scholarly journals Introduction

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Carlota McAllister ◽  
Valentina Napolitano
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Political Theology ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
The Dead ◽  
European Colonialism

This introduction outlines an anthropological concept of ‘theopolitics’ emergent from ethnographic engagements with the oldest site of European colonialism—the (Latin) Americas. Defined as a query into the sensorial regimes enabling incarnate forms of power, theopolitics focuses on the sovereignties from below that are immanent in struggles between the universalisms of Christian imperialisms and the autochthonous forces they seek to police and unmake. The articles comprising this special issue advance this query by exploring processes of attunement to the prophetic voices of the dead and life itself, of the elasticity of incarnate forms of political charisma and crowds, and the potencies of precious matter and touch as domains for rethinking relationships among political anthropology, political economy, and political theology beyond a focus on the state.

scholarly journals Introduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrice Ladwig ◽  
Ricardo Roque
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Strategic Policy ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Colonial Government

Engaging critically with literature on mimesis, colonialism, and the state in anthropology and history, this introduction argues for an approach to mimesis and imitation as constitutive of the state and its forms of rule and governmentality in the context of late European colonialism. It explores how the colonial state attempted to administer, control, and integrate its indigenous subjects through mimetic policies of governance, while examining how indigenous polities adopted imitative practices in order to establish reciprocal ties with, or to resist the presence of, the colonial state. In introducing this special issue, three main themes will be addressed: mimesis as a strategic policy of colonial government, as an object of colonial regulation, and, finally, as a creative indigenous appropriation of external forms of state power.

scholarly journals Introduction: Current Perspectives on Islamic Family Law in Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-162
Author(s):  
Fulera Issaka-Toure ◽  
Ousseina D. Alidou
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The Status ◽  
Islamic Family Law ◽  
Marital Disputes ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Judicial Systems

Abstract This special issue of Islamic Africa brings together new critical perspectives on the status of Islamic Family Law, commonly referred to as sharīʿa, within four African countries – Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique and Senegal – each reflecting distinctive gendered cultural, colonial and postcolonial realities. The introduction provides a general overview of the state of the art on Islamic family law in Africa and highlights the significant thematic focus of each contribution and the new areas for further inquiry that the volume opens. These topics and questions include among others: (a) the ways in which European colonialism and contemporary democratization processes have opened spaces for religious pluralism, thereby shaping the articulation of Muslim personal law within different African postcolonial state judicial systems; (b) how Islamic judicial practices, institutions, and authorities such as malamai and/or Kadhis engage themselves with the secular state and/or are constrained by both the state and by the legal pluralism encountered within both Muslim majority and minority African countries; (c) the gendered implications of the hierarchical relation between Kadhi Courts and a national High Court; (d) the benefits and/or shortcomings of harmonizing Islamic Family Law; (e) what is to be learnt from women choosing to settle marital disputes and divorce within and/or outside the “legal protective space” afforded by the state judicial system and its inclusion of Islamic Family Law; (f) the role of human agency in influencing the administration of Islamic family law and/or interpreting the law; how judicial systems that are shaped by European and Islamic patriarchal systems confronted by the resilience of indigenous matrilineal Customary Law within contemporary African societies; and (g) the compatibility between the various articulation of African Islamic family laws with universal human rights and individual freedom. Ultimately, this special issue of Islamic Africa offers an insightful reflection on how Islamic Family Law plays an important role in democratic constitution-making or testing processes.

Nicolas Gueudeville's Enlightenment Utopia

Moreana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (Number 209) (1) ◽  
pp. 24-60
Author(s):  
Russ Leo
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Political Anthropology ◽  
French Translation ◽  
Natural Religion ◽  
Original Length ◽  
English Law

Nicolas Gueudeville's 1715 French translation of Utopia is often dismissed as a “belle infidèle,” an elegant but unfaithful work of translation. Gueudeville does indeed expand the text to nearly twice its original length. But he presents Utopia as a contribution to emergent debates on tolerance, natural religion, and political anthropology, directly addressing the concerns of many early advocates of the ideas we associate with Enlightenment. In this sense, it is not as much an “unfaithful” presentation of More's project as it is an attempt to introduce Utopia to eighteenth-century francophone audiences—readers for whom theses on political economy and natural religion were much more salient than More's own preoccupations with rhetoric and English law. This paper introduces Gueudeville and his oeuvre, paying particular attention to his revisions to Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan's 1703 Nouveaux Voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrionale. Published in 1705, Gueudeville's “revised, corrected, & augmented” version of Lahontan's Voyages foregrounds the rational and natural religion of the Huron as well as their constitutive aversion to property, to concepts of “mine” and “yours.” Gueudeville's revised version of Lahontan's Voyages purports to be an anthropological investigation as well as a study of New World political economy; it looks forward, moreover, to his edition of Utopia, framing More's work as a comparable study of political economy and anthropology. Gueudeville, in other words, renders More's Utopia legible to Enlightenment audiences, depicting Utopia not in terms of impossibility and irony but rather as a study of natural religion and attendant forms of political, devotional, and economic life. Gueudeville's edition of Utopia even proved controversial due, in part, to his insistence on the rationality as well as the possibility of Utopia.

An Introduction to the Special Issue on Energy and the Environment

Commonwealth ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Borick
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue

“An Introduction to the Special to the Special Issue on Energy and the Environment” provides an overview of the state of the literature relating to Pennsylvania in these areas of public policy. It then introduces each of the articles in this issue of the journal. 

The Political Economy of Rural-Urban Conflict

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Topher L. McDougal
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
The State ◽  
Hierarchical Networks ◽  
Capital Cities ◽  
Trade Networks ◽  
Rural And Urban Areas ◽  
Rural And Urban ◽  
Economic Relationship ◽  
Relationship Of

In some cases of insurgency, the combat frontier is contested and erratic, as rebels target cities as their economic prey. In other cases, it is tidy and stable, seemingly representing an equilibrium in which cities are effectively protected from violent non-state actors. What factors account for these differences in the interface urban-based states and rural-based challengers? To explore this question, this book examines two regions representing two dramatically different outcomes. In West Africa (Liberia and Sierra Leone), capital cities became economic targets for rebels, who posed dire threats to the survival of the state. In Maoist India, despite an insurgent ideology aiming to overthrow the state via a strategy of progressive city capture, the combat frontier effectively firewalls cities from Maoist violence. This book argues that trade networks underpinning the economic relationship between rural and urban areas—termed “interstitial economies”—may differ dramatically in their impact on (and response to) the combat frontier. It explains rebel predatory tendencies toward cities as a function of transport networks allowing monopoly profits to be made by urban-based traders. It explains combat frontier delineation as a function of the social structure of the trade networks: hierarchical networks permit elite–elite bargains that cohere the frontier. These factors represent what might be termed respectively the “hardware” and “software” of the rural–urban economic relationship. Of interest to any student of political economy and violence, this book presents new arguments and insights about the relationships between violence and the economy, predation and production, core and periphery.

Policing and Political Violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200272110130
Author(s):  
Kristine Eck ◽  
Courtenay R. Conrad ◽  
Charles Crabtree
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Conflict Studies ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Conflict Processes ◽  
State Security ◽  
New Research ◽  
Conflict Research

The police are often key actors in conflict processes, yet there is little research on their role in the production of political violence. Previous research provides us with a limited understanding of the part the police play in preventing or mitigating the onset or escalation of conflict, in patterns of repression and resistance during conflict, and in the durability of peace after conflicts are resolved. By unpacking the role of state security actors and asking how the state assigns tasks among them—as well as the consequences of these decisions—we generate new research paths for scholars of conflict and policing. We review existing research in the field, highlighting recent findings, including those from the articles in this special issue. We conclude by arguing that the fields of policing and conflict research have much to gain from each other and by discussing future directions for policing research in conflict studies.

scholarly journals Introduction

1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl F. Kaestle
Keyword(s):  
State Of The Art ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
The State ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
History Of

The History of Education Quarterly has done it again. Despite many scholars' previous attempts to summarize the state of the art in historical studies of literacy, this special issue will now be the best, up-to-date place for a novice to start. It should be required reading for everyone interested in this subfield. The editors have enlisted an impressive roster of prominent scholars in the field, and these authors have provided us with an excellent array of synthetic reviews, methodological and theoretical discussions, and exemplary research papers.

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