should be analysis/critique/questions.) Required readings include articles available through the library’s electronic reserve, and the following paperback text: The Anthropology of Politics, 2002, Joan Vincent, ed. Oxford: Blackwell (available for purchase at Douglass Campus Bookstore). Note: In readings listed below, “ER” denotes items available on electronic reserve, and “AP” denotes chapters in the required textbook, The Anthropology of Politics, 2002, Joan Vincent, ed. Week 1/Jan. 24 INTRODUCTION TO THE SEMINAR Week 2/Jan. 31 WHAT IS POWER? --John Gledhill, 2000, "Locating the political: a political anthropology for today," pp. 1-22, in Power and Its Disguises. London: Pluto Press. --Eric Wolf, 1990, “Facing Power—Old Insights, New Questions.” Distinguished Lecture delivered at annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 1989. [AP, pp. 222-233] --Max Weber, “Domination by Economic Power and by Authority. In Power, Steven Lukes, ed., pp. 28- 36. New York University Press. [ER] --Michel Foucault, 1986[1976], “Disciplinary Power and Subjection.” In Power, Steven Lukes, ed., pp. 229-242. New York University Press. [ER] --Georg Simmel, “Domination and Freedom.” In Power, Steven Lukes, ed., pp. 203-210. New York University Press. [ER] --Steven Lukes, 1986, “Introduction.” In Power, Steven Lukes, ed., pp. 1-18. New York University Press. [ER] --Lionel Tiger, 2000, “Power is a liquid, not a solid.” Social Science Information 39(1): 5-16. [ER] Week 3/Feb. 7 CLASSICS AND CLASSICS REVISITED, I --E.E. Evans-Pritchard, 2002[1940], “Nuer Politics: Structure and System.” In AP, pp. 34-38. --Sharon E. Hutchinson, 2002[2000], “Nuer Ethnicity Militarized.” In AP, pp. 39-52. --Max Gluckman, 2002[1958], “’The Bridge’: Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand.” In AP, pp. 53-58. --Ronald Frankenberg, 2002[1982], “’The Bridge’ Revisited.” In AP, pp. 59-64. --Talal Asad, 2002[1972], “Market Model, Class Structure and Consent: A Reconsideration of Swat Political Organization. In AP, pp. 65-81. --Joan Vincent, 2002, “Introduction.” In AP, pp. 1-13. --Joan Vincent, 2002, “Introduction” to Part II, “Classics and Classics Revisited”. In AP, pp. 29-33. Week 4/Feb. 14 CLASSICS AND CLASSICS REVISITED, II --Edmund Leach, 1954, Political Systems of Highland Burma (selections). Boston: Beacon Press. [ER] --David Nugent, 1982, “Closed Systems and Contradictions: The Kachin In and Out of History.” Man 17:508-527. [ER] 2 --Edmund Leach, 1983, “Imaginary Kachins” (Reply to Nugent), Man 18(1):191-199. [ER] --David Nugent, 1983, “Reply to Leach,” Man 18(1):199-206. [ER] --Chris Fuller and Jonathan Parry, 1989, “’Petulant inconsistency?’ The intellectual achievement of Edmund Leach.” Anthropology Today 5(3):11-14. [ER] --F.G. Bailey, “Stratagems and Spoils.” In AP, pp. 90-95. --Victor W. Turner, “Passages, Margins, and Poverty: Religious Symbols of Communitas.” In AP, pp. 96-101. --Marc J. Swartz, Victor W. Turner, and Arthur Tuden, “Political Anthropology.” In AP, pp. 102-109. Reference (optional): Joan Vincent, 1986, “System and Process, 1974-1985.” Annual Review of Anthropology 15:99-119. [ER] Week 5/Feb. 21 THE 1960s AND BEYOND: RADICAL CHALLENGES --Ernest Gellner, 1996, "The Politics of Anthropology," pp. 11-26, in Anthropology and Politics: Revolutions in The Sacred Grove. Oxford: Blackwell. --Kathleen Gough, “New Proposals for Anthropologists.” In AP, pp. 110-119. --Eric Wolf, “National Liberation.” In AP, pp. 120-126. --Talal Asad, “From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western Hegemony. In AP, pp. 133-142. --Micaela di Leonardo, 2004, "Gender, Race and Class." In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, Joan Vincent and David Nugent, eds., pp. 15-151. [ER] --Gavin Smith, “Hegemony.” In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, Joan Vincent and David Nugent, eds., pp. 216-230. [ER] **ESSAY #1 due Friday, Feb. 22 at 1:00 p.m. in instructor’s campus mailbox. No electronic submissions. Week 6/Feb. 28 COLONIALISM, EMPIRE, POSTCOLONIALISM --Joan Vincent, 2002, “Introduction” to Part III, “Imperial Times, Colonial Places.” In AP, pp. 129-132. --Ann Stoler, “Perceptions of Protest: Defining the Dangerous in Colonial Sumatra.” In AP, pp. 153-171. --Michael Taussig, “Culture of Terror, Space of Death.” In AP, pp. 172-186. --William Roseberry, “Images of the Peasant in the Consciousness of the Venezuelan Proletariat.” In AP, pp. 187-202. --Jean and John Comaroff, “Of Revolution and Revelation.” In AP, pp. 203-212. --June Nash, “Ethnographic Aspects of the World Capitalist System.” In AP, pp. 234-254. --K. Sivaramakrishnan, 2004, “Postcolonialism.” In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds., pp. 367-382. Oxford: Blackwell. [ER] Week 7/March 6 DISORDER AND GLOBALIZATION --Joan Vincent, 2002, “Introduction” to Part IV, “Cosmopolitics: Confronting a New Millennium.” In AP, pp. 257-260. --Benedict Anderson, “The New World Disorder.” In AP, pp. 261-170. --Arjun Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination.” In AP, pp. 271-284. 3 --Jonathan Friedman, “Transnationalization, Socio-political Disorder, and Ethnification as Expressions of Declining Global Hegemony.” In AP, pp. 285-300. --Sara Shneiderman, 2003, “Violent Histories and Political Consciousness: Reflections on Nepal’s Maoist Movement From Piskar Village.” Himalaya 22(1):39-48. [ER] --Elizabeth Colson, 2004, “Displacement.” In A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics, David Nugent and Joan Vincent, eds., pp. 107-120. Oxford: Blackwell. [ER] --S.P. Reyna, “Deadly Developments and Phantasmagoric Representations.” In AP, pp. 301-312. Week 8/March 13 ETHNICITY AND THE STATE: RWANDA’S 1994 GENOCIDE --John Bowen, 1996, “The Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict.” Journal of Democracy 7(4):3-14. [ER]
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