The Russo-Ukrainian war raises the question about the utility of ethnography in understanding interstate war. As anthropology and sociology have historically punched below their weight when it comes to understanding interstate war and warfare, much of the academic study of war has been occupied by political science. In this article I discuss why this is unfortunate, yet not inevitable. I also discuss three strengths of ethnography in studying war. First, ethnography helps us to restore ambiguity into polarized understandings of war. Second, ethnography can assist us in understanding strategy because of its focus on people and the societies we constitute. Third, ethnography helps with the ethical responsibility of giving war a human face. I conclude by arguing that war is too important to be left to generals and political scientists, but that this is inevitable if ethnographers continue to distance themselves from the study of war.
{"title":"The utility of ethnography for understanding (the Russo-Ukrainian) war","authors":"Ilmari Käihkö","doi":"10.1086/723015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723015","url":null,"abstract":"The Russo-Ukrainian war raises the question about the utility of ethnography in understanding interstate war. As anthropology and sociology have historically punched below their weight when it comes to understanding interstate war and warfare, much of the academic study of war has been occupied by political science. In this article I discuss why this is unfortunate, yet not inevitable. I also discuss three strengths of ethnography in studying war. First, ethnography helps us to restore ambiguity into polarized understandings of war. Second, ethnography can assist us in understanding strategy because of its focus on people and the societies we constitute. Third, ethnography helps with the ethical responsibility of giving war a human face. I conclude by arguing that war is too important to be left to generals and political scientists, but that this is inevitable if ethnographers continue to distance themselves from the study of war.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74563831","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article argues that political anthropology has never had a version of the substantivist/formalist debate that shaped economic anthropology. Instead, political anthropology tends to rely rather unselfconsciously on Western notions of power and individual interests in formulating its most influential theoretical programs (e.g., practice theory, various forms of marxist thinking, and studies of resistance). In the Western tradition from which these theories draw, morality and politics are often construed as opposed social domains. After tracing the genealogy of this split, I consider some of the key political concepts at the heart of Melanesian traditions of big-manship, suggesting they link morality and politics in ways that escape the reach of much of political anthropology. I illustrate this point with material from my fieldwork with the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea. By making this argument, I aim to contribute to this collection’s goal of establishing a wide-ranging comparative anthropology of politics.
{"title":"From reasons of state to individual interest","authors":"J. Robbins","doi":"10.1086/723224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723224","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that political anthropology has never had a version of the substantivist/formalist debate that shaped economic anthropology. Instead, political anthropology tends to rely rather unselfconsciously on Western notions of power and individual interests in formulating its most influential theoretical programs (e.g., practice theory, various forms of marxist thinking, and studies of resistance). In the Western tradition from which these theories draw, morality and politics are often construed as opposed social domains. After tracing the genealogy of this split, I consider some of the key political concepts at the heart of Melanesian traditions of big-manship, suggesting they link morality and politics in ways that escape the reach of much of political anthropology. I illustrate this point with material from my fieldwork with the Urapmin of Papua New Guinea. By making this argument, I aim to contribute to this collection’s goal of establishing a wide-ranging comparative anthropology of politics.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76876995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Sora language reveals a sharp division between the vocabulary of command and rule, with no terms of indigenous origin for such positions or procedures, and an indigenous vocabulary of intimate negotiation among horizontal equals to regulate daily life. Historically, vertical relations with distant rajas passed through predatory local agents with little redress, using terms derived from outside languages. Christianity introduced literacy and created a new administrative and moral terminology derived from Sora roots, but also offered a model of patronage which likened Jesus to a benevolent classic Hindu king. This redistributive reciprocal relationship with authority figures had never before been experienced by the Sora; but as they move from a parasitic to a hierarchical experience of verticality, it is now readily transferred to political leaders as young Sora participate in the modern electoral state and incorporate non-Sora terms into their lives as agents, rather than victims, of their political situation.
{"title":"From parasitic feudalism to responsible hierarchy","authors":"P. Vitebsky","doi":"10.1086/723788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723788","url":null,"abstract":"The Sora language reveals a sharp division between the vocabulary of command and rule, with no terms of indigenous origin for such positions or procedures, and an indigenous vocabulary of intimate negotiation among horizontal equals to regulate daily life. Historically, vertical relations with distant rajas passed through predatory local agents with little redress, using terms derived from outside languages. Christianity introduced literacy and created a new administrative and moral terminology derived from Sora roots, but also offered a model of patronage which likened Jesus to a benevolent classic Hindu king. This redistributive reciprocal relationship with authority figures had never before been experienced by the Sora; but as they move from a parasitic to a hierarchical experience of verticality, it is now readily transferred to political leaders as young Sora participate in the modern electoral state and incorporate non-Sora terms into their lives as agents, rather than victims, of their political situation.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72971563","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The phrase “Roma politics” has come to designate several topics, such as the movement for Roma rights, relations between Roma and non-Roma, or the maintenance of social order in a given group, but these have rarely been addressed together. This is what the present article sets out to do, through the case study of a Roma politician from a southern Romanian town who finds himself in a liminal position between local non-Roma party politics, transnational Romani activism, and the values of his community. He and his fellow Rom negotiate their social relations through an ideology of “help” and “charity,” which I compare to Pitt-Rivers’s notion of “grace,” showing that the decidedly hierarchical political imaginary that suffuses the real-life politics of the Rom is far removed from the abstract apolitical egalitarianism through which transnational institutions and activists frame “Roma politics.”
{"title":"Living in a world of others","authors":"A. Chirițoiu","doi":"10.1086/723030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723030","url":null,"abstract":"The phrase “Roma politics” has come to designate several topics, such as the movement for Roma rights, relations between Roma and non-Roma, or the maintenance of social order in a given group, but these have rarely been addressed together. This is what the present article sets out to do, through the case study of a Roma politician from a southern Romanian town who finds himself in a liminal position between local non-Roma party politics, transnational Romani activism, and the values of his community. He and his fellow Rom negotiate their social relations through an ideology of “help” and “charity,” which I compare to Pitt-Rivers’s notion of “grace,” showing that the decidedly hierarchical political imaginary that suffuses the real-life politics of the Rom is far removed from the abstract apolitical egalitarianism through which transnational institutions and activists frame “Roma politics.”","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76657228","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
People marching in the streets in Burma in 1988, infuriated by twenty-six years of military dictatorship, demanded the return of democracy. What they meant by the term reflected a hierarchical understanding of politics: elections would enable them to replace a hated and rapacious superordinate, General Ne Win, with a morally admirable one, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Rather than envision the messy business of conflict and compromise pursued in the name of a common good, democracy’s proponents, including Aung San Suu Kyi herself, spoke only of the need for Buddhist ethical clarity and indomitable unity. Thus they appeared to instantiate efforts to reclaim agency, as observers impressed by Foucault’s take on power would expect, while demonstrating a desire to subordinate themselves to a charismatic leader, ceding that very agency at the same time.
{"title":"Dó ăyèi! Dó ăyèi! Reclaiming political agency in Burma’s democracy era","authors":"W. Keeler","doi":"10.1086/722591","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722591","url":null,"abstract":"People marching in the streets in Burma in 1988, infuriated by twenty-six years of military dictatorship, demanded the return of democracy. What they meant by the term reflected a hierarchical understanding of politics: elections would enable them to replace a hated and rapacious superordinate, General Ne Win, with a morally admirable one, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Rather than envision the messy business of conflict and compromise pursued in the name of a common good, democracy’s proponents, including Aung San Suu Kyi herself, spoke only of the need for Buddhist ethical clarity and indomitable unity. Thus they appeared to instantiate efforts to reclaim agency, as observers impressed by Foucault’s take on power would expect, while demonstrating a desire to subordinate themselves to a charismatic leader, ceding that very agency at the same time.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88419714","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came on the heels of violent domestic protests in January 2022, elicited powerful reactions in postsocialist Kazakhstan. For the past thirty years Kazakhstan has been a close economic and political ally of Russia but in the aftermath of the invasion, the relations between the two countries are fragile. Kazakhstanis are split over the war in Ukraine along ethnic and generational lines. The pro-Russia camp is anxious about Kazakhstan moving away from Russia while Ukraine supporters are concerned about Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity and their future in Russia’s “sphere of influence.” While outside observers have focused on Russian TV broadcasting as the main means of Kremlin propaganda in Kazakhstan, ethnographic data suggests that it is but one of many tools of information warfare. Social media emerged as a powerful means for pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian supporters to exchange information, communicate with like-minded people, and filter out opposing views.
{"title":"Surreal events, “TV zombies,” and social media in postsocialist Kazakhstan","authors":"","doi":"10.1086/722633","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/722633","url":null,"abstract":"Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which came on the heels of violent domestic protests in January 2022, elicited powerful reactions in postsocialist Kazakhstan. For the past thirty years Kazakhstan has been a close economic and political ally of Russia but in the aftermath of the invasion, the relations between the two countries are fragile. Kazakhstanis are split over the war in Ukraine along ethnic and generational lines. The pro-Russia camp is anxious about Kazakhstan moving away from Russia while Ukraine supporters are concerned about Kazakhstan’s territorial integrity and their future in Russia’s “sphere of influence.” While outside observers have focused on Russian TV broadcasting as the main means of Kremlin propaganda in Kazakhstan, ethnographic data suggests that it is but one of many tools of information warfare. Social media emerged as a powerful means for pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian supporters to exchange information, communicate with like-minded people, and filter out opposing views.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84200135","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
What explains the wide support for the invasion of Ukraine in Russia in the first months after it started? Many alleged that this support reflects an imperialist ideology permeating Russian society and culture. Based on a large set of in-depth interviews with supporters of the invasion among the regular Russian citizens, we argue that it is not a commitment to an imperialist ideology that is the most typical factor in support for the invasion but rather precisely the opposite—the deep depoliticization of Russian citizens, on which the support for Putin’s regime has always been based. We explicate how the dynamics of depoliticization manifest themselves in the alienation of Russian citizens from articulating their own political positions, in the reproduction of the gap between the world of politics and of everyday life, and in the social construction of Ukrainians as a threat.
{"title":"Imperialist ideology or depoliticization? Why Russian citizens support the invasion of Ukraine","authors":"Volodymyr Ishchenko, O. Zhuravlev","doi":"10.1086/723802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/723802","url":null,"abstract":"What explains the wide support for the invasion of Ukraine in Russia in the first months after it started? Many alleged that this support reflects an imperialist ideology permeating Russian society and culture. Based on a large set of in-depth interviews with supporters of the invasion among the regular Russian citizens, we argue that it is not a commitment to an imperialist ideology that is the most typical factor in support for the invasion but rather precisely the opposite—the deep depoliticization of Russian citizens, on which the support for Putin’s regime has always been based. We explicate how the dynamics of depoliticization manifest themselves in the alienation of Russian citizens from articulating their own political positions, in the reproduction of the gap between the world of politics and of everyday life, and in the social construction of Ukrainians as a threat.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90715028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rosie used to say that there was nobody else like her. Her idiosyncratic way of living was an aesthetic recreation of the social that was partly informed by normative sociality while transgressing many aspects of it. She was an eccentric street fashion artist of Vilnius whose world and home were populated by animals and beautiful things. She spent a lot of time on the road. I introduce the concept of transsociality to analyze an idiosyncratic way of living that extended beyond normalized and institutionalized sociality. Discussion of transsociality allows us to revisit theories on sociality and reflect on the boundaries of the social. This article also makes a methodological contribution by illustrating how the interlocutor’s “voice” emerged in a material aesthetic—her fashion style—rather than through narrative stories. Strolling Vilnius for over forty years, Rosie was an icon across generations. Some people thought she was a goddess in disguise.
{"title":"Goddess in disguise","authors":"Neringa Klumbytė","doi":"10.1086/721685","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721685","url":null,"abstract":"Rosie used to say that there was nobody else like her. Her idiosyncratic way of living was an aesthetic recreation of the social that was partly informed by normative sociality while transgressing many aspects of it. She was an eccentric street fashion artist of Vilnius whose world and home were populated by animals and beautiful things. She spent a lot of time on the road. I introduce the concept of transsociality to analyze an idiosyncratic way of living that extended beyond normalized and institutionalized sociality. Discussion of transsociality allows us to revisit theories on sociality and reflect on the boundaries of the social. This article also makes a methodological contribution by illustrating how the interlocutor’s “voice” emerged in a material aesthetic—her fashion style—rather than through narrative stories. Strolling Vilnius for over forty years, Rosie was an icon across generations. Some people thought she was a goddess in disguise.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81600132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article draws almost exclusively from Chinese-language social media sites with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to present the grim reality faced by Uyghurs and Kazakhs. Applying a “research search” approach to digital ethnography, this essay presents a comprehensive picture of state violence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that is not filtered by Western media, taken hostage by geopolitics, or simply dismissed as fabrication by the Chinese party-state. Focusing on mass incarcerations and their devasting impacts on the region’s Turkic communities, I demonstrate how county-level social media accounts and cadre blogs describe how the party-state detained Uyghurs and Kazakhs without due process, held them in inhumane conditions, separated scores of children from their parents, and imposed policies to destroy ethno-religious identities. These sources present irrefutable evidence of gross human rights violations in Xinjiang.
{"title":"Chinese social media sources leave no room for denial","authors":"Timothy A. Grose","doi":"10.1086/721745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721745","url":null,"abstract":"This article draws almost exclusively from Chinese-language social media sites with connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to present the grim reality faced by Uyghurs and Kazakhs. Applying a “research search” approach to digital ethnography, this essay presents a comprehensive picture of state violence in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that is not filtered by Western media, taken hostage by geopolitics, or simply dismissed as fabrication by the Chinese party-state. Focusing on mass incarcerations and their devasting impacts on the region’s Turkic communities, I demonstrate how county-level social media accounts and cadre blogs describe how the party-state detained Uyghurs and Kazakhs without due process, held them in inhumane conditions, separated scores of children from their parents, and imposed policies to destroy ethno-religious identities. These sources present irrefutable evidence of gross human rights violations in Xinjiang.","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80930028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mask and ancestral figure","authors":"F. Krause","doi":"10.1086/721578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1086/721578","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":51608,"journal":{"name":"Hau-Journal of Ethnographic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73464852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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