A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics

This Companion offers an unprecedented overview of anthropology’s unique contribution to the study of politics.

• Explores the key concepts and issues of our time - from AIDS, globalization, displacement, and militarization, to identity politics and beyond
• Each chapter reflects on concepts and issues that have shaped the anthropology of politics and concludes with thoughts on and challenges for the way ahead
• Anthropology's distinctive genre, ethnography, lies at the heart of this volume

Synopsis of Contents viii

Preface xv

Notes on Contributors xvi

Introduction 1
Joan Vincent

1 Affective States 4
Ann Laura Stoler

2 After Socialism 21
Katherine Verdery

3 AIDS 37
Brooke Grundfest Schoepf

4 Citizenship 55
Aihwa Ong

5 Cosmopolitanism 69
Ulf Hannerz

6 Development 86
Marc Edelman and Angelique Haugerud

7 Displacement 107
Elizabeth Colson

8 Feminism 121
Malathi de Alwis

9 Gender, Race, and Class 135
Micaela di Leonardo

10 Genetic Citizenship 152
Deborah Heath, Rayna Rapp, and Karen-Sue Taussig

11 The Global City 168
Saskia Sassen

12 Globalization 179
Jonathan Friedman

13 Governing States 198
David Nugent

14 Hegemony 216
Gavin Smith

15 Human Rights 231
Richard Ashby Wilson

16 Identity 248
Arturo Escobar

17 Imagining Nations 267
Akhil Gupta

18 Infrapolitics 282
Steven Gregory

19 ‘‘Mafias’’ 303
Jane C. and Peter T. Schneider

20 Militarization 318
Catherine Lutz

21 Neoliberalism 332
John Gledhill

22 Popular Justice 349
Robert Gordon

23 Postcolonialism 367
K. Sivaramakrishnan

24 Power Topographies 383
James Ferguson

25 Race Technologies 400
Thomas Biolsi

26 Sovereignty 418
Caroline Humphrey

27 Transnational Civil Society 437
June Nash

28 Transnationality 448
Nina Glick Schiller

Index 468

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year

“A magnificent collection. The most engaged and imaginative writing that anthropology has to offer, disclosing the inherently political nature of everyday life.” Michael Burawoy, University of California, Berkeley

“What is impressive about this collection is the way many authors take received ideas from political science, political philosophy, cultural studies, or world systems theory and, by subjecting them to ethnographic scrutiny, transform them in new and powerful ways. Anthropology makes a difference.” Marshall Sahlins, University of Chicago

"The Blackwell Companions to Anthropology, of which this volume is the second to appear, are set fair to blow cobwebs from dormant minds ... this volume is an exemplar of scholarship at its meticulous, dynamic, and demanding best ... we have here an erudite analysis of problems of direct relevance to the lives of every individual person on our planet, and an inspired exploration of “things to come”. This is scholarly, sophisticated, unsparing, courageous political thinking, far removed from the shams, slogans, shibboleths, stupidities, and silliness of much of the political comment and conditioning purveyed by our mass media – even by our elected “representatives” ... This is an admirable work that will fertilise the rugged field of the anthropology of politics for decades to come. All academic libraries need it. It would also be a salutary Christmas present choice for our pet political representative, an earnest hope of a positive revolution in political theory and practice.” Reference Reviews

David Nugent is Professor of Anthropology, Emory University. He is President-Elect, American Ethnological Society and North American Editor of the journal Critique of Anthropology. He is the author of Modernity at the Edge of Empire: State, Individual, and Nation in the Northern Peruvian Andes (1997), and the editor of Locating Capitalism in Time and Space (2002).

Joan Vincent is Professor of Anthropology Emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is author of numerous books and encyclopedia articles on political anthropology. Her works include Anthropology and Politics (1990, reissued 1995) and The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and Critique (Blackwell, 2002).

A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics offers an unprecedented overview of the field, written by a breathtaking roster of contemporary scholars. This ambitious volume explores the key concepts and issues of our time – from AIDS, globalization, displacement, militarization, and neoliberalism to identity politics and beyond – in the words of the very individuals who have contributed to the development of this important field.

Each author reflects on concepts and issues that have shaped the anthropology of politics and concludes with thoughts on and challenges for the way ahead. The volume as a whole is written in an accessible manner, although each chapter is crafted in its author’s own unique style. At the heart of the volume lies anthropology’s distinctive genre: ethnography.

Offering a comprehensive understanding of anthropology’s unique contribution to the study of politics, A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics will set a new benchmark for the field and will undoubtedly spur students and scholars to new heights in the decades to come.