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'A highly original thinker' - New York Times David
Graeber (1961–2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist
activist, who left us with new ways to understand humankind. This
collection of new writing brings together his insights into one
book, showing how deeply his work continues to influence us today.
Graeber’s writing resonates with both scholars and activists
looking to shake things up. The impact of his work is broad in
scope, from birth to banking, and he picks open social hierarchy
and political power to expose what really makes human society tick.
In today’s neoliberal world, we can turn to his legacy to provide
a way for us to understand what went wrong, and how to fix it. This
collection of writings is both an introduction to his life and
works, a guide to his key ideas, and an inspiring example of of how
anthropologists are continuing to use his work today.
This lively survey of the peoples, cultures, and societies of
Southeast Asia introduces a region of tremendous geographic,
linguistic, historical, and religious diversity. Encompassing both
mainland and island countries, these engaging essays describe
personhood and identity, family and household organization,
nation-states, religion, popular culture and the arts, the legacies
of war and recovery, globalization, and the environment.
Throughout, the focus is on the daily lives and experiences of
ordinary people. Most of the essays are original to this volume,
while a few are widely taught classics. All were chosen for their
timeliness and interest, and are ideally suited for the
classroom.
High's argument is based on long-term fieldwork in a village in
Laos. The village was identified as poor and was the subject of
multiple poverty reduction and development interventions. This book
looks at how these policies were implemented on the ground,
particularly at why such apparently beneficent interventions were
received locally with suspicion and disillusionment, often ended in
failure, and yet, despite this, were also able to recapture
people's desires. High relates this to the ""post-rebellious""
moment in contemporary Laos, the force of aspirations among village
residents and locally grounded understandings of the ambivalence of
power. Shortlisted for the European Association for Southeast Asian
Studies (EuroSEAS) Social Science Book Prize 2015
In Projectland, anthropologist Holly High combines an engaging
first-person narrative of her fieldwork with a political
ethnography of Laos, more than forty years after the establishment
of the Lao PDR and more than seven decades since socialist
ideologues first ""liberated"" parts of upland country. In a remote
village of Kandon, High finds that although socialism has declined
significantly as an economic model, it is ascendant and thriving in
the culture of politics and the politics of culture. Kandon is
remarkable by any account. The villagers are ethnic Kantu (Katu),
an ethnicity associated by early ethnographers above all with human
sacrifice. They had repelled French control, and as the war went
on, the revolutionary forces of Sekong were headquartered in Kandon
territories. In 1996, Kandon village moved and resettled in a
plateau area. ""New Kandon"" has become Sekong Province’s first
certified ""Culture Village,"" the nation’s very first ""Open
Defecation Free and Model Health Village,"" and the president of
Laos personally granted the village a Labor Flag and Medal. High
provides a unique and timely assessment of the Lao Party-state’s
resettlement politics, and she recounts with skillful nuance the
stories that are often cast into shadows by the usual focus on New
Kandon as a success. Her book follows the lives of a small group of
villagers who returned to the old village in the mountains,
effectively defying policy but, in their words, obeying the
presence that animates the land there. Revealing her sensibility
with tremendous composure, High tells the experiences of women who,
bound by steep bride-prices to often violent marriages, have tasted
little of the socialist project of equality, unity, and
independence. These women spoke to the author of ""necessities"" as
a limit to their own lives. In a context where the state has
defined the legitimate forms of success and agency, ""necessity""
emerged as a means of framing one’s life as nonconforming but
also nonagentive.
In Projectland, anthropologist Holly High combines an engaging
first-person narrative of her fieldwork with a political
ethnography of Laos, more than forty years after the establishment
of the Lao PDR and more than seven decades since socialist
ideologues first "liberated" parts of upland country. In a remote
village of Kandon, High finds that although socialism has declined
significantly as an economic model, it is ascendant and thriving in
the culture of politics and the politics of culture. Kandon is
remarkable by any account. The villagers are ethnic Kantu (Katu),
an ethnicity associated by early ethnographers above all with human
sacrifice. They had repelled French control, and as the war went
on, the revolutionary forces of Sekong were headquartered in Kandon
territories. In 1996, Kandon village moved and resettled in a
plateau area. "New Kandon" has become Sekong Province's first
certified "Culture Village," the nation's very first "Open
Defecation Free and Model Health Village," and the president of
Laos personally granted the village a Labor Flag and Medal. High
provides a unique and timely assessment of the Lao Party-state's
resettlement politics, and she recounts with skillful nuance the
stories that are often cast into shadows by the usual focus on New
Kandon as a success. Her book follows the lives of a small group of
villagers who returned to the old village in the mountains,
effectively defying policy but, in their words, obeying the
presence that animates the land there. Revealing her sensibility
with tremendous composure, High tells the experiences of women who,
bound by steep bride-prices to often violent marriages, have tasted
little of the socialist project of equality, unity, and
independence. These women spoke to the author of "necessities" as a
limit to their own lives. In a context where the state has defined
the legitimate forms of success and agency, "necessity" emerged as
a means of framing one's life as nonconforming but also
nonagentive.
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