The Anthropology of Power

by Angela Cheater (Editor)

Overview

An edited collection which examines the theoretical issues surrounding power, and particularly empowerment, which uses ethnographic analysis as its basis. It takes material from the Middle East, Canada, Columbia, Australasia and various parts of Europe and Africa. It looks particularly at the extent to which traditionally disempowered groups gain influence in postcolonial or multicultural settings, and at how power relates to economic development, gender and environmentalism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415193894
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/18/1999
Series:	ASA Monographs , #36
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Angela Cheater is the author of a number of influential books in social anthropology, including Social Anthropology: An Alternative Introduction (1986). She has taught social anthropology at the universities of Natal, Zimbabwe, Cape Town and Waikato.

Table of Contents

1 Power in the postmodern era 2 Empowering ambiguities 3 The discursive space of schooling: on the theories of power and empowerment in multiculturalism and anti-racism 4 ‘Father did not answer that question’: power, gender and globalisation in Europe 5 The reach of the postcolonial state: development, empowerment/disempowerment and technocracy 6 The guardians of power: biodiversity and multiculturality in Colombia 7 The dialectics of negation and negotiation in the anthropology of mineral resource development in Papua New Guinea 8 Land and re-empowerment: ‘The Waikato case’ 9 Indigenisation as empowerment? Gender and race in the empowerment discourse in Zimbabwe 10 Exploitation after Marx 11 Evading state control: political protest and technology in Saudi Arabia 12 Authority versus power: a view from social anthropology 13 Speaking truth to power? Some problems using ethnographic methods to influence the formulation of housing policy in South Africa 14 Machiavellian empowerment and disempowerment: the violent political changes in early seventeenth-century Ethiopia

Editorial Reviews

Presents case studies from a range of societies and discusses what is really happening when people talk about "empowering" others. Contributors question whether power is actually being transferred to the powerless, drawing on ethnographic material from Europe, the Middle East, Australasia, Africa, and the Americas to explore how traditionally disempowered groups gain influence in postcolonial and multicultural settings. They survey relationships between empowerment and economic development, gender, and environmentalism. They confront post-Foucauldian theoretical issues on the nature, distribution, and balance of power, and ask whether the rhetoric of empowerment actually masks a lack of change in established power relations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknew.com)

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