introduction what is social anthropology? - University of St Andrews

LECTURE 2: POWERFUL PEOPLE: ELITES, BIG MEN AND LEADERS
With the current world economic crisis and ongoing conflicts in many parts of the world, the
study of elites become of crucial importance to understand the nature of power,
domination and resistance. But who are the elites? How does someone join the ranks of the
elite? Following from the previous lecture on power, in this lecture we will look at some
ethnographic case studies to explore how anthropologists have studied, defined and
conceptualized those who holds power.
• Fumanti, M. 2007a. ‘Burying E.S: Educated Elites, Subjectivity and Distinction in Rundu’,
Journal of Southern African Studies, 33(3): 469‐483.
• Lentz, C. 1994. ‘Home, Death and Leadership: Discourses of an Educated Elite from northwestern
Ghana’, Social Anthropology, 2 (2): 149‐169.
• Marcus, G.E. 2000. ‘The Deep Legacies of Dynastic Subjectivity: The Resonances of a
Famous Family Identity in Private and Public Spheres’ in de Pina‐Cabral, J. and Pedroso de
Lima, A. (eds.), Elites. Choice, leadership and succession. Oxford and New York: Berg.
• Nadel S. 1956. ‘The Concept of Social Elites’ International Social Science Bulletin, 8 (3): 413‐
424.
• Pedroso de Lima, A. 2000. ‘“How Did I Become a Leader in My Family Firm?” Assets for
Succession in Contemporary Lisbon Financial Elites’, in de Pina‐Cabral, J. and Pedroso de
Lima, A.(eds.) Elites: Choice, leadership and Succession. Oxford and New York: Berg.
• Sahlins, M. 1963. ‘Poor Man, Rich Man, Big Man, Chief: Political Types in Polynesia and
Melanesia’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 (3): 285‐303.
• Scott J. 1990. ‘Introduction’ in The sociology of Elites Vol. 1. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
• Scott, J. 2008. ‘Modes of power and the reconceptualisation of the elites’, in Savage, M. &
Williams, K. (eds.) Remembering Elites. London: Blackwell Publishing.
• Weber, M. 1968. On Charisma and Institution Building. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
• Werbner, R.P. 2008. ‘Responding to Cosmopolitanism: Patriots, Ethnics and the Public
Good in Botswana’, in Werbner, P. (ed.) Anthropology and the New Cosmopolitanism.
Oxford: Berg.
LECTURE 3: POWER, SOCIAL SUFFERING AND STRUCTURAL VIOLENCE
In recent years, some anthropologists, who have been influenced by critical medical
anthropology, have focused their attention on questions of social suffering and structural
violence. These approaches recognise that suffering and trauma must be embedded in
cultural and political context. By linking personal experiences of injury and disease with
political economy, the cognitive, psychological, and somatic are shown to be inextricably
tied to the structural and political.
• Bourgois, Philippe. 2003. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio.
Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. (See Esp. Introduction and Chapters 3 and 4)
• Connors, Margaret. 1996. ‘Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence: Unravelling the Epidemic
Among Poor Women in the United States’ in Paul Farmer, Margaret Connors, and Janie
Simmons (eds.) Women, Poverty, and AIDS: Sex, Drugs, and Structural Violence, Maine,
Common Courage Press.
• Farmer, Paul. 2004. ‘An Anthropology of Structural Violence’, Current Anthropology 45(3):
305‐25. (Including CA* commentary on the article)
• Kovats Bernal, J. Cristopher. 2006. ‘Sleeping Rough in port‐au Prince’ an ethnography of
street children and violence in port‐au prince, University press of Florida (see Introduction
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