An Ethnographic Chiefdom

An Ethnographic Chiefdom PDF Author: Nikola Balaš
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1805396765
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description
The Czechoslovak academic discipline called ‘Ethnography and Folklore Studies’ was impacted and influenced by the daily realities of state socialism in 1969–1989. This book examines the role of the planned economy, Marxist–Leninist ideology, disciplinary hierarchies and clientelist networks, ultimately showing how state socialist features together brought about the discipline’s epistemic stalling. It offers a fresh perspective on the long-standing debates purporting to capture the differences between the Central and Eastern European tradition of ethnology and Western sociocultural anthropology.

An Ethnographic Chiefdom

An Ethnographic Chiefdom PDF Author: Nikola Balaš
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1805396765
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 355

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Czechoslovak academic discipline called ‘Ethnography and Folklore Studies’ was impacted and influenced by the daily realities of state socialism in 1969–1989. This book examines the role of the planned economy, Marxist–Leninist ideology, disciplinary hierarchies and clientelist networks, ultimately showing how state socialist features together brought about the discipline’s epistemic stalling. It offers a fresh perspective on the long-standing debates purporting to capture the differences between the Central and Eastern European tradition of ethnology and Western sociocultural anthropology.

Chiefdoms

Chiefdoms PDF Author: Robert L. Carneiro
Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications
ISBN: 173337695X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
What many anthropologists regard as the major step in political development occurred when, for the first time in history, previously autonomous villages gave up their individual sovereignties and were brought together into a multi-village political unit--the chiefdom. Though long neglected as a major stage in history, recent years have seen the chiefdom come in for increased attention. As its importance has been more fully recognized, it has become the object of serious scholarly analysis and interpretation. In this volume specialists in political evolution draw on data from ethnography, archaeology, and history and apply fresh insights to enhance the study of the chiefdom. The papers present penetrating analyses of many aspects of the chiefdom, from how this form of political organization first arose to the role it played in giving rise to the next major stage in the development of human society--the state.

Chiefs and Democratic Transition in Africa

Chiefs and Democratic Transition in Africa PDF Author: Jude Thaddeus Dingbobga Fokwang Fokwang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
During the 1990s, most African countries experienced what has been termed their 'second independence (cf. Bratton and Hyden 1992), a period of political upheaval and transformation leading to the introduction of democratic rule. In many countries including South Africa and Cameroon, the process triggered fresh debates about the status and role of chiefs. The popular assumption in 'struggle circles' such as the African National Congress (ANC) was that chiefs would be relegated to the background in the democratic era, thus giving room to people's power and new forms of accountability. But the reality was that the introduction of democracy created a situation whereby many rural people felt excluded economically from the boundless promises of the new dispensation. This dissatisfaction among rural people brought into question the legitimacy of some structures such as the local government even though the ruling ANC continued to enjoy much support among the masses. This in turn provided an enabling environment in which some, but not all, chiefs could make new claims for legitimacy. This is because some chiefs remain discredited by their past association with apartheid authorities. Chief Tshivhase is one of the few chiefs who has successfully associated himself with the ANC both at the national and provincial levels. This has given him space to act decisively in certain ways on behalf of the poor at the local level, thereby winning credibility among rural people. Thus, his credibility is two-fold with the national politicians, because he is one of them, and with the people of the chiefdom. Chief Tshivhase's ability to renegotiate his status and gain new legitimacy as chief is a particular example of how the game of neo-liberal democracy is played out in post-apartheid South Africa. In the chiefdom of Bali Nyonga in Cameroon, Chief Ganyonga's career looks rather similar to Tshivhase's in so far as he too has risen to national prominence in the ruling party in Cameroon, the Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) in the era of democracy. But Cameroon's democratic transition was contradictory in the sense that it introduced the form of democracy but not its substance, leaving the ruling party the ability to manipulate and suppress the opposition and civil society. It was against this background that Ganyonga's prominence in the CPDM contributed to undermining his legitimacy in the eyes of his subjects because they believed that his prominence in the party left them without any shield from the predation and manipulation of the state. Ganyonga was seen to be in illicit cohabitation with a self-serving ruling party, at a time when his subjects wanted to use their newfound rights as citizens to vote the opposition into office. But Ganyonga's involvement in the politics of the so-called Anglophone problem helped to legitimise his participation in modern politics as a chief. Against this background, this thesis examines why both chiefs used their positions as a springboard into national politics? It also establishes the kinds of legitimacy claimed by these chiefs and to what extent the masses are persuaded by such claims and how the chiefs' involvement in national politics has affected the relationship between them and their subjects. This thesis therefore makes a case for the importance of comparative research on chiefs in the era of democracy and the predicaments they face therein. The thesis argues that contrary to exhortations about the incompatibility of chiefs and democracy, the reality is that political transition in both countries produced contradictions which created space for chiefs to fill but on condition that they were able to draw from different kinds of legitimacy and had not been discredited by their past or present involvement with the postcolonial state.

Chiefs and Democratic Transition in Africa

Chiefs and Democratic Transition in Africa PDF Author: Jude Thaddeus Dingbobga Fokwang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cameroon
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms

A Primer on Chiefs and Chiefdoms PDF Author: Timothy Earle
Publisher: Eliot Werner Publications
ISBN: 1734281855
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
Chiefs are political operatives who hold titles of leadership over groups larger than intimate kin-based communities. Although they rule with the consent of their group, they are all about building personal power and respect. Many scholars have viewed chiefs as problem solvers--defending groups against aggressors, resolving disputes, providing support under hardship, organizing labor for community projects, and redistributing goods among those in need. Chiefs do these things, but much of what chiefs do is accumulate benefits for themselves, staying in power and legitimizing control. Anthropological archaeology is well suited to pursue the study of chiefs, their leadership institutions (chiefdoms), and long-term historical processes. The author argues that studying chiefdoms is essential to understanding the role of elemental powers in social evolution. As an illustration, he studies chiefs and their power strategies in historically independent prehistoric and traditional societies and discusses how they continue to exist as powerful actors within modern states.

The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms

The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms PDF Author: Patrick Vinton Kirch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521273169
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
A first study from an archaeological perspective of the elaborate systems of Polynesian chiefdoms presents an original account of the processes of cultural change and evolution over three millennia.

Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions

Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions PDF Author: Timothy R. Pauketat
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 0759112509
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
In recent decades anthropology, especially ethnography, has supplied the prevailing models of how human beings have constructed, and been constructed by, their social arrangements. In turn, archaeologists have all too often relied on these models to reconstruct the lives of ancient peoples. In lively, engaging, and informed prose, Timothy Pauketat debunks much of this social-evolutionary theorizing about human development, as he ponders the evidence of 'chiefdoms' left behind by the Mississippian culture of the American southern heartland. This book challenges all students of history and prehistory to reexamine the actual evidence that archaeology has made available, and to do so with an open mind.

Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions

Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions PDF Author: Timothy R. Pauketat
Publisher: Rowman Altamira
ISBN: 9780759108288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This book sweeps away the last vestiges of social-evolutionary explanations of 'chiefdoms' by rethinking the history of Pre-Columbian Southeast peoples and comparing them to ancient peoples in the Southwest, Mexico, Mesoamerica, and Mesopotamia.

Evolutionism In Cultural Anthropology

Evolutionism In Cultural Anthropology PDF Author: Robert L. Carneiro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429969228
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Examines the history of evolutionism in cultural anthropology, beginning with its roots in the 19th century, through the half-century of anti-evolutionism, to its reemergence in the 1950s, and the current perspectives on it today. No other book covers the subject so fully or over such a long period of time.. Evolutionism and Cultural Anthropology traces the interaction of evolutionary thought and anthropological theory from Herbert Spencer to the twenty-first century. It is a focused examination of how the idea of evolution has continued to provide anthropology with a master principle around which a vast body of data can be organized and synthesized. Erudite and readable, and quoting extensively from early theorists (such as Edward Tylor, Lewis Henry Morgan, John McLennan, Henry Maine, and James Frazer) so that the reader might judge them on the basis of their own words, Evolutionism and Cultural Anthropology is useful reading for courses in anthropological theory and the history of anthropology. 0813337666 Evolutionism in Cultural Anthropology : a Critical History

An Invitation to Anthropology

An Invitation to Anthropology PDF Author: Josep R. Llobera
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9781571815989
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Josep Llobera offers an original approach to anthropology through integrating knowledge produced from a wide variety of perspectives. The volume introduces the topic to students of social and cultural anthropology.