Political Anthropology

Description

Politics: a static network of structural and functional models? Is it a "given" set of rules, statuses and procedures? Or a dynamic process, a continuum related to the past as well as to the present and continually influenced by pressures within and outside of a society? Taking the latter view of the nature of political behavior, the editors of Political Anthropology here present an original compilation of papers that thoroughly assess contemporary anthropological research and theory on political phenomena and explore the sources and maintenance of political power. One of the aims of this book is to take tentative steps toward resolving the developing crisis by investigating the structure of political action revealed in empirical data. Within the general framework of political dynamics the book uses processes such as decision making, the judicial process, the disturbance and settlement of policy issues, the application of sanctions, and the outcome of disputes among other things. These items will find their places as components of phases in the major sequence. Investigating societies from Africa to Alaska, politics is shown to be a global phenomenon--a "human process of action" centering on the conflict between the "common good" and "interests of groups," and on the resolution or extension of that conflict by the religious, structural, sociocultural, and psychological pressures within and external to a social grouping. Essential reading for anyone concerned with the nature of political process, Political Anthropology presents a fresh, important and comprehensive overview of the "wind of change" currently abroad in the study of political behavior. Marc J. Swartz has been professor of anthropology at the University of California, San Diego since 1969. He recently retired in 2005. His interests included various branches of anthropology such as social, political, and psychological. In the past he has done fieldwork in Micronesia, Tanzania, and Kenya. Victor W. Turner (1920-1983) received his Ph.D. at Manchester University where he became a Senior Fellow and Lecturer. After leaving Manchester he moved to Stanford University, where he became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Behavior Sciences. In 1964 he traveled to Cornell University where he stayed for four before moving onto the University of Chicago. There he was Professor of Social Thought and Anthropology. While at Chicago he joined the Committee on Social Thought and he began a long-term study in the area of contemporary Christian pilgrimage. His final position was at the University of Virginia where he was the William R. Kenan professor of Anthropology. Arthur Tuden was Professor of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. He was the long-term editor of the Journal Ethnology and he has written many articles as well as authored, co-authored, or edited six books. He did field research in areas of the Ukraine, Virgin Islands, Rhedosia, and parts of Pennsylvania's own Carpatho-Rus community.