Thinking beyond the State - Softcover

Abélès, Marc

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501709283 ISBN 13: 9781501709289

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2017

Synopsis

The French scholar Marc Abélès is one of the leading political and philosophical anthropologists of our time. He is perhaps the leading anthropologist writing on the state and globalization. Thinking beyond the State, a distillation of his work to date, is a superb introduction to his contributions to both anthropology and political philosophy.

Abélès observes that while interdependence and interconnection have become characteristic features of our globalized era, there is no indication that a concomitant evolution in thinking about political systems has occurred. The state remains the shield―for both the Right and the Left―against the turbulent effects of globalization. According to Abélès, we live in a geopolitical universe that, in many respects, reproduces alienating logics. His book, therefore, is a primer on how to see beyond the state. It is also a testament to anthropology’s centrality and importance in any analysis of the global human predicament. Thinking beyond the State will find wide application in anthropology, political science and philosophy courses dealing with the state and globalization.

About this title

About the Author

Marc Abélès is Full Professor of Anthropology at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is the author of Quiet Days in Burgundy and The Politics of Survival.

Review

"With panache and elegance, Marc Abélès assumes a position of ‘intersectional subjectivity’ to strike a fine balance between ethnographic encounter and theoretical adventure. This book mobilizes a critical political anthropology that makes an important intervention in the shifting scales and states of global power."

(Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Director, Mahindra Humanities Center, and Senior Advisor on the Humanities to the President and Provost, Harvard University)

"This compact yet magisterial book provides a historically informed, crisp, and interpretively generative exploration of the limitations of state-focused social theory―and of the quite distinctive and subtle contributions anthropological approaches can make in pursuing contemporary understandings of politics, states, and new institutional forms."

(Don Brenneis, University of California, Santa Cruz)

"Thinking beyond the State is a compelling analysis ― prescient in its critical attention to national states in global contexts, and welcome as a comprehensive statement from a major theorist regarding not only the future of political anthropology but also the future of the idea of a shared world."

(Carol J. Greenhouse, author of A Moment’s Notice)

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1501709283
• ISBN 13: 9781501709289
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 124