Social Imaginaries Of The State And Central Authority In Polish Highland Villages 1999 2005

This book argues that common-sense convictions of rural Polish citizens are “post-peasant” or “post-agrarian”, rather than post-socialist or post-communist. In so doing, it offers a departure from the established terms of scholarly literature on the Central European transition that has focused on such concepts as “homo sovieticus” or the “post-communist mentality”. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in the early 2000s in the highland region in the south of Poland, focusing on local knowledge about the state, power, politics, and democracy. It describes how rural social imaginaries translate categories derived from the organisation of life and work at the farm into ideas about politics. In this regard, the state is seen as a huge farm, the authorities as the farmer or manager, and the nation as the farmer’s family. Politics is perceived as a dishonest but profitable profession and democracy as a political system that could only work in the Garden of Eden.

Thrift is a central concern for most people, especially in turbulent economic times. It is both an economic and an ethical logic of frugal living, saving and avoiding waste for long-term kin care. These logics echo the ancient ideal of household self-sufficiency, contrasting with capitalism’s wasteful present-focused growth. But thrift now exceeds domestic matters straying across scales to justify public expenditure cuts. Through a wide range of ethnographic contexts this book explores how practices and moralities of thrift are intertwined with austerity, debt, welfare, and patronage across various social and temporal scales and are constantly re-negotiated at the nexus of socio-economic, religious, and kinship ideals and praxis.

This open access book provides in-depth and comparative analyses of how young people in peripheral areas in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania perceive EU citizenship. It also informs the reader about the challenges faced by EU Youth Dialogue projects that aim at promoting active (EU) citizenship in these areas and it offers context-specific recommendations for local, regional, national and European policymakers and people working with young people. The contributions are based on new qualitative data collected within the framework of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at Leipzig University. It will be of interest to practitioners and scholars working on Europe and the EU, citizenship and the promotion of an active EU citizenship beyond urban centres.

How is the Internet produced as an infrastructure in post-socialist Lithuania? Migle Bareikyte contributes to the growing field of STS and media studies with a distinct focus on Eastern Europe. She situates the Internet development in Lithuania's telecom industry with the exploration of its labor practices, geopolitical imaginaries, and critical negotiations from a bottom-up perspective. Bareikyte further explores how fieldwork-based research can foster new theorizations of media infrastructures. Finally, she argues for a situated investigation of new places and actors beyond the United States and Western Europe-such as post-socialist regions-in order to explore the diversity of media infrastructures.

Karl Polanyi’s “substantivist” critique of market society has found new popularity in the era of neoliberal globalization. The author reclaims this polymath for contemporary anthropology, especially economic anthropology, in the context of Central Europe, where Polanyi (1886–1964) grew up. The Polanyian approach illuminates both the communist era, in particular the “market socialist” economy which evolved under János Kádár in Hungary, as well as the post-communist transformations of property relations, civil society and ethno-national identities throughout the region. Hann’s analyses are based primarily on his own ethnographic investigations in Hungary and South-East Poland. They are pertinent to the rise of neo-nationalism in those countries, which is theorized as a malign countermovement to the domination of the market. At another level, Hann’s adaptation of Polanyi’s social philosophy points beyond current political turbulence to an original concept of “social Eurasia”.

In this new edition of the anthropological classic Exotic No More, some of today’s most respected anthropologists demonstrate the tremendous contributions that anthropological theory and ethnographic methods can make to the study of contemporary society. With chapters covering a wide variety of subjects—the economy, religion, the sciences, gender and sexuality, human rights, music and art, tourism, migration, and the internet—this volume shows how anthropologists grapple with a world that is in constant and accelerating transformation. Each contributor uses examples from their adventurous fieldwork to challenge us to rethink some of our most firmly held notions. This fully updated edition reflects the best that anthropology has to offer in the twenty-first century. The result is both an invaluable introduction to the field for students and a landmark achievement that will set the agenda for critical approaches to the study of contemporary life. Contributors:Ruben Andersson, Philippe Bourgois, Catherine Buerger, James G. Carrier, Marcus Colchester, James Fairhead, Kim Fortun, Mike Fortun, Katy Gardner, Faye Ginsburg, Roberto J. González, Tom Griffiths, Chris Hann, Susan Harding, Faye V. Harrison, Laurie Kain Hart, Richard Jenkins, George Karandinos, Christopher M. Kelty, Melissa Leach, Margaret Lock, Jeremy MacClancy, Sally Engle Merry, Fernando Montero, Matt Sakakeeny, Anthony Alan Shelton, Christopher B. Steiner, Richard Ashby Wilson

This remarkable and timely ethnography explores how fishing communities living on the fringe of the South China Sea in central Vietnam interact with state and religious authorities as well as their farmer neighbors—even while handling new geopolitical challenges. The focus is mainly on marginal people and their navigation between competing forces over the decades of massive change since their incorporation into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1975. The sea, however, plays a major role in this study as does the location: a once-peripheral area now at the center of a global struggle for sovereignty, influence and control in the South China Sea. The coastal fishing communities at the heart of this study are peripheral not so much because of geographical remoteness as their presumed social “awkwardness”; they only partially fit into the social imaginary of Vietnam’s territory and nation. The state thus tries to incorporate them through various cultural agendas while religious reformers seek to purify their religious practices. Yet, recently, these communities have also come to be seen as guardians of an ancient fishing culture, important in Vietnam’s resistance to Chinese claims over the South China Sea. The fishers have responded to their situation with a blend of conformity, co-option and subtle indiscipline. A complex, triadic relationship is at play here. Within it are various shifting binaries—for example, secular/religious, fishers/farmers, local ritual/Buddhist doctrine, and so forth—and different protagonists (state officials, religious figures, fishermen and women) who construct, enact, and deconstruct these relations in shifting alliances and changing contexts. Fishers, Monks and Cadres is a significant new work. Its vivid portrait of local beliefs and practices makes a powerful argument for looking beyond monolithic religious traditions. Its triadic analysis and subtle use of binaries offer startlingly fresh ways to view Vietnamese society and local political power. The book demonstrates Vietnam is more than urban and agrarian society in the Red River Basin and Mekong Delta. Finally, the author builds on intensive, long-term research to portray a region at the forefront of geopolitical struggle, offering insights that will be fascinating and revealing to a much broader readership.

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

The Cold War shaped the world we live in today - its politics, economics, and military affairs. This book shows how the globalization of the Cold War during the last century created the foundations for most of the key conflicts we see today, including the War on Terror. It focuses on how the Third World policies of the two twentieth-century superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union - gave rise to resentments and resistance that in the end helped topple one superpower and still seriously challenge the other. Ranging from China to Indonesia, Iran, Ethiopia, Angola, Cuba, and Nicaragua, it provides a truly global perspective on the Cold War. And by exploring both the development of interventionist ideologies and the revolutionary movements that confronted interventions, the book links the past with the present in ways that no other major work on the Cold War era has succeeded in doing.

Urges governments to expand quality education for all, increase community access to information and communication technology, and improve cross-border scientific knowledge-sharing, in an effort to narrow the digital and "knowledge" divides between the North and South and move towards a "smart" form of sustainable human development.