Lahore University of Management Sciences

ANTH244 – Political Anthropology

Spring 2014-2015

Instructor Ayaz Qureshi

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COURSE BASICS
Credit Hours 4
Lecture(s) 2 lectures per Duration 1hr 50mins
week

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course will introduce students to the development of anthropological studies of the political. Beginning
with stateless societies and moving onto the modern state systems, we will examine anthropological theories
of political organization through historical and modern case studies from around the world. In the first half of
the term, we will explore the interplay of colonial histories and anthropological studies of stateless societies
and the impact of decolonization on the framing of the political systems in the non-western world through mid
to late 20th century. Using key texts and related ethnographic material, we will examine a number of
theoretical paradigms in political anthropology that have held sway over this period. In the second half of the
term, we will move onto the recent developments with regards to a reconceptualisation of power (and the
political) residing not merely in the formal political organization or structures of authority. We consider what
this postmodernist turn in academia entails for the anthropological study of the political. Who are the subjects
of political anthropology in the world of fast-disappearing stateless societies? We then explore in-depth some
of the current topics in the anthropology of politics – development, nationalism, ethnicity, communalism,
bureaucracy, neoliberalism, resistance, and social movements. Finally, we will reflect on the politics of
producing anthropological knowledge in the so-called postmodern world.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
 To give a broad understanding of political anthropology by following the historical developments of
this field.
 To develop an understanding of the major theoretical orientations in the field of political anthropology.
 To familiarize students with current questions in the anthropology of politics and their place within
broader debates over the conceptualization of power.

EVALUATIONS
Class participation: 10%
Assessed Essay: 20%
Mid-term exam: 20%
Presentation: 15%
Final exam: 35%
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CLASS PARTICIPATION
Students must read the articles for each session and be prepared to critically comment on them during the
teaching sessions. The list of readings for each session may be further adapted. Students will be informed of
any such changes well in time for preparations for a given session. All readings are compulsory unless they
are marked as [SR] (suggested reading).

ASSESSED ESSAY
Students have to write an essay over the course of the term. Essays must be related to the themes covered in
the course, and essay questions must first be approved by the instructor.

 When writing these essays, students are encouraged to look beyond the reading list and explore a wide
body of literature related to the questions they intend to attempt. Essays will be graded on the quality
of arguments, structure, and research.
 Deadlines: TBA
 The world limit for the essay is between 2000-2500 (bibliography/reference not included). The text
should written in font size 12, Times New Roman, or similar.
Proper referencing and citation is expected and required.

PRESENTATIONS
1. This is a collective exercise meant to encourage teamwork and help students to get used to their peer
evaluation.
2. Students choose their presentation topics which have to be approved by the course instructor.
3. The presentation should not exceed 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes of questions/answer and
discussion.
4. A written outline and a bibliography have to be provided at the time of the presentation.

MID TERM AND FINAL EXAMS

These will be closed–book, essay based exams.

PLAGIARISM AND CHEATING

Any existing written work used by the students should be acknowledged and properly cited. If you take an
idea or argument from any text, book, newspaper or any source (including the internet), you must give the
author credit. Cheating, plagiarism or any other violations of plagiarism policy will be dealt with according to
LUMS policies and procedures.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Session 1: Overview of the course and introduction to political anthropology

There are no readings for this session. Students should read ahead from the second session’s reading list.

Session 2: Development of Political anthropology

Fortes, M. and E. Evans‐Pritchard (Eds.). (1940). African Political Systems. New York: Oxford
University Press. (Introduction)

Swartz, M. J., Turner, V. W., & Tuden, A. (Eds.). (1972). Political anthropology. Transaction Publishers.
(Introduction)
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Gledhill, J. (2000). Power and its disguises: anthropological perspectives on politics. London: Pluto
Press. (Introduction)

[SR] Vincent, J. (1990). Anthropology and politics: Visions, traditions, and trends. University of Arizona
Press.

[SR] Angela P. Cheater (Ed.). (1999). The anthropology of power: Empowerment and disempowerment
in changing structures (No. 36). Psychology Press.

[SR] Kurtz, D. V. (2001). Political anthropology: power and paradigms (pp. 21-32). Boulder Colorado:
Westview Press.

[SR] Vincent, J. (Ed.). (2002). The anthropology of politics: a reader in ethnography, theory, and
critique. Oxford: Blackwell.

Session 3: Pre-industrial political systems: Bands and tribes

Service, E. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random
House. (Introduction)

Fried, M. 1967. The Evolution of Political Society. New York: Random House. (Introduction)

Session 4: Pre-industrial political systems: Chiefdoms and states

Service, E. 1962. Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random
House. (Introduction).

Earle, T. (1997). How Chiefs Come to Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory. Stanford, Calif.:
Stanford University Press. (Introduction).

Session 5: Theories of the evolution of state

Cohen, R. and E. Service, (eds.). (1978). Origins of the State: The Anthropology of Political Evolution.
Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues. (Introduction)

Session 6: Typologies of early states

Upham, S. (ed.). (1990). The Evolution of Political Systems. New York: Cambridge University Press.
(Introduction)

Session 7: Role of religion in political organization

Aronoff, M. J. (Ed.). (1984). Religion and Politics (Vol. 3). Transaction Publishers. (Introduction).

Kertzer, D. I. (1988). Ritual, politics, and power. Yale University Press.(Chapters 1 & 5 )

Wallace, A. (2010). Death and Rebirth of Seneca. Random House LLC. (part1)

[SR] Aigbe, S. A. (1993). Theory of Social Involvement: A Case Study in the Anthropology of Religion,
State, and Society. Lanham: University Press of America..
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[SR] Packard, R. M. (1981). Chiefship and Cosmology: an historical study of political competition.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

[SR] Werbner, R. (ed.). (1998). Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of
Power. London: Zed.

Session 8: Gender and power in pre-industrial societies

Mascia-Lees, F. E., & Black, N. J. (1999). Gender and anthropology. Waveland Press. (Introduction)

Whyte, M. (1978). The Status of Women in Preindustrial Societies. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press. (Introduction)

Gailey, C. W. (2013). Kinship to kingship: gender hierarchy and state formation in the Tongan Islands.
University of Texas Press. (Introduction).

[SR] Dahlberg, F. (Ed.). (1981). Woman the gatherer. Yale University Press.

[SR] Leacock, E. (1981). Myths of male dominance. New York: Monthly Review.

Session 9: Colonialism and theorizing African political systems

Evans-Pritchard, E. 1940. The Nuer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Eisenstadt, S. (1990). Functional Analysis in Anthropology and Sociology: An Interpretive Essay.

Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 243–60.

Session 10: Decolonization and the process approach to political phenomenon

Gluckman, M. (1963). Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa: Collected essays. London: Cohen and West.
(Introduction).

Turner, V. W. (1972). Schism and continuity in an African society: A study of Ndembu village life.
Manchester University Press. (Chapters IX and X)

[SR] Gluckman, M. (1956). Custom and conflict in Africa. Oxford: Blackwell. (The peace in Feud).

[SR] Leach, E. (1954). Political Systems of Highland Burma: A Study of Kachin Social Structure.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (Available at
http://www.khamkoo.com/uploads/9/0/0/4/9004485/political_systems_of_highland_burma-
kachin_structure.pdf)

Session 11: The political man and manipulative strategies

Bailey, F. G. (1969). Stratagems and spoils: A social anthropology of politics. New York: Schocken
Books. (Introduction and chapter 1)

Cohen, A. (1976). Two-dimensional man: An essay on the anthropology of power and symbolism in
complex society. University of California Press. (Introduction: the bizarre and mystical in modern
society).
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[SR] Cohen, A. (1981). The politics of elite culture: explorations in the dramaturgy of power in a
modern African society. University of California Press.

[SR] Vincent, J. (1978). Political anthropology: manipulative strategies. Annual Review of

Anthropology, 175-194.

Session 12: Transactionalism: Political leadership among Swat Pathans

Barth, F. (1959). Segmentary opposition and the theory of games: a study of Pathan
organization. Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 5-21.

[SR] Ahmed, A. (2011). Millennium and charisma among Pathans: a critical essay in social
anthropology. Routledge.

[SR] Asad, T. (1972). Market model, class structure and consent: a reconsideration of Swat political
organisation. Man, 74-94.

[SR] Barth, F. (1965). Political leadership among Swat Pathans. London: Athelone Press.

Session 13: The political economy approach

Wolf, E. (1982). Europe and the People without History. University of California Press. (Introduction)

Roseberry, W. (1997). Marx and anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 25-46.

[SR] Wolf, E. R. (1999). Envisioning power: Ideologies of dominance and crisis. University of California
Press.

[SR] Donham, D. L. (1999). History, power, ideology: Central issues in Marxism and anthropology.
University of California Press.

Session 14: Neo-evolutionism and political organization

White, L. A. (1943). Energy and the evolution of culture. American Anthropologist, 335-356.

[SR] Service, E. (1975). Origins of the state and Civilization: The process of cultural evolution. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company.

[SR] Steward, J. (1955). Theory of culture change: The methodology of multilinear evolution. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press.

Session 15: Mid-term exam

Session 16: Reconceptualising power and locating the political

Swartz, M., V. Turner, A. Tuden. (2002). Political Anthropology. In The anthropology of politics: a
reader in ethnography, theory, and critique. Vincent, J. (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. 102-109.

Gledhill, J. (2000). Power and its disguises: anthropological perspectives on politics. London: Pluto
Press. (Chapter. 1, ‘Locating the political: a political anthropology for today,’ 1-22)
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[SR] Wolf, E. 2001. Pathways of Power: Building an Anthropology of the Modern World. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

Session 17: Ideology, hegemony and discourse

Asad, T. (1979). Anthropology and the Analysis of Ideology, Man 14(4), pp. 607-627.

Williams, R. (1983). Hegemony. In Keywords. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.144-46.

Mouffe, C. (1979). Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci. In Gramsci and Marxist Theory, Mouffe, C. (ed.),
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

[SR] Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. In Untying the text: a post-structuralist reader.
Young, R. (ed.). Boston ; London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

[SR] Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence and Wishart. (‘The
intellectuals’ p323-43)

[SR] Sangren, S. (1995). Power and Ideology: A Critique of Foucauldian Usage. Cultural Anthropology
10(1): p. 3-40.

[SR] Crehan, K. (2002). Gramsci, Culture and Anthropology. University of California Press. (Especially
chapter 5)

[SR] Said, E. (1978). Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London: Penguin Books.

Session 18: The development discourse

Ferguson, J. (1990). The Anti-Politics Machine. “Development”, Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power
in Lesotho, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Introduction and chapter 9)

Escobar, A. (1991). Anthropology and the Development Encounter: The Making and Marketing of
Development Anthropology. American Ethnologist 18(4), pp. 658-682.

[SR] Escobar, A. 1994. Encountering development: the making and unmaking of the third world,
Princeton, N.J.; Chichester: Princeton University Press.

[SR] Crush, J. 1995. (ed.). Power of development, London: Routledge.

[SR] Gardner, K. and D. Lewis. 1996. Anthropology, development, and the post-modern challenge,
London; Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press.

[SR] Grillo, R. & R. Stirrat (eds.). 1997. Discourses of Development: Anthropological Perspectives,
Berg: Oxford and New York. (especially Introduction)

[SR] Hobart, M. (ed.) 1993. An Anthropological Critique of Development: The growth of ignorance,
Routledge: London and New York..

Session 19: The possibility of resistance

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Scott, J. (1985). Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, Conn.: Yale.
(Chapter 8)

Ong, A. (2010). Spirits of resistance and capitalist discipline: Factory women in Malaysia. New York:
Suny Press.

[SR] Scott, J. 1990. Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts, New Haven: Yale
University Press.

[SR] Abu-Lughod, L. (1990). The Romance of Resistance: tracing transformations of power through
Bedouin women. American Ethnologist 17(1), 1990.

[SR] Ortner, S. (1995). Resistance and the Problem of Ethnographic Refusal. Comparative Studies in
Society and History 37(1), pp. 173-193.

[SR] Gal, S. (1995). Language and the “Arts of Resistance”’ Cultural Anthropology 10(3): 407-424.

[SR] Williams, G. (2008). Cultivating Autonomy: power, resistance, and the French Alterglobalization
movement. Critique of Anthropology 28: 63-86,.

Session 20: Bureaucracy, governance and neoliberalism

Weber, M. (2006). Bureaucracy. In The Anthropology of the State. A. Sharma and A. Gupta (eds.) pp.
49-70.

Foucault, M. (1991) Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality. G. Burchell,

C. Gordon & P. Miller (Eds,). pp. 87–104.

Rankin, K. (2001). Governing development: neoliberalism, microcredit, and rational economic

woman. Economy and Society, 30 (1): 18–37

[SR] Bocock, R. (1992). The Cultural Formations of Modern Society. In Formations of Modernity. S.
Hall and B. Gieben (eds.), Cambridge: Polity Press.

[SR] Englund, H. 2006. Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor. Berkeley:
University of California Press.

[SR] Shore, C and Wright, S. (1996). Anthropology and Policy: Critical Perspectives of Governance
and Power, London: Routledge. (Introduction)

Session 21: The politics of identity: ethnicity and nationalism

Toland, J. (ed.). 1993. Ethnicity and the State: Political and Legal Anthropology Series. New Brunswick,
N.J.: Transaction. (Introduction)

Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism.
London: Verso. (Introduction)

[SR] Verkaaik, O. (2003). Fun and violence. Ethnocide and the effervescence of collective
aggression. Social Anthropology, 11(1), 3-22.

Session 22: The politics of identity: communalism

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Das, V. (2007). Life and Words: Violence and the Descent into the Ordinary. University of California
Press. (Chapter 1 and 11)

Jasani, R. (2011). A game of hide and seek: gendered ethnographies of the everyday state after
communal violence in Ahmedabad, Western India. Contemporary South Asia, 19(3), 249-262.

[SR] Brass, P. (2011). The production of Hindu-Muslim violence in contemporary India. University of
Washington Press.

Session 23: Citizenship and democratic process

Hansen, T. (2005) Sovereign Beyond the State: on Legality and Public Authority in India. In Religion,
Violence and Political Mobilisation in South Asia. R. Kaur (ed.). New Delhi: Sage. pp. 109-144.

Jauregui, B. (2014). Provisional Agency in India: Jugaad and Legitimation of Corruption. American
Ethnologist. 41(1). pp. 76-91.

[SR] Jeffrey, C. (2000). Democratisation without Representation? The Power and Political Strategies
of a Rural Elite in North India. Political Geography, 19(8). pp 1013-1036.

[SR] Michelutti, L. (2010). Wrestling with (Body) Politics: Understanding ‘Goonda’ Political Styles in
North India. In Power and Influence in South Asia: Bosses, Lords, and Captains. P. Price and A. Ruud
(eds.). London: Routledge. (pp44-69).

[SR] Lazar, S. and Nuijten, M. (2013). Citizenship, the self, and political agency. Critique of
anthropology, 33(1), 3-7.

[SR] Paley, J. (2002). Towards an Anthropology of Democracy. Annual Review of Anthropology. 31.
pp. 469-496.

Session 24: Political society

Veron, R., S. Corbridge, et al. (2003). The Everyday State and Political Society in Eastern India:
Structuring Access to the Employment Assurance Scheme. The Journal of Development Studies 39(5):
1-28.

Martin, N. (2014). The Dark Side of Political Society: Patronage and the Reproduction of Social
Inequality. Journal of Agrarian Change. 14(3). pp 419-434.

[SR] Chatterjee, P. (2006). The Politics of the Governed: Reflections on Popular Politics in Most of the
World. Leonard Hastings Schoff Lectures. New York: Columbia University Press. (part 1).

[SR] Chatterjee, P. (2013). Lineages of political society: Studies in postcolonial democracy. Columbia
University Press.

Session 25: The politics of social movements I

Escobar, A. (1992). Culture, Practice and Politics: Anthropology and the Study of Social Movements.
Critique of Anthropology 12(4):395-432.
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[SR] Paley, J. (2001). Marketing Democracy: Power and Social Movements in Post-dictatorship Chile.
Berkeley: University of California Press

Session 26: The politics of social movement II

Escobar, A. (1998). Whose knowledge, whose nature? Biodiversity, conservation, and the political
ecology of social movements. Journal of political ecology, 5(1), 53-82.

Edelman, Marc. (2001). “Social Movements: Changing Paradigms and Forms of Politics.” Annual
Review of Anthropology 30:285-317.

Session 27: Anthropology and the politics of knowledge production in a changing world

Gledhill, J. (2000). Power and its disguises: anthropological perspectives on politics. London: Pluto
Press. (Chapter. 9; Anthropology and politics: commitment, responsibility and the academy,” pp. 214-
242).

Gough K. 2002. New Proposals for Anthropologists. In The anthropology of politics: a reader in
ethnography, theory, and critique. Vincent, J. (ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 110-119.

[SR] Spivak. G. 2002. Thinking Academic Freedom in Gendered Post-coloniality. . In Vincent, J. (ed.).
The anthropology of politics: a reader in ethnography, theory, and critique. Oxford: Blackwell. (pp.
452-460).

Session 28: Review of the key concepts and questions in political anthropology and conclusion