Anthropology and Politics: Visions, Traditions, and Trends
This essay engages in a discussion on concepts of power, contrasting the works of the South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han with discussions on the subject within the scope of anthropology. Within the limits of this essay, the text provides a minimal review of anthropological traditions of studies on power, followed by a presentation of themes that are exposed in Han’s work, especially related to how the author conceptualizes power. While the philosopher proposes the pursuit of a mobile concept, whose appearance could be modified depending on the movement of its constituent aspects; in anthropology, studies on power are centrally linked to the development of ethnography and the study of precise empirical contexts, with no unequivocal concept of power ever being constituted. Despite seemingly irreconcilable differences, this essay suggests that Han’s work can be incorporated into anthropological readings by the possibility of revising the places attributed to power in our research and by its potential contribution to studies dedicated to issues associated with contemporary anthropologies and critical events situated in these times.
O presente ensaio ocupa-se de uma discussão sobre conceitos de poder, contrastando trabalhos do filósofo sul-coreano Byung-Chul Han com discussões sobre a temática, no âmbito da antropologia. Dentro dos limites deste artigo, o texto oferece uma revisão mínima das tradições antropológicas de estudo do poder e, em sequência, uma apresentação de temas presentes na obra de Han, especialmente relacionados ao modo como o autor conceitua o poder. Enquanto o filósofo propõe a busca de um conceito móvel, cuja aparência pudesse ser modificada dependendo do movimento de seus aspectos constituintes; em antropologia, estudos em torno do poder associam-se centralmente ao desenvolvimento da etnografia e do estudo de contextos empíricos precisos, nunca tendo constituído um conceito inequívoco de poder. Apesar das diferenças aparentemente irreconciliáveis, busca-se sugerir que o trabalho de Han possa ser incorporado às leituras da antropologia pela possibilidade de rever os lugares atribuídos ao poder em nossas pesquisas, e por sua contribuição potencial aos estudos que se dedicam a questões associadas com as antropologias do contemporâneo e aos eventos críticos que se situam nestes tempos.
The chapter focuses on three areas of reflection of the American anthropology present at its birth and which, over time, have characterised it: the accentuated empiricism, the idiographic / relativist perspective, the marked applied tendency that accompanies it from the beginning.The intent is to explain, in a synthetic way, some theoretical-methodological emergencies that today have a precise meaning for anthropologists or constitute an essential point of reference in addressing particular research themes, as they are associated and referable to US epistemology.
Governments matter. Governments initiate, manage, reconstruct, and/or retract vital public services such as health care, education, environmental protection, and social welfare. Governments influence employment, labor relations, investment, and development. Governments affect projects of war and peace. Governments define and enforce the terms of citizenship and immigration, and shape how cultural ideals of belonging, value, and morality are reproduced and practiced. Yet none of these projects are complete or entirely unified. Governments are also sites of struggle, possibility, contradiction, and compromise, and governing is always dependent on the complex interactions of social actors operating across legal, institutional, and cultural domains.
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