Description
Book SynopsisIn our time of rampant inequality, imperial-capitalist plunder, violence and ecocide, when radical concepts from the past seem inadequate, how do researchers and students of ethnographic work decide what concepts to work with or renew?
Gillian Hart is a key thinker in radical political economy, geography, development studies, agrarian studies and Gramscian critique of postcolonial capitalism. In
Ethnographies of Power each contributor engages her work and applies it to their own field of study.
A major contribution of this collection is the merging of theory with praxis, resulting in invaluable research tools for postgraduate students. These include applying 'gendered labour' practices among workers in South Africa, reading 'racial capitalism' through agrarian debates, using 'relational comparison' in an ethnography of schooling across Durban, reworking 'multiple socio-spatial trajectories' in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve, critiquing the notion of South Africa's 'second economy', revisiting 'development' processes and 'Development' discourses in US military contracting, reconsidering Gramsci's 'conjunctures' geographically, finding divergent 'articulations' in Cape Town land occupations, and exploring 'nationalism' as central to revaluing recyclables at a Soweto landfill. Together, the chapters show how important the ongoing reworking of radical concepts is to ethnographic critiques of power.
Ethnographies of Power offers an invaluable toolkit for activists and scholars engaged in sharpening their critical concepts for social and environmental change towards a collective future.
Table of Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Introduction: Working Radical Concepts with Gillian Hart —Sharad Chari, Mark Hunter and Melanie Samson
- Chapter 1 The Politics of ‘Gendered Labour’: Gillian Hart’s Relational ‘Conjunctures’ —Bridget Kenny
- Chapter 2 Micro-foundations for ‘Racial Capitalism’: ‘Interlocking Transactions’ —Sharad Chari
- Chapter 3 ‘Relational Comparison’ and Geography’s Question of Method —Mark Hunter
- Chapter 4 ‘Multiple Trajectories of Globalisation’ —Jennifer Devine
- Chapter 5 A Conversation with Gillian Hart about Mbeki’s ‘Second Economy’ —Ahmed Veriava
- Chapter 6 ‘D/developments’ after the War on Terror —Jennifer Greenburg
- Chapter 7 ‘Articulation’, ‘Translation’, ‘Populism’: Gillian Hart’s Engagements with Gramsci —Michael Ekers, Stefan Kipfer and Alex Loftus
- Chapter 8 Make ‘Articulation’ Gramscian Again —Zachary Levenson
- Chapter 9 What is ‘Nationalism’? Thinking Alongside Hart at a South African Landfill —Melanie Samson
- Contributors
- Index
