Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World OrderHarry G. West, Todd Sanders Duke University Press, 17. apr. 2003 - 316 sider Transparency has, in recent years, become a watchword for good governance. Policymakers and analysts alike evaluate political and economic institutions—courts, corporations, nation-states—according to the transparency of their operating procedures. With the dawn of the New World Order and the “mutual veil dropping” of the post–Cold War era, many have asserted that power in our contemporary world is more transparent than ever. Yet from the perspective of the relatively less privileged, the operation of power often appears opaque and unpredictable. Through vivid ethnographic analyses, Transparency and Conspiracy examines a vast range of expressions of the popular suspicion of power—including forms of shamanism, sorcery, conspiracy theory, and urban legends—illuminating them as ways of making sense of the world in the midst of tumultuous and uneven processes of modernization. In this collection leading anthropologists reveal the variations and commonalities in conspiratorial thinking or occult cosmologies around the globe—in Korea, Tanzania, Mozambique, New York City, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Orange County, California. The contributors chronicle how people express profound suspicions of the United Nations, the state, political parties, police, courts, international financial institutions, banks, traders and shopkeepers, media, churches, intellectuals, and the wealthy. Rather than focusing on the veracity of these convictions, Transparency and Conspiracy investigates who believes what and why. It makes a compelling argument against the dismissal of conspiracy theories and occult cosmologies as antimodern, irrational oversimplifications, showing how these beliefs render the world more complex by calling attention to its contradictions and proposing alternative ways of understanding it. |
Fra bogen
Resultater 1-5 af 41
... relations of pro- duction , modernity would materialize , washing over any and every cultural landscape . In the post - Cold War era , we have ample evidence to question the bold as- sertions of both modernization paradigms ( see ...
... relation to local cultural logics and prac- tices . Hence , scholars now speak of “ vernacular modernities ” : Indian moder- nity ( Kaviraj 2000 ) ; Bengali modernity ( Chakrabarty 1999 ) ; Sri Lankan modernity ( Lynch 1999 ) ...
... relations of power . In the varied locales through which they move , they are " decoded " by various people in accor- dance with diverse perspectives on , and experiences of , our modern world . Ideoscapes are read differently by people ...
... relation to a number of conspiracy theories sustained by Americans in the post - World War II era . Among these are the varied theories suggesting that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating John F. Kennedy as well as more ...
... relation to two distinct social groups . The first of these is the Calvary Chapel church of Orange County , California , whose members gather several days a week to decipher the signs in contemporary events of the battle between God's ...
Indhold
Gods Markets and the IMF in the Korean Spirit World | 38 |
Diabolic Realities Narratives of Conspiracy Transparency and Ritual Murder in the Nigerian Popular Print and Electronic Media | 65 |
Who Rules Us Now? Identity Tokens Sorcery and Other Metaphors in the 1994 Mozambican Elections | 92 |
Through a Glass Darkly Charity Conspiracy and Power in New Order Indonesia | 125 |
Invisible Hands and Visible Goods Revealed and Concealed Economies in Millennial Tanzania | 148 |
Stalin and the Blue Elephant Paranoia and Complicity in PostCommunist Metahistories | 175 |
Paranoia Conspiracy and Hegemony in American Politics | 204 |