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Power and the Self

Power and the Self

Power and the Self

Jeannette Marie Mageo, Washington State University
April 2002
Available
Paperback
9780521004602
NZD$64.95
inc GST
Paperback
inc GST
Hardback

    Power and the Self, first published in 2002, deals with an important but neglected topic: the ways in which power is experienced by individuals, both as agents and as objects of the exercise of power. Each contributor presents a series of case studies drawn from a variety of cultural contexts, including the analysis of the appeal of Japanese superhero toys for American children; the conditions that lead to dehumanising treatment of patients in an American nursing home; the experiences of a Turkish immigrant woman in the Netherlands; a contribution relating theories about the capacity to commit genocidal violence to 'everyday forms of violence', and other cases from New Guinea and Samoa. The introduction provides a readable historical review and synthesis of the theoretical ideas that provide the context for the work presented in the book.

    • Applying self psychology to ideas of power is a new topic in anthropology
    • The book's grounding in a wide range of transcultural case study material and its theoretical timeliness make it well suited for classroom use
    • Introduction provides readable historical review and synthesis of the theories that come together and provide the context for the work presented

    Reviews & endorsements

    'This sparkling collection of essays addresses the ways in which subjects experience power, both as agents of social process, and as the objects of such processes … As a collection these papers are remarkably well synthesized, presented a variety of approaches … many of the papers speak to one another, and actually illuminate complimentary perspectives … I found each of these papers interesting and rewarding …'. Cambridge Anthropology

    '… lucid and engaging, theoretically informed, and grounded in either ethnographic research or personal experiences … constitutes yet another useful contribution to anthropological understanding from members of the psychological anthropology clan.' The Journal of The Royal Anthropological Institute

    See more reviews

    Product details

    April 2002
    Paperback
    9780521004602
    234 pages
    228 × 152 × 17 mm
    0.378kg
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • Foreword Gananath Obeyesekere
    • 1. Introduction: Theorizing power and the self Jeannette Mageo and Bruce Knauft
    • Part I. Power Differentials in the US:
    • 2. The genocidal continuum: peace time crimes Nancy Scheper-Hughes
    • 3. Intimate power, public selves: Bakhtin's space of authoring William S. Lachicotte
    • Part II. Transitional Psychologies:
    • 4. Playing with power: morphing toys and transforming heroes in kids' mass culture Ann Allison
    • 5. Consciousness of the state and the experience of self: the runaway daughter of a Turkish guest worker Katherine Ewing
    • Part III. Colonial Encounters: Power/History/Self:
    • 6. Spirit, self, and power: the making of colonial experience in Papua New Guinea Douglas Dalton
    • 7. Self models and sexual agency Jeannette Mageo
    • Part IV. Reading Power against the Grain:
    • 8. Eager subjects, reluctant powers: the irrelevance of ideology in a secret New Guinea male cult Harriet Whitehead
    • 9. Feminist emotions Catherine Lutz.
      Contributors
    • Gananath Obeyesekere, Jeannette Mageo, Bruce Knauft, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, William S. Lachicotte, Ann Allison, Katherine Ewing, Douglas Dalton, Harriet Whitehead, Catherine Lutz

    • Editor
    • Jeannette Marie Mageo , Washington State University

      Jeannette Marie Mageo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Washington State University. She has lived and done extensive fieldwork in the Pacific, and she writes about self, power, transvesticism, spirit possession, moral discourse and body symbolism.