Search

Les anciens paradigmes de l'anthropologie politique voyaient dans les institutions gouvernementales un objet de comparaison interculturelle (fonctionnalisme structurel) ou une ressource politique pour des acteurs poursuivant une fin (transactionnalisme). L'interet recent pour le pouvoir et la reglementation peut aussi profiter de l'analyse des conseils de gouvernement locaux, qui permettent d'explorer les liens empiriques entre « sens commun » et « gouvernementalite ». Les auteurs du present article commencent par mettre en lumiere un tournant de l'histoire du projet colonial et hegemonique britannique en Irlande, a savoir la transition administrative en bon ordre de colonie a Etat qui s'est produite apres 1919. En construisant le recit historique d'un conseil de gouvernement local dans le sud-est de l'Irlande a partir de 1850, nous montrons comment les actes et l'ideologie des gros exploitants agricoles ont pese dans cette transition administrative et, de ce fait, comme les concepts de gouvernementalite, d'hegemonie et de sens commun peuvent etre lies entre eux.

This exploration of hegemony, law, and politics attempts to expand recent anthropological approaches to hegemony and the law both topically and temporally. Specifically, I try to insert notions of coercion, class formation, agency, and political process into what have largely been cultural approaches to hegemony; I do so by exploring the workings of a local court through time. This court, in the context of a colonial state, brought together numerous agents (landlords, laborers, farmers, and retailers) who had conflicting and also sometimes converging economic and political interests and understandings. Through their interaction, the court became a theater, forum, and arena while, over time, it proved simultaneously to be both a civilizing device and a way of reproducing local class experience.[hegemony, historical anthropology, political-legal anthropology, class formation, courts, Ireland, colonialism]

Dispatches is a Critique forum where contributors can comment on issues which do not necessarily fall within the scope of a scholarly article. The first Dispatch in this issue concerns hiring practices; the second concerns ethnocidal practices. Both are awkward pieces, the first revealing the drab—if still compelling—politics of recruitment and reproduction of the anthropological workforce; it also shows distress ingly clearly the kind of manipulation of ethnic stereotypes which anthro pologists frequently claim as one of the main objects of their critical ire. The second dispatch reveals some of the realpolitik aspects of 'research in exotic places', in this case the State's alliance with private mining enterprise in convincing Indian groups that their interests are best represented by a cynical and criminal fraternity.We encourage readers to avail themselves of the Dispatches section of Critique.

In the Shadow of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900–1995. Steve Striffler. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001. 242 pp.

From Traps to Draggers: Domestic Commodity Production in Northwest Newfoundland, 1850–1982. Sinclair. Peter R. Memorial University, Newfoundland: Institute of Social and Economic Research, 1985.156 pages. $9.00 Can.

In recent years the study of history has become a central area of inquiry within anthropology. While classical anthropology focused on the present, current approaches seek to "do history" by using a variety of conceptual and methodological approaches. Approaching the Past is a highly provocative and original volume that examines the issues, themes, and difficulties emerging out of the new anthropological concern with history. Anchoring the discussion with a wide range of ethnographic case studies from Ireland, the contributors to this volume establish a sophisticated interdisciplinary dialogue and assess the degree to which anthropological concepts and methodologies can be applied to historical inquiry. With a variety of essays representing sociological, geograhical, and historical perspectives, Approaching the Past is an invaluable contribution to a discipline that is expanding and reconstituting itself anew.

The case studies assembled in this volume attempt to provide the material for comparative research into the ways co-operatives in Third World countries have functioned, and to analyze the reasons for the outstanding success as well as for the innumerable failures in this area. The book is divided into four sections, the themes of which overlap. The first section studies the problems of co-operatives in stratified societies, and whether co-operatives can or do contribute towards equalization of opportunity. In the second section, the effects of planning and intervention are analyzed. The third section is concerned with understanding how rural people co-operate informally, and with established native traditions of teamwork and collaboration. In the final section, one important set of co-operatives is studied from several viewpoints. Have the benefits of membership reached the poorest villages? Can this kind of success be replicated, or is it the product of a combination of unusual circumstances?

Both economic dependency theory and anthropological/sociological analyses in the West Indies are premised on a duality in the agricultural sector based on a distinction between plantation and peasant modes of production. As a result in local-level analyses, dependency theory incorrectly assumes a homogenous, undifferentiated peasantry whereas social analyses are unable to comprehend empirical complexity. This also means that macro-and microanalyses remain independent endeavors. It therefore is necessary to eliminate the concept of duality and to concentrate instead on historical analysis of economic differentiation and class formation—both products of the interaction between national and local levels and between so-called peasant and plantation modes. To do this, the concept of mediation is used to refer to the process that articulates diverse interests and different structural levels within a broader frame of dependency and that thereby produces a cumulative process of differentiation on the local level. From this perspective, patronage, factionalism, and occupational multiplicity are explained as part of the process of local-level class formation.