Problems of political anthropology A brief history of political anthropology The subject matter of political anthropology Purposes of political

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1 SESSION 1 PART I: PROBLEMS IN/WITH POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY Problems of political anthropology A brief history of political anthropology The subject matter of political anthropology Purposes of political anthropology The conceptualization of politics in anthropology Defining politics The Enlightenment and political anthropology 1

2 The Problems of Political Anthropology non-western, non-state societies Political decolonization in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, from the early 1960s onwards Problems with conceptualizing non-state societies Problems with anthropology itself 1970s onwards 2

3 Gledhill, John. (2000). Power and Its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics. 2 nd ed. London: Pluto Press. Chapter 1: Locating the political: a political anthropology for today, pp List of issues covered in Gledhill s Ch. 1: colonialism and political anthropology ordered anarchy, fission and fusion development, neocolonialism, dependency what political anthropology ought to be about, how it should be done problem of Eurocentric analyses of power as coercion, statelessness as an absence the modern state & surveillance repressive states as weak states locating power, politics in the everyday 3

4 Questions from Gledhill, Ch. 1: What were some of the limitations of early political anthropology in Gledhill s view? What was its ethnocentric baggage and how did that shape and limit understandings? How have stateless societies been understood in early political anthropology? Is power to be found in stateless societies? Is politics to be found in bands and tribes? What are politics rooted in if there is relative egalitarianism? What is distinctive about the state? Is the power of the state total and absolute, does it operate everywhere? For anthropologists to make a valuable contribution to the study of politics, along what directions should their studies proceed, in Gledhill s view? 4

5 What is Political? Separating politics from other domains of social and cultural life 1930s-1950s African political systems studied as if outside of colonial rule see the Introduction to African Political Systems (1940), by Meyer Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard (p. 1) A.R. Radcliffe-Brown: coercive sanctions, especially force the political organization of a society is that aspect of the total organization which is concerned with the control and regulation of the use of physical force (p. xxiii) establishment of social order, within a territorial framework, by the organized exercise of coercive authority through the use, or the possibility of the use of physical force (p. xiv) law and war 5

6 Politics as the maintenance of order: coercive authority, possibility of use of force. Meyer Fortes and E.E. Evans-Pritchard: presence or absence of a specific governmental or authority structure responsible for the implementation of sanctions kinship, military action, and legal sanctions the whole body of interconnected rights, duties, and sentiments is what makes the society a single political community (p. 21) Max Gluckman: politics concerns problems of preserving law and order, of assuring public control Functionalist view of politics: order, control, authority, sanctions and coercion leadership, punishment, and maintenance of the status quo But where did the concern with force come from? 6

7 1950s-1960s Isaac Schapera: politics constituted by territoriality, sovereignty, membership, authority, and public opinion M.G. Smith: political systems involve hierarchies of authority politics consists of a set of actions = the governmental process government consists of actions by which the public affairs of any social group are directed and managed Political actions consist of shaping and influencing policy The political system involves individuals competing to shape policy power becoming authority political community: persons who identify with each other as a group, regulate their differences by means binding decisions that correspond with accepted values 7

8 1960s conflict and conflict resolution, the formation of factions, the existence of struggles, and arenas of action Max Gluckman, extended case method, an understanding of politics as a series of transactions motivated by a calculated desire for gain Marc J. Swartz, Victor W. Turner, and Arthur Tuden: The study of politics, then, is the study of the processes involved in determining and implementing public goals and in the differential achievement and use of power by the members of the group concerned with those goals Politics is public, public goals, competition for resources and allocation of resources, achieving different levels of power 8

9 1970s/1980s present Concern with nationalism, mass mobilization, the state, citizenship, civil society, and democracy Is There a State? Radcliffe-Brown on the state: does not exist in the phenomenal world; it is a fiction of the philosophers. What does exist is an organization, i.e. a collection of individual human beings connected by a complex system of relations. Within that organization different individuals have different roles, and some are in possession of special power or authority, as chiefs or elders capable of giving commands which will be obeyed, as legislators or judges, and so on. There is no such thing as the power of the State; there are only, in reality, powers of individuals (pp. xxiii) 9

10 The Weight of the Enlightenment Joan Vincent: The Enlightenment movement was built in part on an exchange of theory formulated to address two sets of interrelated problems. First, questions of moral philosophy such as the relationship between a state (governance) and its citizens (civil society); the relationship between the individual and society; notions of community (Gemeinschaft) and society (Gesellschaft); relations among, national, international, and cosmopolitan law; and of cosmopolitics and universal peace. And second, questions of political economy such as the relation of the division of labour to the development of civilization; the nature of the market and the place of individual self-interest within it; and the principle of private property and its relation to progressive evolutionism or modernization (p. 17) 10

11 References, Additional Sources Cohen, Abner. (1969). Political Anthropology: The Analysis of the Symbolism of Power Relations, Man, New Series, 4(2), pp Cohen, Ronald. (1969). Research Directions in Political Anthropology. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, 3(1), pp Easton, David. (1959) Political Anthropology. Biennial Review of Anthropology, 1, pp Fortes, M, & Evans-Pritchard, E.E. (Eds.) (1940). Introduction. In In M. Fortes and E. E. Evans- Pritchard (Eds.), African Political Systems (pp. 1-23). London, UK: Oxford University Press. Radcliffe-Brown. (1940). Preface. In M. Fortes and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (Eds.), African Political Systems (pp. xi-xxiii). London, UK: Oxford University Press. Schapera, Isaac. (1956). Governments and Politics in Tribal Societies. London: Watts, and Co. Southall, Aidan. (1969). Orientations in Political Anthropology. Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des Études Africaines, 3(1), pp Spencer, J. (2001). Political Anthropology. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, pp Swartz, Marc J.; Turner, Victor W.; & Tuden, Arthur. (1966). Political Anthropology. Chicago, IL: Aldine Press, pp Vincent, Joan. (2002). Prelude: The Enlightenment and its Challenges. In Joan Vincent (Ed.), The Anthropology of Politics (pp ). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers Inc. 11