Power
The ability or potential to bring about change through action or influence-- either one's own or that of a group or institution. Power is embedded in all human relationships, whether that power is openly displayed or carefully avoided, from the most munda
In this chapter, we explore power as
it is expressed through political systems and processes: the way humans have organized themselves in small groups of the role of the state in national and international politics and the ability of people to engage in politics through individual action and
Political anthropology took clear shape after
World War II, as anthropologists examined the local political systems of africa. Others looked closely at the political systems of the middle east and asia, and the indigenous people of the Americas.
These highly detailed studies of local politicl systems
rarely placed the communities in a larger context, despite being conducted at a time when colonialist powers had imposed nonindigenous governing structures in much of the world
Political anthropologist Service famously classified the vast and varied world of political system into 4 basic types
bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states
Band
A small kinship based group of foragers who hunt and gather for living over a particular territory. Break up regularly and reform in response to conflicts among members and the formation of new alliances. Leaders emerge for a task at hand, with their lead
Tribe
Originally viewed as culturally distinct, multiband population that imagined itself as one people desceneded from a common ancestor, currently used to describe an indigenous group with its own set of loyalties and leaders living to some extent outside the
Chiefdom
An autonomous political unit composed of a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief. Leadership was centralized.
Though the typology of bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states provided a basis if cross-cultural comparison,
Service's framework has frequently proven too simple to capture the complexity and diversity of political practices and institutions that are reflected in ethnographic studies and the archaeological record.
For instance, evidence now clearly suggests that
across human history, groups of bands, tribes, and chiefdoms were never as isolated or homogenous as mid twentieth century anthropologists proposed.
Today we argue that
movement, encounter, exchange, and change have been the hallmarks of human groups, both small and large, throughout human history
It is safe to say that anthropologists have not observed a band, tribe, or chiefdom that has not been influenced by
colonialism, the power of the state, and the forces of globalization.
State
An autonomous regional structure of political, economic, and military rule with a central government authorized to make laws and use force to maintain order and defend its territory
European colonialists deployed economic, political, and military force to redraw
the political borders of much of the world to meet colonial economic needs. In this process, the colonial powers carved states and territories out of geographic areas inhabited by indigenous groups who were previously organized along lines based more on l
Modern states feature a central administration designed to penetrate
the everyday social life of its citizenry.
A standing army asserts control over a
carefully defined territory
What defines and enforces state borders?
Administrative, communication, and military infrastructure
How does the state become the ultimate authority within a particular territory?
Anthropologists suggest that the state becomes real in the imaginations and experiences of people as it is encountered in a particular space. The spatialization of the state (the perception that the state fills a particular space, encompasses all aspects
Spatialization of the state
the perception that the state fils a particular space, encompasses all aspects of culture and stands above all the elements of the society
Max Weber argued that the fundamental characteristic of a state is its
ability to establish a monopoly on the legitimate use of force in a particular territorial domain.
Max weber- states exert coercive power
not only through military and police forces but also through the guarding and regulating of borders, the determining of criteria for citizenship, and the enforcing of discipline through rules, regulations, taxation, and the judicial system
State power is also established through hegemony
The ability of a dominant group to create consent and agreement within a population without the use of threat of force
States reinforce this hegemony by
promoting intense feelings of nationalism to promote the perception of the state as a unified entity
The hegemonic aspects of power can also make group members discipline their own behavior
believing and acting in a certain "normal" ways (often against their own interest) even without threat of punishment for misbehavior
Civil society organization
A local nongovernmental organization that challenges state policies and uneven development and advocates for resources and opportunities for members of its local communities
Also known as non governmental organizations
What has yielded a flourishing of civil society?
Economic restructering promoted by international financial institutions
This is evident in
the phenomenon of people joining together to form local organizations and movements to protest the social upheaval and uneven development that has accompanied the institution of neoliberal economic policies.
Why do neoliberal policies cause social upheavel and uneven development?
International financial institutions such as the WB, IMF, WTO, backed by the world's most developed economies, are pressuring states to adopt neoliberal economic policies.
These policies include free markets, free trade, the free movement of goods, capita
One key strategy of civil organizations has been
to join forces with transnational movements and networks to transform local problems and conflicts into part of a global project for rights and resources. These linkages enable the civil society organizations to advocate for local enviornmental concerns,
The Maasai have traditionally lived as
Seminomadic pastoralists raising cattle on the open rangelands of Tanzania and Kenya
Marginalized within their own nation
first by colonial governments and later by the postcolonial state established after independence from Britain, the Maasai live on the economic and political periphery. They suffer from low levels of education, limited access to health care, and high level
Bureaucrats have viewed the Maasai rangelands as
Unoccupied, and have frequently sold or leased them to investors and developers
Spurred by increasing land loss and impoverishment, Maasai and other pastoralists began to create
NGOs (civil society organizations) in attempt to assert their political rights to resources and recognition and to represent themselves in negotiations with state and international entities.
A key to the Maasai strategy was to represent themselves as
indigenous, in order to build alliances in the international indigenous rights movement. The claim of indigenous rights established the Maasai as prominent actors with the UN and other international human rights bodies and attracted millions of dollars of
The rapid influx of funding and attention generated tremendous internal tensions in the Maasai community
rifts developed among activists along lines of gender, generation, and class, and between the younger educated men who tended to run the NGOs and the rural, uneducated, grassroots communities they represented. Maasai NGOs strategically shifted themselves
Advocates of livelihood:
What cultural rights, land rights, political recognition, and services were necessary to preserve the pastoralist livelihood of the Maasai people?
Some who see violence and war as a legacy of our evolutionary past point to a common myth about
agressive primates and killer apes as evidence
They argue:
If aggression, competition, and violence are part of our primates relatives' evolutionary development, they argue, then these impulses must be deeply ingrained in human nature as well. According to this view, natural levels of aggression, competition, and
Who challenged this myth?
Franz de Waal
He noted, for social animals such as primates, this pattern of conflict and distancing would lead to
everyone living alone, yielding an ineffective pattern of social relationships for individuals who rely on social cooperation for survival.
In the primate social groups, Waal has seen
a far more complicated dynamic emerges in times of conflict. Rather than increased distance, reconciliation occurs on a regular basis. Increasing attraction is regularly observed between opponents after fights
Ultimately, aggressive primate behavior has a genetic component, but this component does not operate in isolation, not is it necessarily dominant.
Equally natural among primates are mechanisms for cooperation, conflict resolution, rechanneling of aggression, and reconciliation.
Social movements
collective group actions in response to uneven development, inequality, and injustice that seek to build institutional networks to transform cultural patterns and government policies.
Framing process
the creation of shared meanings and definitions that motivate and justify collective action by social movements "We are the 99