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. |
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... sometimes produce visible outcomes ( Arens and Karp 1989 ; Comaroff and Comaroff 1999 ) . Not only do occult cosmologies suggest that power some- times hides itself from view , but they also often suggest that it conspires to fulfill ...
... sometimes necessary , " Marshall Sahlins writes , " to remind ourselves that our pretended rationalist discourse is pronounced in a particular cul- tural dialect " ( Sahlins 1993 : 12 ) . The idea of modernity , indeed , arose within ...
... sometimes in combination with a “ higher power " -continue to work in obscurity , determining the course of social events in ways not always " for the social good . " These discourses of sus- picion generally assert - contra ...
... sometimes been more nuanced about the issue of truth and have approached it in different ways . Many ask not simply if beliefs are " true " or " false , " but , rather , if through believing people achieve " consciousness " of their ...
... power's claims to transparency , calling attention to its hiddenness behind an impenetrable facade . Sometimes , the occultists and conspiracists considered in this volume enshroud themselves in 16 TODD SANDERS AND HARRY G. WEST.
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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 |