000 nam a22 7a 4500
999 _c2024
_d2024
020 _a9780521722124
082 _a306.20954 J697 A
_b101954
100 _aJonathan Spencer
245 _aAnthropology Politics and the State:
_bDemocracy and Violence in South Asia
250 _a1st ed.
260 _aNew Delhi
_bCambridge University Press
_c2007
300 _a203
500 _aIn 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 Delhi presenting arguments about secularism and pluralism and the ambiguous energies released by electoral democracy across the subcontinent. 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.
505 _a1. The strange death of political anthropology; 2. Locating the political; 3. Culture nation and misery; 4. Performing democracy; 5. The state and self-making; 6. The state and violence; 7. Pluralism in theory pluralism in practice; 8. Politics and counter-politics.
650 _aPolitical anthropology
_aPolitics and culture
_aSouth Asia
_aPolitical violence
_aDemocracy
_aEthnic relations
_a Politics and government
942 _cBK