Description
Book Synopsis Events are “generative moments” in at least three senses: events are created by and condense larger-scale social structures; as moments, they spark and give rise to new social processes; in themselves, events may also serve to analyze social situations and relationships. Based on ethnographic studies from around the world—varying from rituals and meetings over protests and conflicts to natural disasters and management—this volume analyzes generative moments through events that hold the key to understanding larger social situations. These events—including the Ashura ritual in Bahrain, social cleavages in South Africa, a Buddhist cave in Nepal, drought in Burkina Faso, an earthquake in Pakistan, the cartoon crisis in Denmark, corporate management at Bang & Olufsen, protest meetings in Europe, and flooding and urban citizenship in Mozambique—are not simply destructive disasters, crises, and conflicts, but also generative and constitutive of the social.
Trade Review “In general terms, In the Event: Toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments accomplishes several goals that make it a book extremely worth reading. For a start, it is an excellent introduction to the contemporary validity of the Manchester School, particularly in terms of the exploration concerning the question of what an event is and does. Furthermore, and following from this, the various contributions to this volume show a very thought provoking argument, inspired by Deleuze (2002): the event is the seed to change, to multiplicity, to the unexpected, rather than merely the illustration of something that already exists. Finally, every chapter of this book manifests something that is becoming increasingly evident for all of us: the translocal connections made visible by the occurrence of events.” · Anthropological Forum
Table of Contents Introduction: In the Event—toward an Anthropology of Generic Moments
Bruce Kapferer
Chapter 1. ‘Ashura in Bahrain: Analyses of an Analytical Event
Thomas Fibiger
Chapter 2. ‘Burying the ANC’: Post-apartheid Ambiguities at the University of Limpopo, South Africa
Bjarke Oxlund
Chapter 3. A Topographic Event: A Buddhist Lama’s Perception of a Pilgrimage Cave
Jesper Oestergaard
Chapter 4. The Outburst: Climate Change, Gender Relations, and Situational Analysis
Jonas Østergaard Nielsen
Chapter 5. Events and Effects: Intensive Transnationalism among Pakistanis in Denmark
Mikkel Rytter
Chapter 6. The Cartoon Controversy: Creating Muslims in a Danish Setting
Anja Kublitz
Chapter 7. Values at Work: Ambivalent Situations and Human Resource Embarrassment
Jakob Krause-Jensen
Chapter 8. Figurations of the Future: On the Form and Temporality of Protests among Left Radical Activists in Europe
Stine Krøijer
Chapter 9. Mimesis of the State: From Natural Disaster to Urban Citizenship on the Outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique
Morten Nielsen
About the Editors
Index
