Confronting The Present

Anthropologists study other people and worry about it. In the past this took the form of a professional desire to make our politics always somewhere else and to do with persons characterized as in some way different from ourselves. Now distances shrink and old forms of difference melt as global forces give rise to new processes of differentiation and new possibilities for political collectivities. How does this affect the way we might design a politically relevant anthropology? This book examines these concerns in light of the author's shift from the study of rather distant people to people and places closer to home - a trend to be found within the discipline as a whole. How should anthropology respond to this change, as it increasingly finds itself in stamping grounds where other disciplines are already well-entrenched? How will work being done in anthropology intersect with that in other disciplines? Will anthropologists have anything to offer debates that have been ongoing in these other disciplines, such as those relating to social citizenship and collective identity, regionalism and the constitution of space and place, hegemony and resistance, political organization and cultural expression? Conversely, what can anthropologists learn from the way other disciplines formulate these issues and problems?Written to provoke discussion, this timely book aims to initiate a dialogue not only with anthropologists, but also with those in related disciplines who share a concern with people, politics and modernity. As well as anthropologists, the issues it tackles will be of interest to geographers, economists, political scientists, social historians and sociologists.

Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries, how much austerity to impose, and how much to deregulate markets. While these policies do often confer growth benefits, they have also been responsible for much of the increase in inequality. The book also shows that inequality leads to weaker economic performance and proposes alternative policies capable of delivering more inclusive growth. In addition to improving access to health care and quality education, they call for redistribution from the rich to the poor and present evidence showing that redistribution does not hurt growth. Accessible to scholars across disciplines as well as to students and policy makers, Confronting Inequality is a rigorous and empirically rich book that is crucial for a time when many fear a new Gilded Age.

This volume inquires into the relationship between philosophy, politics and capitalism by rethinking Kyoto School philosophy in relation to capitalist modernity.

This volume is an exploration of the ways in which political economy as a mode of analysis moves anthropology toward a vital, politically engaged form of scholarship. It advances the understanding of the struggles of ordinary people in the face of capitalist change. In the current economic moment when such changes are tumultuous and the instabilities of capitalism are starkly revealed, this book responds to the urgent need for theoretical and methodological approaches for understanding the forces that shape our contemporary world. Through ethnographic investigations of the quotidian, and through the thematic of politics, history and livelihoods, which distinguish Marxist political economy in the field of anthropology, the authors here reveal the increasing complexity of everyday lives. Using examples derived from fieldwork carried out across diverse geographical locations, the authors pay particular attention to historical conditions shaping the peoples’ life trajectories. In so doing the authors engage critically, and with differing emphases, with political economy and Marxism as a mode of inquiry. This book illustrates the productive tension between observations emerging from the field and theoretical debates that is generated by anthropological ethnography.

This volume documents the transformation of age-old antisemitic stereotypes into a new form of discrimination, often called "New Antisemitism" or "Antisemitism 2.0." Manifestations of antisemitism in political, legal, media and other contexts are reflected on theoretically and contemporary developments are analyzed with a special focus on online hatred. The volume points to the need for a globally coordinated approach on the political and legal levels, as well as with regard to the modern media, to effectively combat modern antisemitism.

What determines the strategies by which a state mobilizes resources for war? And does war preparation strengthen or weaken the state in relation to society? In addressing these questions, Michael Barnett develops a novel theoretical framework that traces the connection between war preparation and changes in state-society relations, and applies that framework to Egypt from 1952 to 1977 and Israel from 1948 through 1977. Confronting the Costs of War addresses major issues in international relations, comparative politics, and Middle Eastern studies.

This edited collection presents two sets of interdisciplinary conversations connecting theoretical, methodological, and ideological issues in the study of language. In the first section, Approaches to the study of the indigenous languages of the Americas, the authors connect historical, theoretical, and documentary linguistics to examine the crucial role of endangered language data for the development of biopsychological theory and to highlight how methodological decisions impact language revitalization efforts. Section two, Approaches to the study of voices and ideologies, connects anthropological and documentary linguistics to examine how discourses of language contact, endangerment, linguistic purism and racism shape scholarly practice and language policy and to underscore the need for linguists and laypersons alike to acquire the analytical tools to deconstruct discourses of inequality. Together, these chapters pay homage to the scholarship of Jane H. Hill, demonstrating how a critical, interdisciplinary linguistics narrows the gap between disparate fields of analysis to treat the ecology of language in its entirety.

This volume engages with antisemitic stereotypes as religious symbols that express and transmit a belief system of Jew-hatred. These religious symbols are stored in Christian, Muslim and even today’s secular cultural and religious memories. This volume explores how antisemitic religious symbol systems can play a key role in the construction of group identities.