AN 101: Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology Fall 2002: M,W, F 10:30 11:20 am, Grey 100 Prof. Eriberto P.

Lozada Jr. Office: Carnegie 01 Email: erlozada@davidson.edu Telephone: 894-2035 Web: http://www.davidson.edu/personal/erlozada Office Hours: M, W, F 9:00 10:00 am; T, Th 10:00 11:15 am or by appointment Lecture Notes, 6 November 2002 Anthropological Approaches to Politics

Political Anthropology
the study of social organization is also the study of political organization and processes power: control, authority, or influence over others the central focus of political anthropological studies can be seen as where does power come from?; Power lies within any human relationship, whether that power is openly displayed or carefully avo ided. (Alice Kehoe) areas that anthropologists have explored: o comparative legal systems o authority, leadership (charisma) influence of Max Weber o levels of social/political complexity: band (egalitarian), rank (chief), stratified (class) societies, and nation-state o bureaucracy in complex (read modern) societies; social group formation, social movements o colonization and post-colonization where does power come from? culture? economic institutions? (remember our earlier lecture on the peace of the gift) ; social institutions? (kinship, religious); political institutions? Political Anthropology Sampler Modernization Theory anthropologists of the early 20th century distinguished between primitive (traditional) societies and modern societies; modernizatio n theory saw industrialization as the key to the development of modern society; post-WWII foreign policy for Western countries saw the heightened drive to develop traditional societies through industrialization and incorporation into the global market system as industrialization starts, societies bifurcated into dual societies (modern and traditional sector) as a society became further linked to the global marketplace, the modern sector of society would expand and the traditional sector would contract

underdevelopment was seen from this perspective as lacking technology, capital, education, entrepreneurial spirit, etc. the cultural trappings of modern society modernization theory ran into a big problem development failed in many cases, and tradition (i.e., religion) proved to be more resistant to modernizing efforts

Dependency Theory development did not lead to modernization because of the political and economic interests of the developed world Andre Frank: first world maintains power over third world (developing countries) by fostering third world countries dependency upon first world; underdevelopment was produced as a result of power imbalances Wallerstein and the World Capitalist System: societies and cultures cannot be understood solely within the boundaries of a nation-state; world is interconnected through a complex political economic relationship, where global centers exert their power and influence over the periphery in a number of ways

Other anthropological approaches to the study of politcs neo-Marxist approaches: mode of production analysis the power of culture and cultures of power perspectives from below: James Scotts resistance, and the weapons of the weak; cultural responses to political power corporatism: political model of the state where the government functions through a limited number of monopolistic interest groups that are recognized and sometimes created by the state (Llewelyn p. 176-177);